Secret HistoryS


Bulb

Data hidden in Inca knot code discovered by Harvard undergrad

Katherine Davis-Young
Atlas Obscura
Thu, 14 Dec 2017 15:15 UTC
khipu knots Inca code
© Jon Chase/ President and Fellows of Harvard CollegeA model of khipu knots, representative of many khipus from pre- and post-Conquest Peru
Manny Medrano cut loose on spring break by analyzing a set of khipus.

There are many ways a college student might spend spring break. Making an archaeological breakthrough is not usually one of them. In his first year at Harvard, Manny Medrano did just that.

"There's something in me, I can't explain where it came from, but I love the idea of digging around and trying to find secrets hidden from the past," Medrano says.

With the help of his professor, Gary Urton, a scholar of Pre-Columbian studies, Medrano interpreted a set of six khipus, knotted cords used for record keeping in the Inca Empire. By matching the khipus to a colonial-era Spanish census document, Medrano and Urton uncovered the meaning of the cords in greater detail than ever before. Their findings could contribute to a better understanding of daily life in the Andean civilization.

Comment: Further reading: High in the Andes, Keeping an Incan Mystery Alive

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Info

Elaborate carvings on Moai stone hats, reveal secrets of mysterious Polynesians


Brinkwire
Sun, 24 Dec 2017 18:36 UTC
Moai Statue
© ReutersA view of a Moai statue near the town of Hanga Roa on Easter Island, 2,486 miles west of Santiago, Chile October 19, 2003.
Rapa Nui, Chile - or Easter Island - has monumental statues with massive, stone hats placed on top of them. A recent analysis of these stone hats, known as pukao, shows that the petroglyphs etched into the stone vary wildly, according to a study published in October in Advances in Archaeological Practice. The diversity of the drawings revealed that they were unlikely to be associated with warfare, which counters the common theory that the ancient people of Rapa Nui were a warrior culture.

"The diversity of the petroglyphs challenges that these were symbols of warfare between groups," Carl Lipo, co-author of the study and anthropology professor at Binghamton University, told Newsweek by email. The findings of the study uncovered "quite a bit of diversity in the petroglyphs of the pukao-more so than have been traditionally noted given that we documented all the pukao surfaces."

Polynesians colonized Rapa Nui around 800 years ago, according to the study. They constructed nearly 1,000 monumental statues, called moai, which were topped with the pukao. The pukao are large cylinder-shaped stones made from volcanic rock known as red scoria, weighing multiple tons each. The largest stone hat is nearly seven feet in diameter and weighs over 25,000 pounds. Prehistoric islanders moved the heavy volcanic rocks as far as 7.5 miles.
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Bullseye

Romanticizing the hunter-gatherer way of life

William Buckner
Quillette
Sat, 16 Dec 2017 12:13 UTC
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse on Inequality
O Man, to whatever country you belong and whatever your opinions, listen: here is your history as I believe I have read it, not in the books of your fellow men who are liars but in Nature which never lies.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse on Inequality
In 1966, at the 'Man the Hunter' symposium held at the University of Chicago, anthropologist Richard B. Lee presented a paper that would radically rewrite how academics and the public at large interpret life in hunter-gatherer societies. Questioning the notion that the hunter-gatherer way of life is a "precarious and arduous struggle for existence," Lee instead described a society of relative comfort and abundance. Lee studied the !Kung of the Dobe area in the Kalahari Desert (also known variously as Bushmen, the San people, or the Ju/'hoansi) and noted that they required only 12 to 19 hours a week to collect all the food they needed. Lee further criticized the notion that hunter-gatherers have a low life expectancy, arguing that the proportion of individuals older than 60 among the !Kung, "compares favorably to the percentage of elderly in industrialized populations."1 On the basis of Lee's work, and other material presented at the symposium, anthropologist Marshall Sahlins coined the phrase "original affluent society" to describe the hunter-gatherer way of life.
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Red Flag

"What were they thinking?!" Russian intellectuals on the Russian Revolution

Daria Prokhorova
NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia
Wed, 20 Dec 2017 19:16 UTC
vladimir lenin
On Wednesday, October 18, 2017 the Jordan Center hosted a talk entitled, "What Were They Thinking? Russian intellectuals interpret the revolution, 1917-1922", delivered by Jane Burbank, Professor of History and Russian & Slavic Studies at NYU and introduced by Joshua Tucker, Director of the Jordan Center. This was the second event in the lecture series entitled "100 Year Anniversary of the 1917 Revolution", hosted by the NYU Jordan Center and co-sponsored by the NYU Department of History.

Burbank opened with the questions: How was the Revolution viewed by people who lived through the uncertainties and hardships of the first years of Bolshevik power? In particular, what were Russian intellectuals thinking? As Burbank noted, today the Revolution and the regime it instituted is often conceptualized around the most prominent figures in Soviet history, i.e. Lenin and Stalin. Burbank, however, decided that it would be useful to consider individuals from a wider political spectrum, including theorists, social scientists and all-around politically active figures from non-Bolshevik parties. For her talk, she selected prominent figures from four categories: anarchists, Marxists, Eurasianists and the political movement "Changing Landmarks."
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Info

Jomon pottery gives clues to ancient culture

Fumiko Yoshigaki
The Asahi Shimbun
Sat, 16 Dec 2017 18:48 UTC
Ancient Painted Stone
© Yoshinori ToyomaneA stone piece bearing the painting of a human face and found in Kikonai, Hokkaido.
The first piece of stone painted with a human face dating from the Jomon Pottery Culture (c. 8000 B.C.-300 B.C.) has been found here and hailed as a very important discovery.

"The find is extremely precious in that it could help ascertain what the spiritual culture in the mid-Jomon period was like," said Yasushi Kosugi, a Jomon culture professor at Hokkaido University.

The Hokkaido Archaeological Operations Center said Nov. 29 that the stone fragment from the latter half of the mid-Jomon period (4,300 years ago) was unearthed on Oct. 19 from 50 centimeters beneath the ground where a pit house used to stand.

The discovery location is part of the Koren five archaeological sites in Kikonai.
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Comet 2

Halley's comet and the calendar


Malaga Bay
Thu, 21 Dec 2017 17:31 UTC
Heinsohn Horizon
© Malaga Bay
When Europe started carving up the world the acolytes of empire started carving up history to support their beliefs and interests.

By 1850 the acolytes of empire had diced and sliced the Annals of China to create a great and glorious history for Comet Halley all the way back to 11 years before the Christian era.
John Hind
© Malaga Bay
The valuable details existing in the annals of China, and but recently known in Europe, enable us to trace this famous comet with a high degree of probability to the year 11 before the Christian era, - a most important circumstance, not only as regards the history of this particular comet, but as bearing on the constitution of these bodies in general.

On the Past History of the Comet of Halley - J R Hind
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society - Vol 10 - Issue 3 - 9 Jan 1850
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/10/3/51/2603551
By 1986 the Annals of China [with a little help from the Annals of Babylonia] had provided Comet Halley with a magnificent pedigree stretching all the way back to 240 BC.
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Book 2

Sigmund Fraud? New bio traces Freud's journey from one crackpot idea to the next

Kyle Smith
National Review
Tue, 19 Dec 2017 19:20 UTC
freud
A new biography demolishes whatever was left of the Viennese con man's reputation.

Writing to his close friend and collaborator Wilhelm Fliess in 1890, Sigmund Freud explained that he couldn't pay a visit because, in a struggling psychiatric practice that suckered rich society women in Vienna, "My most important client is just now going through a kind of nervous crisis and might get well in my absence."

No, Freud wasn't being ironic: He depended on grandes dames to stay in business. On another occasion, referring to a cartoon in which a yawning lion grumbles, "Twelve o'clock and no negroes," he wrote, "The worries begin again whether some negroes will turn up at the right time to still the lion's appetite." That appetite, as Frederick Crews makes clear in his exhaustive, reputation-pulverizing book Freud: The Making of an Illusion, was from an early age for fame and riches, which Freud relentlessly pursued by championing one faddish quack remedy after another, backing away when justified criticism made his position untenable, covering his tracks with misleading or even completely false claims about what he'd been up to, then bustling on to the next gold mine.

Comment: See also: Freud was a fraud!

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Info

Stone Age-carved rocks discovered on Danish island

Ray W
Copenhagen Post
Tue, 19 Dec 2017 19:06 UTC
Over 300 'sun stones' discovered on the Sunshine Island.
Danish Mystery Stones
© Bornholm MuseumScientist are not sure who made the mysterious stones and why.
Danes often refer to the holiday destination of Bornholm as 'the sunshine island', so it is only fitting that a cache of rocks carved in the Stone Age, which were recently excavated on the Danish island, have been dubbed 'sun stones'.

The small stones are covered with designs carved by Stone Age people 5,000 years ago. The approximately 300 stones and fragments earned their name from their round shape and the circular carvings on their surface, which appear to radiate out from the centre. They include square stones carved with what resembles fields and grain and other patterns. Some are decorated with spider webs.
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Blackbox

The WWII baby-in-a-box mystery: Genetics testing and detective work find abandoned baby's family, over 70 years later

Claire Bates
BBC
Thu, 14 Dec 2017 17:42 UTC
brian jones
Robin was 13 when he found out he was adopted. Later he was told he had been abandoned - left in a box on London's Oxford Street. Now 74, he has spent most of his life wondering who left him and why. But thanks to DNA, and the dogged detective work of one of his daughters, he finally has some answers.

When Robin King discovered he was adopted he ran away from home. He had been snooping around his parents' bedroom when he came across his adoption papers in a holdall.

He fled to a friend's house and the pair then cycled from London to Southend where they slept in a tent until they were picked up by the police a few days later.

"My friend's mum had to pay for us to come back on the train," Robin recalls.

At home, no-one ever mentioned the subject of his adoption.

"I was afraid of raising it as I didn't want any confrontation. I think it affected me deep down," he says.
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Boat

Ancient Biblical city destroyed by earthquake 1,400 years ago uncovered in underwater excavations

Simon Green
Daily Star
Mon, 18 Dec 2017 16:59 UTC
discovery underwater city corinth
© Youtube
The Greek city, which was rebuilt in 44BC by Roman Emperor Julius Caesar, holds major significance for Christians.

Jesus's disciple Paul is said to have visited there and wrote two letters about his time in Corinth - featured in the New Testament.

Just days ago, another group of archaeologists in Italy were amazed to discover the historic resort of Baiae in perfect condition.

And new underwater excavations of Corinth's harbour at the port of Lechaion have discovered wooden foundations preserved so well that they look new.


Comment: See also: Ancient port of Corinth reveals Roman engineering

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