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Archaeologists unearth largest Mayan figurine factory to date

Lizzie Wade
ScienceMag.com
Thu, 18 Apr 2019 11:05 UTC
mayan figurine factory
© Brent Woodfill
Archaeologists working in Guatemala have discovered the largest known figurine workshop in the Mayan world, they announced at the Society for American Archaeology meeting here last week. The workshop, buried for more than 1000 years, made intricate, mass-produced figurines that likely figured heavily in Mayan political customs.

Finding the workshop was a stroke of luck: Brent Woodfill, an archaeologist at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina, learned about it from friends in Cobán, Guatemala, who were doing construction on their property. A few months later, Woodfill and colleagues excavated the site, called Aragón, and surveyed it with a drone. Although the workshop was destroyed by the construction, archaeologists were able to recover more than 400 fragments of figurines and the molds for making them (above), as well as thousands of ceramic pieces-more than at any other known Mayan workshop.

Comment: See also:

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Better Earth

Abrupt climate change 8,000 years ago led to dramatic population decline in South American

University College London
Phys.org
Thu, 09 May 2019 10:34 UTC
south america
© CC0 Public Domain
Abrupt climate change some 8,000 years ago led to a dramatic decline in early South American populations, suggests new UCL research.

The study, published in Scientific Reports, is the first to demonstrate how widespread the decline was and the scale at which population decline took place 8,000 to 6,000 years ago.

"Archaeologists working in South America have broadly known that some 8,200 years ago, inhabited sites in various places across the continent were suddenly abandoned. In our study we wanted to connect the dots between disparate records that span the Northern Andes, through the Amazon, to the southern tip of Patagonia and all areas in between," said lead author, Dr. Philip Riris (UCL Institute of Archaeology).

"Unpredictable levels of rainfall, particularly in the tropics, appear to have had a negative impact on pre-Columbian populations until 6,000 years ago, after which recovery is evident. This recovery appears to correlate with cultural practices surrounding tropical plant management and early crop cultivation, possibly acting as buffers when wild resources were less predictable," added Dr. Riris.

Comment: It's quite clear that dramatic fluctuations in climate have occurred frequently, even in our recent past, and, along with it, the rise and fall of civilisations: Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Earth changes in an electric universe: Is climate change really man-made?

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Compass

Why did orienting maps to the north become standard?

Nick Danforth
Al Jazeera
Tue, 07 May 2019 17:16 UTC
upside down world map
© Flickr
McArthur’s Universal Corrective Map of the World.
Why do maps always show the north as up? For those who don't just take it for granted, the common answer is that Europeans made the maps and they wanted to be on top. But there's really no good reason for the north to claim top-notch cartographic real estate over any other bearing, as an examination of old maps from different places and periods can confirm.

The profound arbitrariness of our current cartographic conventions was made evident by McArthur's Universal Corrective Map of the World, an iconic "upside down" view of the world that recently celebrated its 35th anniversary. Launched by Australian Stuart McArthur on Jan. 26, 1979 (Australia Day, naturally), this map is supposed to challenge our casual acceptance of European perspectives as global norms. But seen today with the title "Australia: No Longer Down Under," it's hard not to wonder why the upside-down map, for all its subversiveness, wasn't called "Botswana: Back Where It Belongs" or perhaps "Paraguay Paramount!"
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Dig

Mass grave reveals ancestry, kinship, and violence in Neolithic Poland

National Academy of Sciences
Popular Archeology
Mon, 06 May 2019 12:00 UTC
mass neoilithic grave poland
© Piotr Wodarczak
The Late Neolithic mass grave at Koszyce, Poland.
Researchers present evidence of Neolithic kinship and violence based on remains from a mass grave in Poland. The Bronze Age began in the third millennium BCE.

The Globular Amphora culture existed during this time in Europe, but little is known about their relations with the neighboring Corded Ware culture.

Hannes Schroeder, Niels N. Johannsen, Morten E. Allentoft, and colleagues sequenced the genomes of 15 individuals found in a mass grave excavated in Koszyce, Poland, that dates to approximately 2880-2776 BCE.

Analyses revealed that the individuals were part of an extended family, with most of the remains belonging to mothers and children.

The authors found that mothers were placed next to their children, and siblings were placed next to each other within the grave. Older males and fathers appeared to be missing from the grave. All bodies exhibited injuries and cranial fractures that likely occurred around the time of death, suggesting death by blows to the head.

Comment: See also:

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Dig

Plague and climate change devastated fading Byzantine empire

Mindy Weisberger
Live Science
Mon, 25 Mar 2019 15:59 UTC
byzantine mosiac
© Shutterstock
Climate change trashed the Byzantine Empire, ancient garbage mounds revealed.
About a century before the fall of the Byzantine Empire - the eastern portion of the vast Roman Empire - signs of its impending doom were written in garbage.

Archaeologists recently investigated accumulated refuse in trash mounds at a Byzantine settlement called Elusa in Israel's Negev Desert. They found that the age of the trash introduced an intriguing new timeline for the Byzantine decline, scientists reported in a new study. [The Holy Land: 7 Amazing Archaeological Finds]

The researchers discovered that trash disposal - once a well-organized and reliable service in outpost cities like Elusa - ceased around the middle of the sixth century, about 100 years prior to the empire's collapse. At that time, a climate event known as the Late Antique Little Ice Age was taking hold in the Northern Hemisphere, and an epidemic known as the Justinian plague raged through the Roman Empire, eventually killing over 100 million people.

Comment: For more on the events surrounding the 6th Century: And for fascinating insight into Justinian's rule, see: Truth or Lies Part 8 Procopius: Secret History

Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Who was Jesus? Examining the evidence that Christ may in fact have been Caesar!

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Info

Bolivia shaman's bag contained various psychotropic drugs, including coke

Michelle Starr
Science Alert
Mon, 06 May 2019 22:56 UTC
Shaman's Bag
© Miller et al., PNAS, 2019
The leather bag and its contents.
Native American shamans living in South America 1,000 years ago had quite the pharmacopoeia in their toolkits. A shaman's bag found in Bolivia contained a special pouch with traces of multiple psychotropic plants inside, as well as a pretty impressive assembly of paraphernalia.

In addition to the pouch, stitched together from three fox snouts, the leather bag contained two wooden tablets for grinding psychotropic plants into snuff, two bone spatulas, a woven headband, and a tube with two human hair braids attached, for smoking hallucinogenic plants.

"We already knew that psychotropics were important in the spiritual and religious activities of the societies of the south-central Andes, but we did not know that these people were using so many different compounds and possibly combining them together," said anthropologist Jose Capriles of Penn State.

"This is the largest number of psychoactive substances ever found in a single archaeological assemblage from South America."

Throughout history, humans around the world have used plant-based substances to alter perception, often in religious or ritual contexts. Discerning what these plants were, and how they were used, can tell us a lot about what ancient humans knew about plants, and which plants were culturally important.
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Cut

New reading of Mesha Stele could have far-reaching consequences for biblical history

Taylor & Francis
Phys.org
Sun, 05 May 2019 21:39 UTC
Mesha Stele.
© Wikimedia Commons
Mesha Stele.
The biblical King Balak may have been a historical figure, according to a new reading of the Mesha Stele, an inscribed stone dating from the second half of the 9th century BCE.

A name in Line 31 of the stele, previously thought to read 'House of David', could instead read 'Balak', a king of Moab mentioned in the biblical story of Balaam (Numbers 22-24), say archaeologist Prof. Israel Finkelstein and historians and biblical scholars Prof. Nadav Na'aman and Prof. Thomas Römer, in an article published in Tel Aviv: The Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University.

The Mesha Stele was found in the 19th century in the ruins of the biblical town of Dibon in Moab (present day Jordan), and is now in the Louvre. The stone's inscription tells the story of the territorial expansion and construction endeavours of King Mesha of Moab, who is mentioned in the Bible. The stele was cracked in the 19th century and parts of it are missing, but portions of the missing parts are preserved in a reverse copy of the inscription, known as a 'squeeze', made before the stele cracked.

The authors studied new high-resolution photographs of the squeeze, and of the stele itself. These new images made it clear that there are three consonants in the name of the monarch mentioned in Line 31, and that the first is the Hebrew letter beth (a 'b' sound).

Comment: For deeper insight into the 'history' of the bible, see: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Star of David

'Not by Might, nor by Power': A Jewish atonement for Zionism

Yoav Litvin
Mondoweiss
Fri, 29 Sep 2017 00:00 UTC
Moshe Menuhin
Dissent

Dissidents include individuals who have been victimized and those who have a developed sense of empathy for others' oppression and trauma.

Acts of dissent range from the minuscule to the enormous and assume countless forms. One can sign a petition, kneel during a national anthem, block a highway, sit in the front of a bus, participate in a strike, march or sit-in, lead an armed revolt, or as in the case of Moshe Menuhin - perhaps Zionism's first dissident - write a book.

Moshe Menuhin (1893-1983) was born in the city of Gomel (as Moshe Mnuchin), Belarus to a notable orthodox Jewish family. As a young boy of eleven he moved to Palestine where he studied at a Yeshiva in Jerusalem and subsequently was a student in the inaugural class of the first Zionist high school in Tel Aviv - Gymnasia Herzliya. Several of his classmates would become leaders of the Zionist Yeshuv (settlement) and of the new state of Israel, such as Moshe Shertok (aka Moshe Sharett, Israel's second Prime Minister) and Eliyahu Golomb (leader of the Zionist militia- Haganah). Menuhin moved to the United States in 1913 to pursue higher education at New York University. He was the father of legendary violinist Yehudi Menuhin and a committed anti-Zionist throughout his entire life, authoring several books on the topic.

Comment: Jewish identity today is built upon the events of the 1930's and 1940's, and the Zionist movement has engaged in an endless stream of indoctrination and manipulation of events since then in order to rewrite history and shape the 'collective thought' of Jews around the world and in Israel. With the trauma of the Holocaust still fresh and used to stir up strong fervor and emotions, identity is inextricably connected with a form of Israeli nationalism that has no spiritual or moral framework and where the ends always justify the means.

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Pyramid

4,500-year-old cemetery and sarcophagi discovered near Giza Pyramids

Owen Jarus
Live Science
Sat, 04 May 2019 21:51 UTC
Giza Pyramids Cemetry
© Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities
Archaeologists working southeast of the Giza Pyramids have discovered part of a cemetery that dates back about 4,500 years.
A 4,500-year-old cemetery has been discovered southeast of the famous Giza Pyramids, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities announced this morning (May 4).

Several tombs and burials were discovered in the cemetery, with one of the oldest tombs holding the remains of two individuals - one named "Behnui-Ka" and another named "Nwi." Their sarcophagi were found intact and their remains are likely inside; however, no information on them has been released. Analysis of the tomb's artifacts and hieroglyphic inscriptions revealed that the two men lived almost 4,500 years ago, during what historians often call the Fifth Dynasty, a time after the Giza Pyramids had been built.

According to those inscriptions, Behnui-Ka was a priest and judge who held a number of titles, including a lengthy one that calls him "the purifier of kings: Khafre, Userkaf and Niuserre." Khafre was a pharaoh who ordered the construction of one of the Giza Pyramids, while Userkaf and Niuserre were pharaohs who ruled Egypt during the Fifth Dynasty.
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Eye 1

The Origins of the Deep State in North America

Matthew Ehret
The Duran
Sat, 04 May 2019 15:37 UTC
Part one: The Rise of the Round Table Movement and the Sad Case of Canada (1864-1945).

Deep State graphic
"Two systems are before the world; the one looks to increasing the proportion of persons and of capital engaged in trade and transportation, and therefore to diminishing the proportion engaged in producing commodities with which to trade, with necessarily diminished return to the labor of all; while the other looks to increasing the proportion engaged in the work of production, and diminishing that engaged in trade and transportation, with increased return to all, giving to the laborer good wages, and to the owner of capital good profits... One looks towards universal war; the other towards universal peace. One is the English system; the other we may be proud to call the American system, for it is the only one ever devised the tendency of which was that of elevating while equalizing the condition of man throughout the world."

-Henry C. Carey (Lincoln's advisor), Harmony of Interests, 1856
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