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Researchers discover oldest 'human ancestor' in central China

Pallab Ghosh
BBC News
Mon, 30 Jan 2017 11:26 UTC
Artist reconstruction of Saccorhytus
© Cambridge UniversityArtist’s reconstruction of Saccorhytus coronarius, based on the original fossil finds. The actual creature was probably no more than a millimetre in size.
Researchers have discovered the earliest known ancestor of humans - along with a vast range of other species.

They say that fossilised traces of the 540-million-year-old creature are "exquisitely well preserved".
The microscopic sea animal is the earliest known step on the evolutionary path that led to fish and - eventually - to humans. Details of the discovery from central China appear in Nature journal.

The research team says that Saccorhytus is the most primitive example of a category of animals called "deuterostomes" which are common ancestors of a broad range of species, including vertebrates (backboned animals).

Saccorhytus was about a millimetre in size, and is thought to have lived between grains of sand on the sea bed. The researchers were unable to find any evidence that the animal had an anus, which suggests that it consumed food and excreted from the same orifice.

Saccorhytus
© Jian Han/Northwest University, ChinaSaccorhytus was also covered with a thin, relatively flexible skin and muscles. It probably moved around by wriggling.
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LIDAR scan detects ancient Mayan highways


Seeker
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 12:42 UTC
LIDAR Image
© FARES 2016LiDAR-derived images accurately portrayed structures and a network of 17 roads.
An ancient network of roads that stretched over 150 miles has been discovered in the jungle of Guatemala, according to high-tech scanning carried out in the area.

Used by the Maya for travel and transporting goods, the causeways were identified in the Mirador Basin, which lies in the far northern Petén region of Guatemala, within the largest tract of virgin tropical forest remaining in Central America.

Also known as the Kan Kingdom, El Mirador is considered the cradle of Mayan civilization. Prior to its abandonment in 150 A.D., it was the largest city-state in the world both in size — 833 square miles — and population. It boasted the largest known pyramid in Central America, and was home to at least one million people.

Researchers have known about the presence of these roads since 1967, when British Mayanist Ian Graham published a map of Mirador showing causeways crossing the swamp regions. Now laser-based remote sensing has been used to map the area, providing new insights into the massive system of superhighways.

The Light Detection and Ranging tool, known as LiDAR, is capable of penetrating the thick jungle vegetation at a rate of 560,000 dots per second, producing detailed images that mimic a 3-D view of the scanned areas.

"LiDAR uses laser pulses that bounce from the Earth's surface through leaves and back to a computer mounted in a plane," said Arlen Chase, an archaeologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who is working on the project. "While most people felt the technology would not be successful based on past experiments in Central America, we became convinced by 2006 that it could be used to determine what was on the ground in terms of Maya sites under the jungle canopy."
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Clipboard

Poland publishes detailed list of Auschwitz SS guards online


RT
Mon, 30 Jan 2017 19:53 UTC
Photos of the Auschwitz-Birkenau staff featured in the database
© pamiec.plPhotos of the Auschwitz-Birkenau staff featured in the database
The names of over 8,500 SS personnel who served at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the deadliest of the Nazi concentration camps, have been published, following decades of dogged research by a Polish academic. The vast majority of those on the list avoided formal prosecution.

"Today is a historic day, but this is just the beginning," said Jaroslaw Szarek, of the Institute of National Remembrance, a government-funded organization dedicated to investigating historical crimes. "We start with Auschwitz, but we will expand the database to other concentration camps."

Established near Poland's southwestern border in 1940, by the time of its liberation by the Soviets on January 27, 1945 - which is now marked as Holocaust Remembrance Day - the sprawling complex consisted of three main camps and about 40 separate sub-camps. An estimated 1 million Jews, 75,000 Poles, 20,000 Roma and 15,000 Soviet prisoners were exterminated there, the majority in the gas chambers.

More than 4,500 members of the SS were at the camp when it was captured, but the number working through the conflict was greater. Next to the name of each member of staff in the database is their time of service, a photograph, if available, and a summary of the judicial measures taken against them in the aftermath of the war. In the future, the authors plan to verify and add a description of the roles the listed men had in the camp.

The names are largely the result of the work of Aleksander Lasik, who began building the database as a student in 1982, and has since tallied 25,000 members of staff who serviced the Nazi camps located in Poland, using mostly Polish, German and American archives.
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Heart - Black

Why do the British hate the Russians? A brief history of 500 years of anti-Russian propaganda

Nikolai Gorshkov
Sputnik
Fri, 12 Aug 2016 21:51 UTC
anti-russia propaganda
British political magazine, 19th century: 'Running amuck' - the perennial 'Russian savage and threat to global order and peace'. Why do the Brits hate Russia so?
The latest spate of allegations by western media and politicians about Russian propaganda is nothing new. The UK Cabinet files from 1980s just released by National Archives in London reveal the British establishment's obsession with a propaganda war against Moscow.

Ministers were worried over "the confused state of British public opinion (America seen as a great a threat to peace as Russia)" and "a strong strain of anti-Reagan and anti-American sentiment". They put this down to "Soviet propaganda" and the gullibility of the British public.
thatcher russia
© Sputnik/National ArchivesMemo addressed to Margaret Thatcher
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Gift 3

Gifted to Empress Catherine the Great, the Peacock Clock is the only large example of 18th century robotics that has survived unaltered


The Vintage News
Sat, 14 Jan 2017 00:00 UTC
Peacock clock
The Peacock Clock is a large automaton featuring three life-sized mechanical birds manufactured in London by the British entrepreneur James Cox in the 1770s.

It began under the commission of Grigory Potemkin, who wanted to give it to Catherine the Great. The history of the Hermitage's Peacock Clock begins in 1777 when the Duchess of Kingston came to St. Petersburg. Grigory Potemkin learned from the Duchess about James Cox, the most famous creator of the mechanisms in the second half of the 18th century.

Knowing the passion of Catherine II for collecting, the Prince commissioned the celebrated craftsman to make a monumental automaton with a clock for the Empress's Hermitage. Cox invited Friedrich Urey, a German craftsman who had settled in London, to work with him on this order.
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Sherlock

Cambridge archaeologists unearth 25 'perfectly preserved' skeletons from medieval Augustinian friary - and there could be many more

Abigale Beall
Daily Mail UK
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 15:24 UTC
augstinian friar
The newly discovered skeletons were found in the university's New Museums site.
More than 25 skeletons have been discovered in the centre of the Cambridge University campus, and archaeologists expect to discover dozens or more in the coming weeks. The remains date back to a friary, based in the area between 1290 and 1538. Despite being nearly 450 years old, the Medieval skeletons are in good condition, the archaeologists said.

The archaeology project started with the discovery of around 400 skeletons in 2010 at a burial site nearby. Containing about 1,300 burials, including about 400 complete skeletons, it was found as part of the refurbishment of a Victorian building.

The newly discovered skeletons were found in the university's New Museums site, which contains the David Attenborough building and the Museum of Zoology, and is set to undergo a major renovation, the BBC reported.

Additional images
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Video

Previously unseen photographs of Stalin's Russia revealed by US historian


RT
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 00:02 UTC
Photograph from Martin Manhoff archive of Stalin's Russia
© Douglas Smith / Facebook
An American historian has discovered what he calls a "unique visual archive" of life in the Soviet Union in the 1950s, in the home of a former US diplomat. Photograph from Martin Manhoff archive of Russia during Stalin, used with the permission of Douglas Smith / Facebook

Some 1,000 color photographs taken on the streets of cities all across Russia, including Moscow, St. Petersburg (then Leningrad), Murmansk in the north and Yalta in the south were found by Douglas Smith in the archives of late Army Major Martin Manhoff.

Manhoff, who served in the US embassy in Moscow between 1952 and 1954, apparently liked to travel and capture the life of ordinary people in the USSR.

He was expelled from the country on charges of espionage, Smith said, adding that the diverse archive of films and color slides had remained unseen for over half a century.
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Info

Ancient figures from Ghana reveal trading routes of prehistoric African civilisation


The Archaeology News Network
Tue, 24 Jan 2017 18:00 UTC
Figurine from Northern Ghana
© University of ManchesterFigurine from Northern Ghana.
Researchers from The University of Manchester have completed the very first biological analysis of ancient terracotta figurines found in Ghana, which were created by an unknown civilisation and have become iconic representations of prehistoric African art.

The items were found in Northern Ghana's Koma Land region by Prof. Ben Kankpeyeng and Dr. Samuel Nkumbaan (The University of Ghana). Prof. Timothy Insoll, (formerly at The University of Manchester, now at The University of Exeter), and Dr. Natalie J. Swanepoel of the University of South Africa joined the research in 2010 and 2011 during which some of the figurines were recovered. Many of the figurines are thought to represent ancestral figures or animals, and they reveal the clothing, hairstyles and weapons favoured by the ancient culture.

The hundreds of figurines excavated so far suggest a high level of ritual activity at the site. Some of the figurines contain hollow cavities, which the researchers believe substances were poured into during these rituals.
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Nuke

CIA declassified files: US and Soviet nuclear sub crash off Scotland 'almost sparked global war'


RT
Wed, 25 Jan 2017 14:21 UTC
USS James Madison submarine
© US Navy / Wikipedia
Newly declassified CIA files indicate that a US submarine laden with 160 warheads collided with a Soviet vessel off the coast of Scotland in 1974. Experts say it could easily have caused nuclear war.

The files seem to confirm the long-rumored Cold War incident occurred near Holy Loch, Argyll, where the US once had a permanent nuclear base. Chillingly, the crash took place just 30 miles (48km) off the coast of Glasgow.

While the US never officially confirmed the crash had taken place, the documents show it was reported at the highest levels at the time in a memo to Henry Kissinger - then secretary of state to President Gerald Ford - on November 3, 1974.
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Dig

Archaeologists say Jersey was Neanderthal vacation hot spot


Sputnik
Wed, 25 Jan 2017 06:12 UTC
Archaeologists Say Jersey Was Neanderthal Vacation Hot Spot
© Flickr/ Erich Ferdinand
Archaeologists exploring the island of Jersey, off the coast of Normandy, France, have discovered that Neanderthals were regular guests at La Cotte de St Brelade, despite a vastly-changing climate and an altering landscape.


Comment: See also:

Newly-found evidence suggests that the ancient people regularly returned to a coastal cave on the island, beginning at least 180,000 years ago, until around 40,000 years ago, when they became extinct.

A recent study conducted by archaeologists from Southampton University, along with researchers from other British universities and the British Museum, has increased our understanding of how our ancestors used available resources at the prehistoric site, mapping their movements by re-examining artefacts excavated from the cave.

Comment: See also:

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