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Maori cannibalism widespread but ignored, academic says


Stuff
Fri, 30 Jan 2009 20:38 UTC
A cannibal feast on Tanna
© Bonhams
Maori cannibalism was widespread throughout New Zealand until the mid 1800s but has largely been ignored in history books, says the author of a new book released this week.

Paul Moon said his new book, This Horrid Practice, looked at the Maori tradition of eating each other in what was a particularly violent society before Europeans arrived in New Zealand.

Cannibalism lasted for several hundred years until the 1830s although there were a few isolated cases after that, said Professor Moon, a Pakeha history professor at Te Ara Poutama, the Maori Development Unit at the Auckland University of Technology.

He also said infanticide was also widely practised because tribes wanted men to be warriors and mothers often killed their female daughters by smothering them or pushing a finger through the soft tissue of the skull to kill them immediately.
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16,000-year-old skeleton, crystals and stone tools discovered in Malaysian caves

Tom Metcalfe
Live Science
Tue, 10 Sep 2024 14:30 UTC
Archaeologists think the earliest skeleton from the Malaysian excavation may be up to 16,000 years old.
Gua Chalan site
© Z. Ramli/Nenggiri Valley Rescue ExcavationsThese two ancient skeletons buried at the Gua Chalan site were discovered by archaeologists excavating a limestone cave there before it is flooded by a hydroelectric lake.
Archaeologists investigating caves in Malaysia ahead of their flooding for a hydroelectric reservoir have discovered more than a dozen prehistoric burials they think are up to 16,000 years old.

The caves, in the remote Nenggiri Valley about 135 miles (215 kilometers) north of Kuala Lumpur, will be underwater if the reservoir fills as planned in mid-2027, creating a 20-square-mile (53 square km) lake to feed a 300-megawatt hydroelectric power station.

Zuliskandar Ramli, an archaeologist at the National University of Malaysia, told Live Science that most of the skeletons seemed to be from the pre-Neolithic culture of the region.

Some scholars suggest this was a branch of the hunter-gatherer Hoabinhian culture, who made distinctive stone tools found in other parts of Southeast Asia, from southwest China to Indonesia. Scientists also think the Hoabinhian peoples used many wild plants — including pepper, broad beans and betel nut — that are domesticated in the region today.

Ramli, who led the excavations at the Nenggiri Valley, said his team had found a total of 16 individuals buried in 13 limestone caves at four sites.
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Bullseye

The real barbarians: How the French and British 'civilized' Africa

Maxwell Boamah Amofa
RT
Sun, 08 Sep 2024 09:44 UTC
africans carrying stuff
© Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images
Both colonizers, despite their differences, aimed at squeezing profit for their imperial centers.

The colonial footprints in Africa paint a bitter picture of socioeconomic exploitation and political repression, and at its heart are Britain and France. These countries operated different complex yet similar systems of colonial governance. To this end, unmasking their colonial games is necessary for a better understanding of how this complex chain of mechanisms impact the continent today.

Britain's web

The 15th and 16th century marked an influx of colonial powers to Africa. By the early 16th century, the British under Queen Elizabeth I had deployed its 'sea dogs' (a group of notorious pirates) led by John Hawkins, whose duty initially was to attack and loot Spanish ships sent to Africa.

By 1564, the gang had changed its focus to capturing and selling Africans as slaves to the West Indies to work on plantations, the final products of which were sent to Britain in a triangular form of trade - a system of trade which became known as the transatlantic slave trade.
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Cross

From Jesus to Nyerere: Africa's fight against Western spiritual colonialism

Moussa Ibrahim
RT
Thu, 05 Sep 2024 10:37 UTC
church guy
© Minasse Wondimu Hailu/Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesEthiopian Orthodox Christians attend the Timkat celebrations at Medhane Alem Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia • January 18, 2021
The future of Christian churches on the continent depends on the ability to develop an authentic African Christianity, moving away from its Westernized forms.

In May 2024, the United Methodist Church (UMC) held its General Conference in North Carolina in the US, where a controversial vote was passed to end a ban on openly practicing homosexual clergy. The conference was marred by controversy, as a large proportion of the African delegates, known for their opposition to this inclusion, were unable to obtain visas due to late invitations - a situation the African clergy had warned about in advance.

African congregations, deeply rooted in values such as family cohesion and the teachings of early African Christian missionaries, expressed strong opposition to the decision. In response, the entire UMC branch in Ivory Coast, representing nearly 1 million members, announced its departure from the denomination - a move that received scant attention in American UMC media. Now, other African branches of the UMC (South Africa, the Republic of the Congo, DRC, Zimbabwe, Ghana, and Nigeria) are contemplating similar actions, though financial constraints (as most funding comes from the US) and the UMC's power structures pose significant challenges to their potential exits.

Christianity in Africa is as old as the religion itself. From the earliest days of the faith, Africa has played a pivotal role in the development and spread of Christianity. Yet today, many African Christians find themselves practicing a version of the faith that is largely divorced from its historical roots on the continent. This modern, Westernized Christianity often comes with a set of values, practices, and power structures that are alien to Africa's spiritual and cultural identity. It is high time we recognize the importance of developing and supporting an authentically African Christianity - one that is rooted in our own history, values, and aspirations.
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Better Earth

Matching dinosaur footprints found on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean


Southern Methodist University
Fri, 23 Aug 2024 17:21 UTC
dinosaur
© Ismar de Souza Carvalho.A long ornithopod trackway at Passagem das Pedra, Sousa Basin preserved in floodplain deposits of Lower Cretaceous. An international team of researchers led by SMU paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs has found matching sets of Early Cretaceous dinosaur footprints on what are now two different continents.
An international team of researchers led by SMU paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs has found matching sets of Early Cretaceous dinosaur footprints on what are now two different continents.

More than 260 footprints were discovered in Brazil and in Cameroon, showing where land-dwelling dinosaurs were last able to freely cross between South America and Africa millions of years ago before the two continents split apart.

"We determined that in terms of age, these footprints were similar," Jacobs said. "In their geological and plate tectonic contexts, they were also similar. In terms of their shapes, they are almost identical."

Comment: One might recall the following find: Gigantic dinosaur footprints are found on the roof of a cave
The tracks were made 166 million to 168 million years ago, when three dinosaurs traversed the shoreline of a sea. The site was then at the planet's surface, but geological processes have buried and tilted the sediments, and the prints are now on the cave's roof, 500 metres underground.

Dinosaur footprints have often been discovered in mines and railway tunnels, but they are rarely found in natural caverns.
See also:

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Colosseum

1,700-year-old 'barbarian' burial discovered along Roman Empire's frontier in Germany

Tom Metcalfe
Live Science
Sat, 07 Sep 2024 16:43 UTC
Archaeologists think the man was buried in the first half of the fourth century.
barbarian
© Yvonne Mühleis/State Office for the Preservation of Monuments, Stuttgart Regional CouncilThe grave goods of the "barbarian" included this intricate comb, which has been sent to a nearby laboratory for cleaning and restoration.
Archaeologists in Germany have discovered the 1,700-year-old burial of a "barbarian" who lived on the edge of the Roman Empire and was given valuable grave goods, including glassware, pottery and a fine-tooth comb.

The grave, which is thought to date to the first half of the fourth century, holds the remains of a man who died at around age 60. It was found in May during excavations ahead of the construction of new homes in the center of the village of Gerstetten, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) east of the city of Stuttgart in southwest Germany, according to a translated statement from the Stuttgart Regional Council.

The grave was elaborately built and enclosed by a wooden chamber, and it was situated in a solitary but prominent location, the statement said.

Comment: This find is of particular interest because, as noted in Ancient DNA sheds light on the genetic diversity of post-Roman elites, the period of the collapse and what followed is not well understood:
"When the Roman Empire collapsed, we did not really know much about how new communities formed, yet many of these communities would go on to be the basis for modern European countries,"
See also:

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New studies confirm that there was indeed a shipyard at Lothal, the commercial center of the Harappan civilization and world's oldest port

Leman Altuntaş
Arkeonews Net
Fri, 06 Sep 2024 17:09 UTC
The site of the dockyard at Lothal, Gujarat
© Harappa.comThe site of the dockyard at Lothal, Gujarat, during the Harappan or Indus Valley Civilisation.
Since the discovery of Harappan sites at Lothal, located about 30 kilometers inland from the coast of the Gulf of Khambhat in Gujarat, India, in the 1950s, archaeologists have been divided on whether a dockyard existed at the location during the Indus Valley Civilisation.

This may now change as a new study by the Indian Institute of Technology-Gandhinagar (IITGn) has found fresh evidence that can confirm the dockyard's existence. This pioneering research reveals fresh insights into how the region's hydrography shaped ancient trade and cultural interactions.

Harappan civilization, also known as the Indus Valley Civilisation or Indus civilization, is the earliest known urban culture of the Indian subcontinent. The dates of the Civilisation appear to be about 2500-1700 BCE, though the southern sites may have lasted later into the 2nd millennium BCE. Among the world's three earliest civilizations — the other two are those of Mesopotamia and Egypt — the Indus Civilisation was the most extensive.

As an anomaly in the overall pattern of Harappan settlements, Lothal is situated in the southernmost part of this civilization. Around 2500 BCE, it is thought that indigenous groups of craftsmen and traders with strong ties to the Sindh and Kachchh regions started to occupy Lothal. The Harappans occupied Lothal over the course of the following two or three centuries, building a planned settlement with new industries and increased trade.

Also, Lothal is best known for its well-preserved brick dock and its warehouse, though the hypothesis that this structure served as a dockyard has been the subject of debate in the archaeological literature.

Artifacts of foreign origin found in Lothal confirm its intercultural trade relationships with other civilizations.
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Dollars

Flashback Anglo-American money masters as the organizers of the Second World War

Valentin Katasonov
Strategic Culture Foundation
Sun, 03 May 2015 00:00 UTC
Anglo-American flag
© Unknown
The initiative to start the Second World War did not belong to the "possessed Fuhrer", who supposedly by chance found himself at the helm of power in Germany. The Second World War is a project of the global financial oligarchy, the Anglo-American masters of money. It was they, relying on institutions such as the US Federal Reserve System and the Bank of England, who immediately after the end of the First World War began preparing for the next armed conflict on a global scale. And the plan for a new war was directed against the USSR.

Important milestones in this preparation were the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan, the creation of the Bank for International Settlements, Germany's announcement of the cessation of reparation payments under the Paris Peace Treaty and the tacit consent of Russia's former allies with this decision, powerful infusions of foreign investment and loans into the economy of the Third Reich, the militarization of the German economy in violation of the terms of the Paris Peace Treaty.

Comment:
1) The article has one link, but was published in two articles with different links:
03.05.2015 Англо-американские хозяева денег как организаторы Второй мировой войны (I)
04.05.2015 Англо-американские хозяева денег как организаторы Второй мировой войны (II)

2) The recent article Downfall: the empire's destiny includes a few paragraphs that can connect to this article, What happened preparation for WWII is a pattern that has been tried before.
During the 19th century, US economy endured three major financial crashes: in 1837, 1857, and in 1873. Each crash triggered major economic depressions with mass-scale culling of smaller banks and other businesses. The collapse enabled the ruling oligarchy to consolidate monopolies over all the key industries.
It would appear that the sequence of booms and busts followed by major wars is a feature of Western-style "free market capitalist economy." How and why this happens is never properly explained nor understood, but somehow, it's become our normal. Where explanations should be sought and offered we get shrugs and blank stares: "It's complicated..."

Sure. It's complicated, so let's not try too hard to understand it. Keep calm and carry on: get into debt, mortgage your property, enjoy some temporary prosperity, then struggle and go bankrupt. Then you may get to send your sons off to war. They'll tell you which enemy to hate and you may resign yourself to the unfolding dystopia. We've always been at war with Eurasia. What could you possibly do?
3) More confirmation can sometimes be gleaned from studying the Wikies of some of the main characters mentioned in the article.

American bankers
Gates McGarrah
Thomas Harrington McKittrick
Leon Fraser (Wikispooks) says that committed suicide, under odd circumstances, in April 1945. This announcement in the New York Times from February 16, 1935, "QUITS WORLD BANK FOR FIRST NATIONAL; Leon Fraser, 45, Head of International Body, Elected to Vice Presidency Here." So Fraser was the head for two years. The Wikispooks entry has a reference, which leads to a digital copy of Drew Pearson on The Washington Merry-Go-Round (April 13, 1945)
Drew Pearson
Drew Pearson on Leon Fraser
Would the views, and the testimony of Leon Fraser have been an impediment to the promotion of the Post World War II narrative?

British banker, British politicians
Montagu Norman, 1st Baron Norman
Neville Chamberlain
John Simon, 1st Viscount Simon

German Bankers
Kurt Freiherr von Schröder (German Wiki)
Emil Puhl (German Wiki, there is an English Wiki, but the German is more informative.)
Walther Funk
Hjalmar Schacht but the German Wiki has other details
The Wiki portrays him as a more nuanced character than the author of the article, for instance it is not mentioned that he was sent to a concentration camp, if translated, there is:
He was Reichsbank President from 1923 to 1930 and from March 1933 to January 1939 and Reich Minister of Economic Affairs from 1934 to 1937. He later fell out of favor with the regime and was deported to concentration camps because of his contact with the resistance against National Socialism.

Schacht was one of the 24 leaders of the National Socialist regime accused in the Nuremberg trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Tribunal. He was acquitted of all charges on October 1, 1946.
German banks and companies
Reichsbank, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, Donat Bank (Probably: Danat Bank),
IG Farben (German company formed in 1925:
It was seized by the Allies after World War II and split into its constituent companies; parts in East Germany were nationalized.[a]

IG Farben was once the largest company in Europe and the largest chemical and pharmaceutical company in the world.[4] IG Farben scientists made fundamental contributions to all areas of chemistry and the pharmaceutical industry.
Central banks, private banks, plans and institutions
Bank of England, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Dawes Plan, Young Plan
Bank of International Settlements
Bretton Woods system this entry connects to the situation that was established after WWII and which paved the ground for US hegemony.
The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial relations among the United States, Canada, Western European countries, and Australia as well as 44 other countries[1] after the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement. The Bretton Woods system was the first example of a fully negotiated monetary order intended to govern monetary relations among independent states. The Bretton Woods system required countries to guarantee convertibility of their currencies into U.S. dollars to within 1% of fixed parity rates, with the dollar convertible to gold bullion for foreign governments and central banks at US$35 per troy ounce of fine gold (or 0.88867 gram fine gold per dollar). It also envisioned greater cooperation among countries in order to prevent future competitive devaluations, and thus established the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to monitor exchange rates and lend reserve currencies to nations with balance of payments deficits.[2]

Preparing to rebuild the international economic system while World War II was still being fought, 730 delegates from all 44 Allied nations gathered at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, for the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, also known as the Bretton Woods Conference. The delegates deliberated from 1 to 22 July 1944, and signed the Bretton Woods agreement on its final day. Setting up a system of rules, institutions, and procedures to regulate the international monetary system, these accords established the IMF and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), which today is part of the World Bank Group. The United States, which controlled two-thirds of the world's gold, insisted that the Bretton Woods system rest on both gold and the US dollar. Soviet representatives attended the conference but later declined to ratify the final agreements, charging that the institutions they had created were "branches of Wall Street".[3] These organizations became operational in 1945 after a sufficient number of countries had ratified the agreement. According to Barry Eichengreen, the Bretton Woods system operated successfully due to three factors: "low international capital mobility, tight financial regulation, and the dominant economic and financial position of the United States and the dollar."[4]

On 15 August 1971, the United States "temporarily" suspended the convertibility of the US dollar to gold, effectively bringing the Bretton Woods system to an end and rendering the dollar a fiat currency.[5] Shortly thereafter, many fixed currencies (such as the pound sterling) also became free-floating,[6] and the subsequent era has been characterized by floating exchange rates.[7] The end of Bretton Woods was formally ratified by the Jamaica Accords in 1976.

In 1973, Nixon and secretary of state Henry Kissinger made a secret deal with Saudi Arabia to trade oil only in US dollars, thus pegging the US dollar to oil and birthing the petrodollar.[8]
It was said above that the Soviet Union is mention, its position was that 'the institutions they had created were "branches of Wall Street"' however,American Bankers also played role in the Russian Revolution:
SOTT Focus: MindMatters: Wall Street and the Russian Revolution, with Richard B. Spence
On SOTT, there are a few articles about the Bretton Woods agreement and its consequences, though more could be found if one refines the search to include summary and text. Here are four of five title with "Bretton Woods": Elements in the pre WWII situation can also be found today.

4) There is much missing from a short retelling that reduces history to economics and money owners, though it is part of the picture. There is another side, introduced in this article and the associated video:
Hyperdimensional Realities: The Most Dangerous Idea in the World, Explained by Laura Knight-Jadczyk
"If you think the government is hiding things about aliens, you're only scratching the surface of the mystery."

"We're not dealing with little green men or flying saucers. We're dealing with phenomena that challenge our very notions of reality." - Laura Knight-Jadczyk


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Astronomers discover oldest known eclipse reference in 6,000-year-old Hindu text

Paul Sutter
Space.com
Tue, 03 Sep 2024 16:38 UTC
A flowery passage in a 6,000-year-old Hindu text may be the earliest known reference to a solar eclipse, describing the sun as being "pierced" with darkness and gloom and proposing that evil beings had caused the sun's "magic arts to vanish."
Solar Eclipse
© Kirby Lee / Contributor via Getty ImagesThe moon passes in front of the sun during a solar eclipse as seen from the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport on April 8, 2024 in Cleveland, Ohio.
When astronomers combed through an ancient Hindu text known as the Rig Veda, they discovered that it referenced a total solar eclipse that occurred roughly 6,000 years ago — making it the oldest known mention of an eclipse.

The Rig Veda, a collection of sayings and hymns from various religious and philosophical schools, was compiled around 1500 B.C. Like nearly all religious texts, it mentions historical events. Most are contemporary to when it was written, but some stretch back much further. For example, various passages in the Rig Veda mention the location of the rising sun during the vernal equinox. One reference describes the vernal equinox as occurring in Orion, and another has it occurring in the Pleiades.

These descriptions allow astronomers to date those references, because as Earth spins on its axis, it wobbles like a spinning top, changing the relative position of important astronomical events. Currently, the vernal equinox is in the constellation Pisces. It was in Orion around 4500 B.C. and in the Pleiades around 2230 B.C., meaning the Rig Veda recorded some memories of events far earlier than its compilation.
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Megalithic structure found in Kazakhstan

Oguz Buyukyildirim
Arkeonews Net
Mon, 02 Sep 2024 01:46 UTC
Structures in the Bronze Age Kazakhstan
© Sergey Yarygin et al.
Archaeologists investigating a megalithic monument in the Burabay district of the Akmola region of Kazakhstan have revealed that the monument may have been closely linked to gold mining activities in the region in the 2nd millennium BC and may possibly have been a place of worship for miners.

The results of the research were published by Dr. Sergey Yarygin and Dr. Sergazy Sakenov, researchers of the Margulan Archaeological Institute, and Zerrin Aydın Tavukçu, Associate Professor at Ataturk University in Türkiye.

The monument received the name Taskamal (from the Kazakh language "Stone fortress") from residents and tourists due to its monumentality and characteristic masonry of granite blocks.

The research focuses on recording the monument's architecture and understanding its cultural and chronological context, but it also provides important insights into the understanding of gold mining activities in the Late Bronze Age.

The Taskamal complex is home to some of the most remarkable architectural features, including a massive megalithic wall made of enormous granite blocks, an elevated platform in the center, two thoughtfully constructed access ramps, an external platform, several lithic stelae whose significance is yet to be unknown, and petroglyphs and reliefs that may hold important secrets about its purpose and cultural significance.
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