Secret HistoryS


Sherlock

Evidence suggests Stonehenge was originally erected In Wales

Dalya Alberge
The Guardian, UK
Sun, 06 Dec 2015 19:01 UTC
Archaeology site
© University College LondonStonehenge may have been first erected in Wales, evidence suggests.
Evidence that bluestones were quarried in Wales 500 years before they were put up in Wiltshire prompts theory that Stonehenge is "second-hand monument"

Evidence of quarrying for Stonehenge's bluestones is among the dramatic discoveries leading archaeologists to theorise that England's greatest prehistoric monument may have first been erected in Wales.

It has long been known that the bluestones that form Stonehenge's inner horseshoe came from the Preseli hills in Pembrokeshire, around 140 miles from Salisbury Plain.

Now archaeologists have discovered a series of recesses in the rocky outcrops of Carn Goedog and Craig Rhos-y-felin, to the north of those hills, that match Stonehenge's bluestones in size and shape. They have also found similar stones that the prehistoric builders extracted but left behind, and "a loading bay" from where the huge stones could be dragged away.
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Magnify

Difference between facial growth of Neanderthals and modern humans


ScienceDaily
Mon, 07 Dec 2015 00:00 UTC
skulls
© Rodrigo S. LacruzGrowth directions of the maxilla in the Sima de los Huesos (SH) and Neanderthals compared to modern humans. This impacts facial growth in at least two ways. (i) Extensive bone deposits over the maxilla in the fossils are consistent with a strong forward growth component (purple arrows); whereas resorption in the modern human face attenuates forward displacement (blue arrow). (ii) Deposition combined with larger developing nasal cavities in the fossils displaces the dentition forward generating the retromolar space characteristic of Neanderthals and also in some SH fossils.
An international research team, led by Rodrigo Lacruz, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Basic Science and Craniofacial Biology at New York University's College of Dentistry (NYUCD), has just published a study describing for the first time the developmental processes that differentiate Neanderthal facial skeletons from those of modern humans.

Lacruz's research team showed that the Neanderthals, who appeared about 200,000 years ago, are quite distinct from Homo sapiens (humans) in the manner in which their faces grow, adding to an old but important debate concerning the separation of these two groups. The paper, "Ontogeny of the Maxilla in Neanderthals and their Ancestors," appears in Nature Communications.

"This is an important piece of the puzzle of evolution," says Lacruz, a paleoanthropologist and enamel biologist. "Some have thought that Neanderthals and humans should not be considered distinct branches of the human family tree. However, our findings, based upon facial growth patterns, indicate they are indeed sufficiently distinct from one another.
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Sherlock

400-year-old embalmed hearts found under French convent

Megan Gannon
LiveScience
Fri, 04 Dec 2015 17:06 UTC
heart of Toussaint Perrien
© Rozenn Colleter, Ph.D./INRAPThis is a heart-shaped lead urn with an inscription identifying the contents as the heart of Toussaint Perrien, Knight of Brefeillac.
Four hundred years after they were buried in heart-shaped lead urns, five embalmed human hearts have been discovered in a cemetery in northwestern France.

Scientists said they were able to peer inside those organs with modern medical imaging techniques, revealing the hearts' chambers, valves and arteries, some still bearing marks of disease.

The hearts were discovered underneath the basement of the Convent of the Jacobins in Rennes, where archaeologists with France's National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research have been excavating graves for the past several years, ahead of a plan to turn the site into a conference center.
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Sherlock

6,000-year-old lead "wand-sword" discovered in Israel

Laura Geggel
LiveScience
Fri, 04 Dec 2015 16:20 UTC
wand artifact
© Yahalom-Mack, et al.The ancient lead and wood artifact isn't much larger than a modern pocketknife.
A lead and wood artifact discovered in a roughly 6,000-year-old grave in a desert cave is the oldest evidence of smelted lead on record in the Levant, a new study finds.

The artifact, which looks like something between an ancient wand and a tiny sword, suggests that people in Israel's northern Negev desert learned how to smelt lead during the Late Chalcolithic, a period known for copper work but not lead work, said Naama Yahalom-Mack, the study's lead researcher and a postdoctoral student of archaeology with a specialty in metallurgy at the Institute of Earth Sciences and the Institute of Archaeology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Moreover, an analysis of the lead suggests that it came from Anatolia (in modern-day Turkey), which is part of the Levant, or the area encompassing the eastern Mediterranean. The artifact was likely a valuable tool, given that it shows signs of wear and was placed in a grave alongside the remains of an individual in the cave, she said.
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Sherlock

Michigan farmer stumbles upon a mammoth discovery

Adam G.
The Rain Forest Site
Mon, 07 Dec 2015 02:16 UTC
Mammoth in Michigan
Mammoth in Michigan
Most kids have the daydream of digging in the front yard and discovering pirate treasure or the remains of a dinosaur. Heck, even some adults still hold onto that image. For one farmer in rural Michigan, that is exactly what happened!

Farmer James Bristle was working on planting soy beans when he discovered a crop of wood fragments. As he continued to drain the water from a portion of his field, it became clear that the "wood" was actually bone.
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Treasure Chest

Columbia discovers 'holy grail' of shipwrecks with treasure valued between $4 and $17 billion

Rossella Lorenzi
Discovery News
Sun, 06 Dec 2015 20:00 UTC
18th century Spanish galleon San Jose
© Colombian Culture MinistryThe remains of the 18th century Spanish galleon San Jose.
Colombia has found what may be the holy grail of treasure shipwrecks — an 18th century Spanish galleon that went down off the country's coast with a treasure of gold, coins and precious stones now valued between $4 billion and $17 billion.

The multibillion-dollar ship, called the San Jose, has been at a center of a decades-long search that also involved foreign legal battles.

"Without room for any doubt, we have found, 307 years after it sank, the San Jose galleon," Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced at a press conference on Saturday.

The shipwreck was found on Nov. 27 off the island of Baru, near Cartagena. An international team led by the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH) and accompanied by the Colombian navy located the wreck at a depth of about 800 feet. The remains matched details of the San Jose reported in historical accounts.
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Santa

Santa's little horned helper: The fearsome legend of Krampus, Christmas punisher

Liz Leaffloor
Ancient Origins
Thu, 03 Dec 2015 19:31 UTC
krampus
Revelers dressed as Krampusin Austria
In ancient times, a dark, hairy, horned beast was said to show up at the door to beat children, and carry them off in his sharp claws. The Krampus could be heard in the night by the sound of his echoing cloven hooves and his rattling iron chains. The strangest part was that he was in league with Santa Claus.

The Christmas Terror

The unnerving beast was no demon, however. He was the mythical Krampus, companion to Saint Nicholas (known as Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, etc.) While Saint Nicholas now has the reputation of loving all children and visiting them at Christmastime, judging their character and giving gifts to the 'nice' ones and lumps of coal to the 'naughty' ones, Krampus plays the dangerous sidekick.
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Sherlock

Archaeologist finds marble head from ancient Roman female statue in Bulgaria's Stara Zagora

Ivan Dikov
Archaeology in Bulgaria
Fri, 04 Dec 2015 00:00 UTC
marble head
© Atanas Atanasov/bTVThis marble head from an Ancient Roman statue of a female has been found in the ruins of the ancient city of Augusta Traiana in Bulgaria's Stara Zagora.
A marble head from an Ancient Roman statue of a woman has been discovered during rescue excavations of ruins of the Roman city of Augusta Traiana in the southern Bulgarian city of Stara Zagora.

The Roman statue head has been found during digs on private property, just about 10-15 cm below the modern-day pavement, its finder Atanas Atanasov has told bTV.

Atanasov is the curator of the Ancient Archaeology section at the Stara Zagora Regional Museum of History.

The female statue head is 15 cm tall, and was probably part of a life-size statue that was about 150-160 cm (app. 5 feet) tall.

The artifact most probably dates back to the 2nd-3rd century AD, a time when the Ancient Roman city of Augusta Traiana, the predecessor of Bulgaria's Stara Zagora. However, it is yet to be dated more precisely.
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Info

Rare intact Etruscan tomb found in Italy

Rossella Lorenzi
Discovery News
Fri, 04 Dec 2015 16:00 UTC
Statue in Etruscan tomb_1
© Soprintendenza Archeologia dell'UmbriaOne of the reclining figures on the lid of the urn.
An intact Etruscan tomb, complete with sarcophagi, a full array of grave goods and a mysterious marble head, has has been brought to light in the Umbria region of Italy, in what promises to be one of the most important archaeological findings in recent history.

Dated to the end of the 4th century B.C., the burial site was found by a farmer who opened a void in the earth while working with his plow in a field near Città della Pieve, a small town some 30 miles southwest of Perugia.

"It was a totally unexpected discovery. The area is away from the sites visited by tomb robbers and indeed the burial is undisturbed," Clarita Natalini of the archaeological superintendency of Umbria, told Discovery News.

Finding an undisturbed Etruscan tomb is an extremely rare event that has the potential to reveal more about one of the ancient world's most fascinating and mysterious cultures.

The Etruscans were a fun- loving and eclectic people who among other things taught the French how to make wine, the Romans how to build roads, and introduced the art of writing into Europe. They began to flourish around 900 B.C., and dominated much of Italy for five centuries.

Known for their art, agriculture, fine metalworking and commerce, they began to decline during the fifth century B.C., as the Romans grew in power. By 300-100 B.C., they eventually became absorbed into the Roman empire.
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Blue Planet

Paleolithic artist draws a campsite 13,800 years ago

Deborah Netburn
LA Times
Thu, 03 Dec 2015 22:57 UTC
Paleolithic stone engraving
© Manuel Vaquero and Marcos García DiezA stone slab 7 inches long, and engraved 13,800 years ago, may be one of the earliest known depictions of a human campsite.
Take a good look at the image: You could be seeing one of the earliest depictions of a hunter-gatherer camp ever discovered.

The ancient engraving dates back about 13,800 years to the upper Paleolithic era. It was unearthed at the Moli del Salt site in Spain, about 30 miles west of Barcelona.

If you look closely, you can make out what look like seven semi-circular huts that were drawn on a slab of stone, probably with another rock or a pointed flint artifact.

Archaeologists say the find is especially exciting because it breaks the rules of prehistoric art, which generally follow very strict stylistic and thematic conventions, and usually involve animals, non-figurative signs and the occasional human figure.
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