Secret HistoryS


Microscope 2

Iron Age DNA sheds light on Finns' genetic origin


yle.fi
Sat, 16 Nov 2019 18:13 UTC
iron age dna
Iron Age DNA Map
Researchers at Helsinki and Turku universities mapping ancient Finno-Ugric ancestry say modern-day Finns carry genes from diverse populations living in the region of Finland during the Iron Age.

They said they were able to reconstruct 103 complete mitochondrial genomes from archaeological bone samples, allowing them to trace maternal lineage. The samples were collected from burial sites across Finland and the Republic of Karelia, Russia.

Scientists found that genes associated with ancient farmer populations were more common in the east, whereas lineages inherited from hunter-gatherers were more prevalent in the west.

Comment: See also:

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Blue Planet

'Water worship': 3,000-year-old megalithic temple found in Peru

Charlotte Edwards
The Sun
Mon, 18 Nov 2019 17:10 UTC
Peru
© AFPThe temple was discovered near springs in Peru
AN ANCIENT temple has been discovered by archaeologists in Peru who think it may have been used by pagans for 'rituals of water worship'.

The temple is surrounded by 21 tombs that date back to between 1,500 BC to 292 AD.

The megalithic temple itself is thought to be around 3,000 years old.

It was discovered by a Peruvian team of archaeologists who think it may have been used by a 'water cult' for fertility rituals.

Comment: See also:

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Book

Ray McGovern offers Congress 'Ukraine for Dummies'

Ray McGovern
Consortium News
Thu, 14 Nov 2019 00:00 UTC
Krushchev
© WikipediaNikita Khrushchev gave Crimea away.
There was no excuse for Congress' ignorance of Ukraine. Here is a guide to help them.

At Wednesday's debut of the impeachment hearings there was one issue upon which both sides of the aisle seemed to agree, and it was a comic-book caricature of reality.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff led off the proceedings with this:
"In 2014, Russia invaded a United States ally, Ukraine, to reverse that nation's embrace of the West, and to fulfill Vladimir Putin's desire to rebuild a Russian empire..."
Five years ago, when Ukraine first came into the news, those Americans who thought Ukraine was an island in the Pacific can perhaps be forgiven. That members of the House Intelligence Committee don't know — or pretend not to know — more accurate information about Ukraine is a scandal, and a consequential one.

As Professor Stephen Cohen has warned, if the impeachment process does not deal in objective fact, already high tensions with Russia are likely to become even more dangerous.
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Bizarro Earth

Oman hit by huge tsunami 1000-years-ago


University of Bonn
Tue, 19 Nov 2019 06:33 UTC
Oman Tsunami
© Gösta Hoffmann/Uni BonnKlaus Reicherter from the University of Aachen examines a boulder that the tsunami carried onto the cliffs.
A natural event of similar magnitude would have devastating consequences today, warn researchers at the University of Bonn.

15-meter high waves that pushed boulders the weight of a Leopard tank inland: This is more or less how one can imagine the tsunami that hit the coast of today's Sultanate of Oman about 1,000 years ago, as concluded by a recent study by the universities of Bonn, Jena, Freiburg and RWTH Aachen. The findings also show how urgently the region needs a well-functioning early warning system. But even then, coastal residents would have a maximum of 30 minutes to get to safety in a similar catastrophe. The study will be published in the journal Marine Geology, but is already available online.

Oman lies in the east of the Arabian Peninsula. The coasts of the Sultanate are repeatedly struck by tsunamis, most recently in 2013. Even with the most severe of these in recent times, the Makran event in 1945, the damage remained comparatively low. Back then, the tidal wave reached a height of three meters.

The scientists have now discovered evidence of a tsunami which is likely to have been much more powerful, with waves of up to 15 meters. For this purpose, the researchers from Bonn, Jena and Aachen concentrated their terrain investigations on a 200-kilometer coastal strip in northeastern Oman. "There we identified 41 large boulders, which were apparently carried inland by the force of the water," explains Dr. Gösta Hoffmann from the Institute for Geosciences at the University of Bonn.
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Cult

Flashback Jonestown Massacre: How San Francisco's Democrats made Jim Jones, and then made his memory vanish

Daniel Flynn
Washington Examiner
Tue, 15 Oct 2019 12:00 UTC
Jim Jones
© APJim Jones
Do you remember that time the entire Democratic Party in California behaved like cultists, enraptured by Peoples Temple leader Jim Jones?

If you lived through the bizarre suicides of 918 people in Guyana on Nov. 18, 1978, it's hard not to remember where you were when you heard the news. It would be like forgetting about the Challenger explosion or Sept. 11.

But collective amnesia over just who aided and abetted Jim Jones is much easier to explain. The same influence used on Jones's behalf during his life helped after his death to erase the causes and candidates he supported.

"Such greatness I have found in Jim Jones's Peoples Temple," Harvey Milk gushed. Yes, that Harvey Milk.

Willie Brown, later speaker of the California assembly and mayor of San Francisco, compared Jim Jones to Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. Dianne Feinstein joined the rest of the San Francisco board of supervisors in honoring Jones "in recognition of his guidance and inspiration" in furthering "humanitarian programs."

Jerry Brown, California governor then as now, actually spoke at Peoples Temple. George Moscone, who owed his position as mayor of San Francisco to Jones, appointed Jones to San Francisco's Housing Authority Commission, where he quickly became chairman.

Comment: Sott.net has kept the memory of Jim Jones and his twisted legacy alive: And see the stunning documentary Evidence of Revision

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Newspaper

6,800 year old "roundel" discovered in Poland

Hannah Osborne
Newsweek
Mon, 18 Nov 2019 10:50 UTC
poland roundel
Nowe Objezierze
A huge ancient ritual site dating back over 6,800 years has been discovered in Poland. It is believed to have been used by neolithic people for between 200 and 250 years, with new features added every few dozen years, archaeologists have said.

The circular structure is 360 feet in diameter, which is over three times the size of the inner Sarsen Circle at Stonehenge and roughly the same size as the monument's outer ditch.

The structure, which has been called a "roundel" because of its circular shape, was first spotted in 2017. Since then archaeologists have been working at the site to understand its significance. In an article on PAP, a website run by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education Website, researchers have announced radiocarbon dating indicates the site was built before 4,800 B.C.

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

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Sherlock

Impact of Justinian plague questioned in new study


Medievalists
Mon, 18 Nov 2019 12:37 UTC
Justinian
© Petar Milošević / Wikimedia CommonsMosaic of Justinian I from the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna.
Historians have long believed that the plague, which swept through the Mediterranean region in the sixth century, led to a massive loss of life, rivaling even the Black Death. However, a new study suggests that the pandemic's effects have been exaggerated and that not enough evidence exists to show that it was devastating as many have believed.

The Plague of Justinian, also known as the Justinianic Plague, first reached the Byzantine Empire around the year 541 and spread to North Africa and Western Europe. Caused by Yersinia pestis, the same bacterium responsible for Black Plague, this plague would continue to recur in parts of Europe up to the mid-eighth century.

Accounts of the plague are dominated by the writings of Procopius, a Byzantine scholar who lived in Constantinople when the pandemic broke out. His narrative tells a story where the plague was catastrophic. For example, he writes:

Comment: Perhaps part of the problem lies with a lack of understanding of just how many died because of other events, such as famine, flooding, earthquakes, and so on. What is clear is that the period was racked with disaster: And for Precopius' fascinating insight into Justinian's rule, see: Truth or Lies Part 8 Procopius: Secret History

See also: Also check out SOTT radio's Behind the Headlines: Who was Jesus? Examining the evidence that Christ may in fact have been Caesar! for more details on the preceeding events and the tumult that continued for at least a century. From the transcript:
540: Cometary bombardment (according to the Chinese historical record); Gildas reports cometary bombardment up in the northern regions of the U.K.; there was a collapse of the great dam of Mareb in Yemen, the country of Sheba...so that was an interesting year, 540...

541: The plague began in Egypt; there was a comet in Gaul; earthquake occurred in Kyzicus...there was a comet, there was drought, earthquake, earthquake, blah-blah-blah...so I'm getting this from all these different chroniclers...

542, the sun appeared at noon day...plague began in the east...

543: Plague in Mesopotamia...

544: Plague in Italy, southern France, Spain...

545: Plague in Persia; famine; plague (Mesopotamia 546)...

547: Tremendous thunder and lightning...

549: Flood in Cilicia; plague in the British territories (according to the Bishop of Llandaff)...

551: Another Beirut earthquake and tsunami; earthquake over the Middle East; "the sea retreats" (John Malalus)...

553: Earthquake, terrible thunder, and lightning (from Chronicle of Theophanes)...

554: Earthquake in Constantinople; the destruction of Baalbek (now that's interesting...wait till you read the next book and hear about Baalbek--that's very, very interesting)...

555: There's another earthquake in Constantinople and plague...

556: Famine [in] Constantinople, plague, ashes fell from the sky...

[...]

Jason: Can I make one small point? I mean, this is not like they had the internet (you know, where you can read about it)...like, oh, there was a 2.5 in such and such a place. Just imagine how big such a thing would have had to be, that somebody would have had to travel over to some other place and say, "Oh, by the way, there was an earthquake." And it would have been really big news. (So, it's not like we're tracking a 2.1 earthquake)...

Laura: These are city-destroying earthquakes, by the way. I told you that I'm just giving you the short version. These were city-destroying earthquakes, nation-destroying plagues of grasshoppers, city-destroying floods...


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Light Saber

Paul Robeson and the Battle for the Soul of America

Matthew Ehret
Strategic Culture Foundation
Sat, 16 Nov 2019 00:00 UTC
Paul Robeson
American singer, acclaimed actor of stage and screen, political activist and civil rights campaigner Paul Robeson (1898 - 1976), rehearses in relaxed mood at the piano. ( Keystone Features/Getty Images )
America today stands at a crossroads. Where an entrenched oligarchy strives desperately to keep hold of those military, intelligence, financial and federal institutions which it spent decades infesting, while attempting to overthrow a nationalist president who has worked to end the "forever wars" while cooperating with both Russia and China.

This fight within the heart of America has been confusing for many people who accustomed themselves to interpret world history from the distorted lens of the age in which they live.

Such confused people cannot fathom HOW America could possibly be anything but an imperialistic nation infested with self-contradiction: A nation founded on Liberty but relying on exploitation, usury and institutional racism.

This confusion can easily be resolved by taking off the distorted glasses of "the present" and look at history as a process defined by the clash between two opposing views of mankind: a creature born free or enslaved.

Comment: The Legacy of Paul Robeson: Football star, leading man, communist, outcast, hounded for his beliefs by the US gov't

On Henry Wallace:

Untold History of the United States: The coup against Henry Wallace and what might have been

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Car Black

USSR 'driver-in-chief' almost killed Nixon when he took the wheel, but was never fined in his life


RT
Fri, 15 Nov 2019 19:37 UTC
Brezhnev
© Sputnik / Kirill Kallinikov
Documents celebrating Leonid Brezhnev's lifelong love for posh cars and reckless driving have been sold at auction in Moscow. The big man's tastes were a nightmare for his guards and a driveway to his heart for foreign leaders.

Brezhnev's driving documents have changed ownership between two unidentified private collectors this week. What is known is that in exchange the buyer paid about $24,000. The laminated papers include a driver's license in Brezhnev's name - which also authorized him to take the wheel of pretty much any commercial ground transport - and a punch-through card that every Soviet driver had to carry.

The card was for a sort of three-strike system, in which a certain number of violations of the traffic code resulted in a revocation of the license, but Brezhnev's was obviously not meant for any street cop to lay hands on. In fact, the two documents had been a jokey gift from his protégé and friend, Interior Minister Nikolay Shchelokov, and were made in December 1976, shortly before Brezhnev's 70th birthday.

Brezhnev was an avid driver and loved fast cars and his status as the undisputed Soviet leader gave him ample opportunities to satisfy both cravings.
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Info

Over 140 new geoglyphs discovered at Nazca


Yamagata University
Fri, 15 Nov 2019 20:05 UTC
New Nasca Birds
© Yamagata UniversityLeft - Bird (line type) and Right - Bird (processed picture)
A research team led by Professor Masato Sakai (Cultural anthropology, Andean archeology) at Yamagata University discovered 142 new geoglyphs, which depict people, animals and other beings, on the Nasca Pampa and surrounding area in Peru, South America.

Situated mainly in the west of the Nasca Pampa, these new geoglyphs were identified through fieldwork and analyzing high-resolution 3D data, among other activities conducted up to 2018. The biomorphic geoglyphs are thought to date back to at least 100 BC to AD 300. Additionally, in a feasibility study carried out from 2018 to 2019 together with IBM Japan, the university discovered one new geoglyph by developing an AI model on the AI server IBM Power System AC922 configured with the deep learning platform IBM Watson Machine Learning Community Edition (formerly known as IBM PowerAI) . This study explored the feasibility of AI's potential to discover new lines, and introduced the capability to process large volumes of data with AI, including high-resolution aerial photos, at high speeds. This represented the first glyph at the site discovered by an AI.
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