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Human ancestors were fashion conscious

Michael Balter
ScienceNow
Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:10 UTC
Ancient Shell Beads
© Marian Vanhaeren
Keeping up with fashions. A close examination of shell beads from Blombos Cave (left) suggests that ancient humans there started off with one style of jewelry (bottom) and then shifted to another (middle) over the course of 3000 years.
The 2013 Academy Awards were, as always, as much about making appearances as about making films, as red carpet watchers noted fashion trends and faux pas. Both Jessica Chastain and Naomi Watts wore Armani, although fortunately not the same dress. And Best Supporting Actress Anne Hathaway switched from Valentino to a controversial pale pink Prada at the last minute because her original dress looked too much like someone else's. Of course, no actress would be caught dead wearing the same style 2 years in a row. A new study of ancient beaded jewelry from a South African cave finds that ancient humans were no different, avoiding outdated styles as early as 75,000 years ago.

Personal ornaments, often in the form of beads worn as necklaces or bracelets, are considered by archaeologists as a key sign of sophisticated symbolic behavior, communicating either membership in a group or individual identity. Such ornaments are ubiquitous in so-called Upper Paleolithic sites in Europe beginning about 40,000 years ago, where they were made from many different materials - animal and human teeth, bone and ivory, stone, and mollusk shells - and often varied widely among regions and sites.

Even more ancient personal ornaments go back to at least 100,000 years ago in Africa and the Near East. But this earlier jewelry seems less variable and was nearly always made from mollusk shells. So some archaeologists have questioned whether these earlier ornaments played the same symbolic roles as the later ones, or even whether they were made by humans at all.
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Gem

First evidence of a Viking-like 'Sunstone' found

Megan Gannon
LiveScience
Wed, 06 Mar 2013 16:50 UTC
Viking Stone
© Alderney Museum
Researchers say this crystal found at the Alderney shipwreck near the Channel Islands could prove fabled Viking sunstones really did exist.
Ancient lore has suggested that the Vikings used special crystals as optical compasses to find their way under less than sunny skies. Though none of these so-called "sunstones" have ever been found at Viking archaeological sites, a crystal uncovered in a British shipwreck could prove they did indeed exist, researchers say.

Divers recently found the rhombohedral crystal amongst the wreckage of the Alderney, an Elizabethan ship that sank near the Channel Islands in 1592. The stone was next to a pair of navigation dividers, suggesting it may have been kept with the ship's other navigational tools, according to the research team headed by scientists at the University of Rennes.

A chemical analysis confirmed that the stone was Icelandic Spar, or calcite crystal, believed to be the Vikings' mineral of choice for their fabled sunstones, mentioned in the 13th century Viking saga of Saint Olaf.
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Info

Wealthy ancient Egyptians suffered disease

Stephanie Pappas
LiveScience
Wed, 06 Mar 2013 13:36 UTC
Ancient Skulls
© Miguel Botella Lopez
Two skulls excavated from the Qubbet el-Hawa necropolis in Egypt.
Even the best-off ancient Egyptians suffered from malnutrition and preventable disease, a new analysis of mummies and skeletons finds.

The bodies come from the Qubbet el-Hawa necropolis, which is near the modern city of Aswan in southern Egypt. Constructed in the 12th dynasty (between 1939 B.C. and 1760 B.C.) and re-used in later periods, the necropolis contains remains of people from across the social spectrum.

An analysis of more than 200 of these bodies, which has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, finds that wealth did not necessarily buy health in ancient Egypt.
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Clock

The discarded infants of ancient Poggio Civitate horrify, provoke and fascinate 2,500 years later


Physorg
Wed, 06 Mar 2013 10:02 UTC
Image
© Unknown
More than 2,500 years after tiny infant bones were scattered, perhaps offhandedly, amid animal remains on the floor of an Etruscan workshop, recently-discovered fragments of those bones are causing a stir far beyond Italy's Poggio Civitate Archaeological Project.

University of Massachusetts Amherst archaeologist Anthony Tuck recently told an Archaeological Institute America annual meeting in Seattle that the bones discovered in the ancient Etruscan town of Poggio Civitate were "simply either left on the floor of the workshop or ended up in an area with a heavy concentration of other discarded remains of butchered animals."

It is an image that has, in ensuing weeks, resonated powerfully, if not always accurately, in the international press as everyone from religious fundamentalists to luridly invasive tabloids has scrambled to assemble narratives for the baby bones that might be either more or less appalling to modern sensibilities - narratives, notes Tuck, that tell us more about ourselves than they do about perinatal death in ancient Italy.

"Romans may have dumped remains of dead kids with their rubbish," screamed an Asian News International headline; "Grisly discoveries reveal unsympathetic attitudes," wrote a Daily Mail reporter. Other news outlets placed the excavated site on a timeline that might have associated it either with BCE cave dwellers or alternatively in the path of seventh century CE invaders.
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Boat

Shipwreck may contain near-mythical Viking navigation aid


Raw Story
Tue, 05 Mar 2013 09:06 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo
An oblong crystal found in the wreck of a 16th-century English warship is a sunstone, a near-mythical navigational aid said to have been used by Viking mariners, researchers said on Wednesday.

The stone is made of Iceland spar, a transparent, naturally-occurring calcite crystal that polarises light and can get a bearing on the Sun, they said.

It was found in the remains of a ship that had been dispatched to France in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I as a precaution against a second Spanish Armada but foundered off the island of Alderney, in the Channel.

British and French scientists have long argued that the find is a sunstone - a device that fractures the light, enabling seafarers to locate the Sun even when it is behind clouds or has dipped below the horizon.

Sunstones, according to a theory first aired 45 years ago, helped the great Norse mariners to navigate their way to Iceland and even perhaps as far as North America during the Viking heyday of 900-1200 AD, way before the magnetic compass was introduced in Europe in the 13th century.

But there is only a sketchy reference in ancient Norse literature to a "solarsteinn," which means the idea has remained frustratingly without solid proof.
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Megalithic stone circles found on Male Mahadeshwara Hills, India


The Hindu
Mon, 04 Mar 2013 15:27 UTC
Stone Circles
© The Hindu
A megalithic stone circle dating back to about 800 B.C. found at Mari Kote in MM hill ranges in Chamarajanagar district.
Over 20 megalithic stone circles dating back to about 800 BC were discovered at Male Mahadeshwara Hills in Chamarajanagar district, according to T. Murugeshi, Associate Professor in the Department of Ancient History and Archaeology, MSRS College, Shirva.

In a press release issued here, Mr. Murugeshi said that Megalithic Culture or Iron Age has been considered as a formative period in the South Indian history.

He said that he had gone with R. Gopal, Director of State Archaeology, Mysore, on a survey of a deserted temple at Alambady on the right bank of River Cauvery on the Male Mahadeshwara (MM) Hills near Gopinathapuram in Kollegal taluk of Chamarajanagar district on February 27.

They had gone on a survey of the temple on a request by Pattada Immdi Mahadeva Swami of Saluru Bruhan Math.
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Info

Hindenburg mystery solved after 76 years

Jonathan Owen
The Independent, UK
Sun, 03 Mar 2013 15:04 UTC
Hindenburg
© The Independent, UK
The dream was a fleet of hydrogen-filled airships criss-crossing the globe, silvered hulls shining in the sunlight. And for a while the fantasy became reality, For the Hindenburg was the Concorde of its day - able to cross the Atlantic in about three days, twice as fast as going by sea.

With nearly 100 on board, the 245m airship was preparing to land at Lakehurst, New Jersey, on 6 May 1937, when the age of airship travel ended. In front of horrified onlookers, the Hindenburg exploded and plunged to the ground in flames. Thirty-five of those on board died.

Now, 76 years later, a team of experts claims to have solved one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century: the real cause of the Hindenburg air disaster. And they name static electricity as the culprit.

Led by a British aeronautical engineer, Jem Stansfield, and based at the South West Research Institute in the US, the team blew up or set fire to scale models more than 24m long, in an attempt to rule out theories ranging from a bomb planted by a terrorist to explosive properties in the paint used to coat the Hindenburg.
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Sherlock

Was King Richard III a psychopath or a control freak?

Mark Lansdale
University of Leicester
Mon, 04 Mar 2013 13:19 UTC
Image
© wikipedia.org
University of Leicester psychologists believe Richard III was not a psychopath -- but he may have had control freak tendencies.

University of Leicester psychologists have made an analysis of Richard III's character - aiming to get to the man behind the bones.

Professor Mark Lansdale, Head of the University's School of Psychology, and forensic psychologist Dr Julian Boon have put together a psychological analysis of Richard III based on the consensus among historians relating to Richard's experiences and actions.

They found that, while there was no evidence for Shakespeare's depiction of Richard III as a psychopath, he may have had "intolerance to uncertainty syndrome" - which may have manifested in control freak tendencies.

The academics presented their findings on Saturday, March 2 at the University of Leicester.

Their analysis aims to humanise Richard - to flesh out the bones and get to the character of the man who became one of the most controversial kings in English history.
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Cheeseburger

Most ancient Romans ate like 'animals': study


The Indian Express
Sun, 03 Mar 2013 19:13 UTC
Ancient Romans
© Associated Press
Ancient Romans are known for their sumptuous feasts, but according to a new study, an incredible 98 per cent commoners ate food that was seen fit only for animals.
Ancient Romans are known for their sumptuous feasts, but according to a new study, an incredible 98 per cent commoners ate food that was seen fit only for animals.

Romans are known for eating well, with mosaics from the empire portraying sumptuous displays of fruits, vegetables, cakes - and, of course, wine.

However, common people ate millet, a grain looked down upon by the wealthy as fit only for livestock, according to a new study published in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology.

Researchers said the consumption of millet may have been linked to overall social status, with relatively poorer suburbanites eating more of the grain than did wealthier city dwellers.

The results come from an analysis of anonymous skeletons in the ancient city's cemeteries, 'LiveScience' reported.

"We don't know anything about their lives, which is why we're trying to use biochemical analysis to study them," said study leader Kristina Killgrove, an anthropologist at the University of West Florida.
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Butterfly

Ice-age flute found in Germany one of oldest instruments discovered

Tom Service
The Guardian
Fri, 15 Feb 2013 20:29 UTC
Image

Bone flute from Hohle Fels with an enlarged image of the finger holes.
With its jaw-dropping sculptures and carvings of bulbous women and half-human animals, the British Museum's Ice Age Art exhibition is a sublime reminder of the fact that the creativity of homo sapiens predates what we tend to think of as the dawn of civilisation. But for me, the most moving object in the show is one of the least obviously beautiful: a long, thin flute made from the wing-bone of a griffon vulture. Found in the Hohle Fels cave in south-west Germany, it could be 40,000 years old, making it one of the oldest instruments ever discovered. What's so striking about this ancient wind instrument is how familiar it looks. It's basically an ice age penny whistle: anyone can see it's a tool for making music, with its five finger-holes and a V-shaped notch at one end, through which a prehistoric musician would have blown.

The sounds it makes are strikingly familiar, too. We know this thanks to Wulf Hein, an "experimental archeologist" who made a replica of the instrument - and can be seen on YouTube, dressed in animal skins, using it to play The Star-Spangled Banner. (You will already be familiar with this fascinating figure if you've seen Werner Herzog's 2010 movie Cave of Forgotten Dreams, about the shockingly contemporary-seeming art found in the Chauvet cave in southern France.) Hein shows that the notes the flute can play form the "pentatonic scale", the same scale that's the basis of so many tunes we know and love today. Hein will be on hand at the British Museum next month, to give a carving talk and demonstration, hopefully wearing his animal skins.
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