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Humans Shaped Stone Axes 1.8 Million Years Ago: Advanced Tool-Making Methods Pushed Back in Time


Science Daily
Thu, 01 Sep 2011 12:39 UTC
Stone Tools
© Pierre-Jean Texier, National Center of Scientific Research, FranceEarly humans were using stone hand axes as far back as 1.8 million years ago.
A new study suggests that Homo erectus, a precursor to modern humans, was using advanced toolmaking methods in East Africa 1.8 million years ago, at least 300,000 years earlier than previously thought. The study, recently published in Nature, raises new questions about where these tall and slender early humans originated and how they developed sophisticated tool-making technology.

Homo erectus appeared about 2 million years ago, and ranged across Asia and Africa before hitting a possible evolutionary dead-end, about 70,000 years ago. Some researchers think Homo erectus evolved in East Africa, where many of the oldest fossils have been found, but the discovery in the 1990s of equally old Homo erectus fossils in the country of Georgia has led others to suggest an Asian origin. The study in Nature does not resolve the debate but adds new complexity. At 1.8 million years ago, Homo erectus in Dmanisi, Georgia was still using simple chopping tools while in West Turkana, Kenya, according to the study, the population had developed hand axes, picks and other innovative tools that anthropologists call "Acheulian."

"The Acheulian tools represent a great technological leap," said study co-author Dennis Kent, a geologist with joint appointments at Rutgers University and Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. "Why didn't Homo erectus take these tools with them to Asia?"
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UK: Iron Age Hill Fort Excavation Reveals "Possible Suburbia"

Stephen Bates
The Guardian, UK
Wed, 31 Aug 2011 18:01 UTC
Size of settlement suggests Ham Hill site was a town rather than a defensive structure, archaeologists believe

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© Ham Hill Archaeology/PAAn archeology excavation at Ham Hill, Somerset has revealed a main road and enclosures with round houses – 'rather like suburbia'.
The most intensive investigation ever undertaken of Britain's largest iron age hill fort is expected to reveal new details of how Britons lived 2,000 years ago - and maybe even that they were almost as suburban as we are.

Stretching across 80 hilltop hectares, behind three miles of ramparts, the fort, at Ham Hill in Somerset, and the outline of its history have been known for many years.

The Durotriges tribe, which lived on the hill, was subdued in AD45 by soldiers of the 2nd Legion under the command of the future emperor Vespasian, but what the Romans found there: a street system lined with houses on their own plots of land, is what archaeologists from Cambridge and Cardiff universities hope to uncover more fully in excavations over the next three summers.
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Sherlock

Israel's rebel caves lead down to ancient wonders

Ari Rabinovitch
MSNBC / Reuters
Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:57 UTC
Researchers revisit underground network that was used by Jews resisting the Romans

You'll need a headlamp, a tight waistline and no fear of the dark in order to enjoy one of the most extreme, yet lesser known, archaeological wonders of the Holy Land.

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© Baz Ratner / ReutersA tourist walks inside a columbarium at the Hirbet Madras archaeological site in the foothills of Jerusalem, around the ancient city of Beit Guvrin.
Even with the proper equipment and intestinal fortitude, it is easy to lose your cool when crawling through the expansive ancient tunnel systems dug by Jewish rebels to fight the Roman Empire.

The hundreds of hideouts, ranging from just a few meters deep to seemingly unending labyrinths, are popular among Israeli archaeologists and adventurers. But the subterranean mazes, which date back as early as the first century B.C., are virtually unknown to foreigners.

Even if you go looking for them, as designed, they are easy to miss.
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Sherlock

Britain: Terrible secret of Roman brothel finally uncovered


Henley Standard
Wed, 31 Aug 2011 08:29 UTC
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© UnknownThe rediscovery of infant bones has led to a Hambleden field being identified as the earliest proven site of infanticide in Britain.
An excavation of Yewden Villa at Mill End in 1912 found a number of unusual discoveries, the most startling of which was the remains of 97 newborn babies.

The theory that the villa was used as a Roman brothel has also gained weight after the latest archaeological findings.

A H Cocks, former curator of Buckinghamshire County Museum, noted the discovery but focused on the tonne of pottery that was also found.

The remains of the infants, buried between 150 AD and 200 AD and all the same size, were rediscovered in cigarette boxes at the Aylesbury museum in 2008.

Dr Jill Eyers, director of Chiltern Archaeology, pushed for extensive investigation into the bones, which has confirmed beyond doubt that each baby was killed shortly after birth.
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Bulgarian Archaeologist Claims He Found 'The Temple' of Dionysus


Novinite
Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:01 UTC
Ancient Artifact
© BGNES Bulgarian archaeologist Prof. Nikolay Ovcharov shows part of a marble relief of the Thracian Horseman found at Perperikon.

Top Bulgarian archaeologist Prof. Nikolay Ovcharov has presented new finds from the Ancient Thracian city and medieval fortress of Perperikon proving the existence of an Antiquity period sanctuary that he believes could be the ancient Temple of Dionysus.

"The marble reliefs of the Thracian Horseman that we have found during excavations there prove that there was a sanctuary at Perperikon," Ovcharov said at a news conference Tuesday,

The Thracian Horseman is the conventional term for a recurring motif from the iconography of Paleo-Balkanic mythology during the Roman era, believed to have been supreme deity of Ancient Thrace; he is usually depicted on funeral statues as a horseman slaying a beast with a spear.

Ovcharov has been excavating the Ancient Thracian rock city of Perperikon in the Rhodope Mountains for the past few years, and his finds have increasingly proven that Perperikon (also known as Hyperperakion) used to be a crucial urban center during the Middle Ages as well in the Byzantine Empire and the First and Second Bulgarian Empire, and not just in the Antiquity period.
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Neanderthal Survival Story Revealed in Jersey Caves

Becky Evans
BBC News
Mon, 29 Aug 2011 21:10 UTC
Story Neaderthalis
© BBCThe story of this excavation and its finds will feature on the latest series of Digging For Britain on BBC2 in September, with Dr Alice Roberts
New investigations at an iconic cave site on the Channel Island of Jersey have led archaeologists to believe the Neanderthals have been widely under-estimated.

Neanderthals survived in Europe through a number of ice ages and died out only about 30,000 years ago.

The site at La Cotte de St Brelade reveals a near-continuous use of the cave site spanning over a quarter of a million years, suggesting a considerable success story in adapting to a changing climate and landscape, prior to the arrival of Homo sapiens.

The La Cotte ravine has revealed the most prolific collection of early Neanderthal technology in North West Europe, including over 250,000 stone tools. These include stones with sharpened edges that could be used to cut or chop, known as hand axes.

"Archaeologists have developed new ways of looking at stone tools since La Cotte de St Brelade was excavated in the 1970s," says Dr Beccy Scott from the British Museum and the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project.
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Sherlock

Israeli Archaeologists Confirm Ossuary's Authenticity


CBN.com
Tue, 30 Aug 2011 10:12 UTC
Two Israeli archaeologists confirmed the authenticity of a 2,000-year-old ossuary and its inscription believed to have belonged to the family of Caiaphas, the high priest during Jesus' time, American Friends of Tel Aviv University reported Tuesday. Three years ago, the Israel Antiquities Authority confiscated the ancient limestone burial box from antiquities thieves.

TAU's Department of Archaeology Prof. Yuval Goren and Bar Ilan University Prof. Boaz Zissu worked together to authenticate both the ossuary and its inscription. "Beyond any reasonable doubt, the inscription is authentic," said Prof. Goren, whose findings were published in the Israel Exploration Journal. The ossuary's full inscription reads, "Miriam daughter of Yeshua son of Caiaphus, priest of Maaziah from Beth Imri."

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© Unknown
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New Evidence Hints at Ice-Age Mariners in Ancient Greece


TruthDive
Mon, 29 Aug 2011 13:32 UTC
greek stamp
© n/a
Mariners may have travelled the Aegean Sea in Greece even before the end of the last ice age to extract coveted volcanic rocks for tools and weapons, according to new evidence.

A new technique which dates obsidian - volcanic glass which can be fashioned into tools - suggests that people were mining for obsidian in Mediterranean waters and shipping the once valuable rocks from the island of Melos in modern day Greece as far back as 15,000 years ago.

"Obsidian was a precious natural rock-glass found only in Melos, some in [the modern-day Greek areas of] Antiparos and Yali," Past Horizons quoted Nicolaos Laskaris of the University of the Aegean in Greece, as saying.

"From there it was spread all over the Aegean and in the continent too through contacts of trade," he added.
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Briefcase

UK: World War I mystery in an old battered suitcase


BBC
Mon, 29 Aug 2011 02:12 UTC
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© Unknown
It is a mystery found on a Belfast street corner that dates back to World War I.

A small battered leather suitcase carrying Princess Mary's Christmas gift to soldiers serving on the front line was found in the south of the city.

Police believe it may have belonged to a pilot, called Harry Campbell, from the McMaster area of Castlereagh.

The case also contains a love letter smudged with a lipstick kiss and a poem putting down Hitler.

Now police are trying to trace someone who has lost valuable mementoes that date back a century.
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Hourglass

King Arthur's Round Table Found by Archaeologists in Scotland


The Asian News International
Sat, 27 Aug 2011 10:00 UTC
King's Knot
© AlamyThe King's Knot in the grounds of Stirling Castle
Archeologists searching for King Arthur's Round Table believe they have found a "circular feature" beneath the historic King's Knot in Stirling, Scotland.

Researchers and historians from Glasgow University conducted the first non-invasive survey of The King's Knot, a geometrical earthwork in the former royal gardens in May and June.

The site, which has been described as looking like a cup and saucer, has been cloaked in mystery for years.

Their findings show there was indeed a round feature on the site that pre-dates the visible earthworks.

"Archaeologists using remote-sensing geophysics, have located remains of a circular ditch and other earth works beneath the King's Knot," the Telegraph quoted John Harrison, chair of the Stirling Local History Society (SLHS), who initiated the project, as saying.
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