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Mysterious giant megaliths discovered in remote Russia puzzle scientists


englishrussia.com
Thu, 06 Mar 2014 17:10 UTC
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Mysterious stones on Mountain Shoriya (Kemerov region, Russia) have puzzled both scientists and ordinary men. The wall of rectangular stones piled up on top of each other is already being called the "Russian Stonehenge". According to one of the stories, they were found back in ancient times.

Though it aroused the interest of researchers in 1991, it was not explored then due to lack of financing. The research was just resumed in autumn 2013.

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The granite blocks impress with their dimensions. They are making up walls in a polygonal masonry technique. Geologists compare them with Stonehenge and Egyptian pyramids.

The walls are 40 meters high, and they stretch for almost 200 meters. The length of some of the stones is about 20 meters, and their height is 5-7 meters. The weight of every block is more than 1000 tons.
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Archaeologists unearth remains of oldest Norman ever found which 'fills gap in our knowledge of pre-Neanderthal evolution'

Anne Penketh
The Independent, UK
Thu, 09 Oct 2014 22:29 UTC
Oldest Norman
© The Independent, UKThe arm bones, dating from 200,000 years ago, are 'the only known example from northern Europe'.
On a bend of the river Seine near Rouen in Normandy, archaeologists have found the remains of the oldest Norman ever discovered.

The three bones from the left arm of a pre-Neanderthal should shed fresh light on a little-known period. In particular, they could help scientists to understand the evolution of the squat, muscular hunters who died out 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, just after the first humans arrived in what is now Europe.

The discovery of the bones at Tourville-la-Rivière, 14km south of Rouen, is exceptional because "this is a period with very few fossils", according to Bruno Maureille, a palaeontologist at the National Centre for Scientific Research. He said the arm bones, dating from 200,000 years ago, in the Middle Pleistocene era, were "the only known example from northern Europe".

Jean-Philippe Faivre, a colleague at the centre, said that although similar discoveries had been made in the UK and Germany, the discovery in Normandy "fills a gap in our knowledge about how they evolved in this geographical area, and how they adapted to their environment".

Debate continues over the origins of Neanderthals but they appear to have evolved in Europe in isolation. One expert said the Tourville specimen had echoes of the discovery of "Boxgrove Man", whose fossilised tibia was found in West Sussex in 1993. "The English Channel didn't exist in those days," the expert added.
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Giant stepwell found in Northwestern India

Ankur Tewari
The Times of India
Wed, 08 Oct 2014 20:18 UTC
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© The Times of IndiaThe stepwell that was found during the excavation by ASI in Dholavira, Kutch.
Ahmedabad: A 5,000-year-old stepwell has been found in one of the largest Harappan cities, Dholavira, in Kutch, which is three times bigger than the Great Bath at Mohenjo Daro.

Located in the eastern reservoir of Dholavira by experts from the Archaeological Survey of India working with IIT-Gandhinagar, the site represents the largest, grandest, and the best furnished ancient reservoir discovered so far in the country.

It's rectangular and 73.4m long, 29.3m wide, and 10m deep. Another site, the ornate Rani ki Vav in Patan, called the queen of stepwells, is already on Unesco list.

"This is almost three times bigger than the Great Bath of Mohenjo Daro that's 12m in length, 7m in width, and 2.4m in depth," said V N Prabhakar, visiting faculty at IIT and superintending archaeologist, ASI.

"We will conduct spot analysis in December as various surveys have indicated other reservoirs and stepwells may be buried in Dholavira," Prabhakar told TOI.

"We also suspect a huge lake and an ancient shoreline are buried in the archaeological site that's one of the five largest Harappan sites and the most prominent archaeological site in India belonging to the Indus Valley civilization," he added.

Experts will investigate the advanced hydraulic engineering used by Harappans for building the stepwell through 3D laser scanner, remote sensing technology and ground-penetrating radar system.
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How the violin got its shape

Laura Geggel
LiveScience
Wed, 08 Oct 2014 21:40 UTC
Violin
© potowizard / Shutterstock
The elegant shape of the violin evolved over a period of 400 years, largely due to the influence of four prominent families of instrument makers, a new study finds.

Researchers analyzed more than 9,000 violins, violas, cellos and double basses, and found that the shape of violins depended on the makers' family background, country of origin, the time period in which it was constructed, and how precisely the violins imitated the greats, such as the stringed instruments expertly crafted by Antonio Stradivari.

The first violins were made in Italy in the 16th century. Stradivari, one of history's most respected violin makers, lived in Cremona, in northern Italy, from 1644 to 1737. He crafted roughly 1,000 violins, including about 650 that have survived to this day.

In fact, the study found that the shape of modern violins has been disproportionately influenced by the work of Stradivari, said study researcher Daniel Chitwood, a scientist at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis.
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Ancient rhino-relatives were water-loving


Science Daily
Wed, 08 Oct 2014 23:00 UTC
Anthracobunids
© Cooper Lab, NEOMEDPictured here are two jaws from anthracobunids recovered from 48 million year old sediments next to a horse skull. The study found that anthracobunids were an ancient relative of horses, rhinos, and tapirs.
The discovery of new bones from a large land mammal that lived about 48 million years ago has led scientists to identify a new branch of mammals closely related to modern horses, rhinos, and tapirs, according to a study published October 8, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Lisa Noelle Cooper from Northeast Ohio Medical University and colleagues.

This family of large mammals, Anthracobunidae, is only known from India and Pakistan and was commonly considered to be ancestors of modern elephants and sea cows. Geographically, this was a puzzling idea, because elephants and their relatives were groups that were known from Africa, not Asia. These new fossils indicate that anthracobunids are related to the tiny tapirs that are well known from the Pakistani rocks, and that perissodactyls probably originated in Asia.

Researchers also analyzed stable isotopes and bone shape, finding that these animals most likely fed on land and were large and lumbering, but spent a considerable amount of time near water, similar to modern rhinos and tapirs. Dr. Lisa Noelle Cooper added, "Anthracobunids are just one of many lineages of vertebrates that evolved from terrestrial animals, but then left to live in a shallow water habitat and had thick bones. These thick bones probably acted like ballast to counteract body buoyancy. You can see that kind of bone structure in modern hippos, otters, penguins, and cormorants."
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Prehistoric paintings in Indonesia may be oldest cave art ever

Megan Gannon
Live Science
Wed, 08 Oct 2014 12:00 UTC
Prehistoric paintings
© Kinez RizaEuropeans may not have been the first cave artists. Some prehistoric paintings in Indonesia, such as the hand stencils shown here, could be more than 40,000 years old.
Paintings of miniature buffalos, warty pigs and human hands covering the walls and ceilings of caves in Indonesia could be among the oldest examples of cave art in the world, a new study finds.

The paintings - some of which might be more than 40,000 years old - challenge Europe's standing as the birthplace of prehistoric art.

"It was previously thought that Western Europe was the centerpiece of a 'symbolic explosion' in early human artistic activity, such as cave painting and other forms of image making, including figurative art, around 40,000 years ago," said study leader Maxime Aubert, an archaeologist and geochemist at Australia's Griffith University.

"However, our findings show that cave art was made at opposite ends of the Pleistocene Eurasian world at about the same time, suggesting these practices have deeper origins - perhaps in Africa before our species left this continent and spread across the globe." [See Photos of the Stunning Cave Art from Indonesia]
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A second 1,300 year-old ancient village discovered in Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park

Susanna Kim
Yahoo News
Tue, 07 Oct 2014 20:09 UTC
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Archaeologists have uncovered a second ancient village in Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park that is 1,300 years old.

The latest basket-maker village dates between 200 A.D. and 700 A.D., based on the types of pottery found, according to Bill Reitze, the park's archaeologist. It was discovered this summer, following the first discovery last year of similar slab-lined pit-houses.

These are dwelling structures dug into the ground unique to the Southern Colorado Plateau and found throughout the park, but not often in these high concentrations, Reitze said.

Both of the large basket-maker sites are in neighboring, stabilized sand dunes less than a kilometer apart, Reitze said. The discoveries were made as part of an expansion project that has doubled the park's size after Congress passed the Petrified Forest National Park Expansion Act of 2004.
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Map error hastened Napoleon's Waterloo defeat

David Chazan
The Telegraph, UK
Mon, 06 Oct 2014 23:12 UTC
A French documentary claims Napoleon was confused on the battlefield by a mistake in the map he used to plan his strategy.

Battle of Waterloo
© Carle Cernet / BovinetThe Battle of Waterloo
A mistake in the map Napoleon Bonaparte used at Waterloo was a key factor in the 1815 defeat that crushed the French Empire and ended his military and political career.

According to a documentary broadcast on French television Monday, Napoleon was confused about the position of the Duke of Wellington's forces because of a map error of one kilometre (more than half a mile) introduced by the printer.

Consequently, he aimed his artillery at the wrong location and his cannon balls fell woefully short of the British, Prussian and Dutch lines.

The documentary-maker, Franck Ferrand, said: "Napoleon was relying on a false map for his strategy in his last battle. This explains why he mistook the lie of the land and was disoriented on the battlefield. It is certainly one of the factors that led to his defeat, although not the only one."
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Skeleton of possible "Witch Girl" found in Italy

Rossella Lorenzi
Discovery News
Mon, 06 Oct 2014 22:00 UTC
Witch Girl
© Stefano Roascio
An archaeological dig in northern Italy has unearthed the remains of a 13-year-old-girl buried facedown -- evidence, archaeologists say, that despite her young age, she was rejected by her community and seen as a danger even when dead.

Dubbed by Italian media as "the witch girl," the skeleton was unearthed at the complex of San Calocero in Albenga on the Ligurian Riviera, by a team of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology at the Vatican.

The site, a burial ground on which a martyr church dedicated to San Calocero was built around the fifth and sixth centuries A.D., was completely abandoned in 1593.

The prone burial, which has yet to be radiocarbon dated, is thought to date from the late antiquity or the early Middle Ages.
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Ancient nanostructures found in Ural mountains are out of place and time

Leonardo Vinti
Epoch Times
Fri, 16 Oct 2009 05:02 UTC
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An Oopart (out of place artifact) is a term applied to dozens of prehistoric objects found in various places around the world that, given their level of technology, are completely at odds with their determined age based on physical, chemical, and/or geological evidence. Ooparts often are frustrating to conventional scientists and a delight to adventurous investigators and individuals interested in alternative scientific theories.

In 1991, the appearance of extremely tiny, coil-shaped artifacts found near the banks of Russia's Kozhim, Narada, and Balbanyu rivers brought about a debate that has continued to this day. These mysterious and minuscule structures suggest that there may have been a culture capable of developing nanotechnology 300,000 years ago.

These manufactured coils were initially discovered during geological research associated with the extraction of gold in the Ural mountains. These pieces include coils, spirals, shafts, and other unidentified components.
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