Archaeology News Headlines January 2014

The Morien Institute - The events of July 16th to 22nd 1994, when the remnants of a fragmenting comet, P/Shoemaker-Levy 9, bombarded the surface of Jupiter causing fireballs many times the size of our own planet, were an abrupt wake-up call even for those who were aware of them. The historical sciences generally, and Archaeology in particular, have collectively painted a picture of the past as if our planet stands alone in empty space. Nothing could be further from reality. Our resilient planet exists in a solar system that has experienced a very dynamic history over the past 20 to 30 millennia, and it is only from this wider solar system perspective that the true history of human civilisation will ever be fully understood. The Morien Institute archive therefore contains relevant material from many disciplines.

an image of a meteor flashing through the sky

Image of a revolving globe showing current sea levels since the last ice age, before which many ancient societies like Atlantis flourished all over planet Earth on what are now sunken lands.



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As we enter the 21st century technological advances are coming to the aid of scientists of all descriptions. But it will likely be the Marine Archaeologists, whose discoveries on the continental shelves that were once the coastal plains of the archaic world that will most significantly change our picture of the past. We cannot go on thinking of the past from the scant knowledge available to us from excavations of the remains of ancient peoples discovered solely on the dry land we now live on.


This dry land comprises around 29% of the total surface area of our planet and the remaining 71% is currently ocean. Over the last 17 years or so The Morien Institute has been carefully documenting as much information about new discoveries underwater as we can find, and The Morien Institute Marine Archaeology Archive gives just a glimpse of the many recent discoveries showing evidence of sometimes ‘vast coastal settlements’ that were inundated by rising seas in ancient times.


During the last Ice Age the ‘sea-levels were more than 300 feet lower than they are today’, and a wide band either side of the equator enjoyed a pleasant enough climate for human civilisation to have flourished in many parts of the world. When the sea levels rose as the ice sheets melted ‘many coastal settlements disappeared under the waves’ – forgotten except in the oral traditions of peoples in every land. These oral traditions represent an invaluable archive of knowledge from the archaic world, but they are almost always dismissed by academic archaeologists and prehistorians who have traditionally regarded them simply as ‘quaint myths’ which they collectively claimed have no bearing on reality.


But that is a very foolish perspective. What remains of the oral traditions of the many ancient societies that once developed on our planet must be preserved at all costs so that future peoples can study the wisdom of ancient peoples with an open mind that was sadly absent from past academic thinking. These oral traditions are now acknowledged as being the invaluable ‘Indigenous Knowledge’ of ancient peoples, and represent a collective understanding of the natural world that had developed through careful observation over countless millennia. Despite the scepticism expressed in some academic disciplines, we cannot afford to let this ancient knowledge die out simply because the supposed “experts” of today cannot understand it.


Neither can we continue to look at the prehistory of human societies and civilisations as if our planet somehow stands alone in empty space. Nothing could be further from reality. Our immediate solar system environment is more of a ‘cosmic shooting gallery’ than a vast expanse of emptiness, and a great body of evidence is building which shows that the environmental impact of encounters with comets, asteroids and cometary debris has been responsible for ‘the destruction of numerous ancient civilisations’ on several occasions in the archaic world over the past 10 to 20 millennia.


Alongside this our planet orbits a very dynamic star, which we call the Sun, and modern research is showing that our weather, and its long-term trends we refer to as our climate, is very much determined by its moods. Sometimes the sun is quiet, with few sunspots and few solar storms. At other times it is very active with many sunspots, many solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) of charged particles that impact our geomagnetic field with sometimes disastrous consequences for all organisms on Earth, including humans and their societies.


Many scientists are coming to realise that these strong, X-class CMEs can, and have had, catastrophic effects on our climate, abruptly ending Ice Ages and bringing with them solar radiation that can threaten all life on Earth. Exactly how many times this has happened in the past is unknown at present, but scientists are beginning to recognise their “fingerprints” in a variety of proxy data records, and in the near future we will know more for certain.


Throughout the last few hundred years, and quite probably before that, individual researchers ranging from the eccentric ‘Gentleman Antiquarians’ of the 17 & 1800s to the so-called ‘dissident professors’ of the 20th century have pursued lines of enquiry which has horrified general academia. Those individuals were ridiculed and their ideas vociferously opposed by academic archaeologists and prehistorians who had often invested a lifetime’s work in what the more honest amongst them might reluctantly admit in private company to have been a totally inaccurate view of human prehistory.


Theories that many ‘megalithic sites’ began life as some form of observatories acting as ‘early-warning systems’ for imminent impacts of cosmic debris from the break up of a giant comet have been emerging over the last 30-50 years or so. Evidence supporting these theories is helping not only to date some of these monuments, but also illustrates how well their builders were oriented in time and space. A new appreciation that our ancestors were acutely aware that the Earth orbited the Sun, and that it periodically encountered streams of cometary debris, suggests that ancient peoples understood the dynamics of the solar system to a far greater degree than has previously been acknowledged.


Dr. Duncan Steel, then of Spaceguard Australia, presented a paper to the Society for Inter-Disciplinary Studies conference at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, in July of 1997, in which he gave details of his research suggesting that the earlier ‘henge circle’ which preceded the stone circles at Stonehenge could have been deliberately constructed to function as a ‘cosmic impact early warning system’. His paper, “Before the Stones: Stonehenge I as a Cometary Catastrophe Predictor” makes for interesting reading for all serious students of ancient astronomy, astro-archaeology, archaeoastronomy and prehistory.


The Cambridge Conference focussed primarily on the effects of ‘natural catastrophes resulting from the impacts of cometary debris’. These impacts were presented as being the likely causes of the sudden collapse and in many cases the total destruction of various Bronze Age civilisations, giving rise to radical cultural changes, and to a number of new religions with accompanying astro-mythologies that had hitherto been impossible for academia to understand.


The simultaneous collapse of these civilizations has long puzzled archaeologists and prehistorians as the vast areas affected ran right across the ‘fertile crescent’ destroying the most advanced societies of the time, ranging in distance from Greece and Anatolia through to Mesopotamia and Afghanistan and continuing eastwards to encompass India and Central Asia.


The cause of the most perplexing ‘Bronze Age Event’ around 2350 – 2300 BC has only recently become clear as a wide variety of ‘ologists from various disciplines have begun reviewing the mythologies of the time. What they have found throughout numerous inter-disciplinary studies are the accurate observations of ancient skywatchers describing cosmic bombardment and flooding which in every case, and in every region, came directly from the ancient skies.


These ‘natural cosmic catastrophes’ were recorded by all ancient societies and passed down through countless generations to become the oral traditions that are held sacred by the peoples whose ancestors directly experienced them, but which are often dismissed as being ‘quaint myths that have no bearing on reality’ by so-called scholars who have never even tried to understand them. Bombardment of our planet by cosmic debris is, like all things in the natural world, a cyclical phenomena. If ancient traditions are any indication it has happened many times in the past, and if we dismiss the records kept by ancient peoples simply because they were recorded in a language that our modern scientists cannot understand, then we will not be prepared when it happens again.


The sophistication and unprecedented accuracy of ‘the astronomical phenomena that was an integral part of almost all of the megalithic structures’ that have been discovered on most continents suggests a long period of development, yet academic archaeologists and prehistorians have been at a loss to explain them. Most have simply ignored the astronomy, or made idiotic statements about ancient peoples not being capable of that level of understanding, but ‘there they are for all the world to see’.


In October 1900, Captain Dimitrious Kondos was leading a team of sponge divers near the island of Antikythera off the coast of Greece. They noticed a shipwreck about 180 feet below the surface and began to investigate. Amongst the artifacts that they brought up was a coral-encrusted piece of metal that later Archaeologists found was some sort of gear wheel. The rest of the artifacts, along with the shape of the boat, suggested a date around 2000 years ago, which made the find one of the most anomalous that had ever been recovered from the world’s seas. It became known as ‘The Antikythera Mechanism’.


In 2006 the journal “Nature” published a letter, and a full paper about the mechanism was published in 2008, detailing the findings of Prof. Mike G. Edmunds of Cardiff University. Using high-resolution X-ray tomography to study the fragments of the anomalous Antikythera Mechanism, they found that it was in fact ‘a bronze mechanical analog computer’ that could be used to calculate the positions and various cycles of the Moon – as seen from the Earth.


This incredible discovery is indisputable evidence that ancient peoples were far more capable of understanding the cyclical nature of the movements of celestial bodies and various temporary celestial phenomena than they have previously been given credit for, and
‘The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project’ has definitively shown that they were also more than capable of constructing devices which could predict them. There was much discussion about its supposed anomalous nature, but it is only anomalous if viewed in isolation or in the context of a completely inaccurate view of prehistory. In the context of the astronomical knowledge embedded into the siting and construction of megalithic structures a long period of development becomes evident, and is deserving of radical review in light of The Antikythera Mechanism.


Over the past 17 years or so The Morien Institute has archived new archaeological discoveries as well as new interpretations of old archaeological discoveries. In our news pages we list many items that may not seem directly related to a better understanding of what our ancestors saw and experienced in ancient skies. But ‘astro-mythology’ and its interpretation, and constant review of our currently poor appreciation of the scientific achievements of our ancestors remains the common theme that we feel ties most of them together. While our general Archaeology News pages reports discoveries that often re-write history and offer a clearer understanding of prehistory.


It is only an open-minded approach to prehistory, and a willingness to accept what is found rather then attempting to make new discoveries fit into some pre-conceived paradigm, that will help us gain a better understanding of our ancient past than is currently taught in our schools, colleges and universities.


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Morien Institute News Headlines Archive for
2014

February |
March |
April |
May |
June |
July |
August

September |
October |
November |
December

 


Lunar Phases
 


 


Top January 2014 New Discoveries


“Understanding the founding city of the Khmer kingdom”

   

“Hebron dig: Annexation in the guise of archaeology”

   

“Brit engineer overturns pyramid-raising theory”

   

“Mexican archaeologists pinpoint origin of Aztatlan ceramics”

   

“Chinese archaeologists uncover 4,000-year-old fortifications”

   

“Archaeologists Find Human Remains in Walls of Wari Complex”

   

“Fossil dung study indicates: Ancients in Negev had advanced economy”

   

“Searching for the Amazon’s Hidden Civilizations”

   

“11,000-Year-Old Seafaring Indian Sites Discovered on California Island”

   

“Ancient times table hidden in Chinese bamboo strips”

   

“Early Telugu inscription found”

   

“Secret Location of ‘King David’s Castle’ to be Revealed”

   

“Dispute over the oldest inscription found in Jerusalem”

   

“King Tut’s Mummified Erect Penis May Point to Ancient Religious Struggle”

   

“Ancient Egyptian brewer’s tomb found in Luxor”

   

“Danish finds reveal rare glimpse of Neolithic life”

   

“Inscription on jar from time of King Solomon may refer to cheap wine”

   

“In Siberia, hand-holding couples’ skeletons found in Bronze Age tombs”

   

“Extracting Family Trees From Ancient Genomes”

   

“The Bronze Age climate and environment of Britain”

   

“Mexico subway dig turns up Aztec offering”

   

“The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project”

   


 

 


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News Headlines Digest
January 2014


“Swedish divers unearth ‘Stone Age Atlantis'”

The Daily Star (UK)


“300,000 yrs ago, humans used fireplace to cook meat”

The Morung Express (India)


“Remains of Byzantine basilica discovered at the bottom of Lake Iznik”

Hürriyet Daily News (Turkey)


“Important archeological discovery in Loulé”

The Portugal News (Portugal)


“Cardigan Castle: 9,500 artefacts found in archaeological dig”

BBC News (UK)


“Israeli fire discovery sheds new light on rise of human culture”

Ha’aretz (Israel)


“Tell Abu al-Kharaz: New Finds from ‘Sea People’ Settlement”

Sci-News (USA)


“Exploring Bengal’s medieval history in the ruins of Gaur”

The Hindu (India)


“No evidence of aliens helping ancient cultures”

Columbus Dispatch (USA)



“Did aliens visit Earth in ancient times? It’s possible.

The late Carl Sagan once argued that there was a ‘statistical likelihood that Earth was visited by an advanced extraterrestrial civilization at least once during historical times’.

A statistical likelihood is one thing. Is there any reliable evidence that any such thing ever actually happened?

None whatsoever.

So why do 3 out of 4 Americans believe there are signs that aliens have visited Earth in the past?”


[Read The Full Story]


“Rainforests reveal new picture of human interaction”

Past Horizons (UK)


“Old Norse people drank wine 3,000 years ago”

Science Nordic (Norway)


“Carthaginians sacrificed own children, archaeologists say”

The Guardian (UK)


“Cultural connections with Europe found in ancient Jordanian settlement”

University of Gothenburg (Sweden)


“Ruins in Arizona May Be ‘Lost’ Jesuit Mission”

Western Digs (USA)


“Secrets of a lost port”

Dawn (Pakistan)


“Chinese Archaeological Research Ship to Explore the Nansha Islands”

CRI English (China)


“Archaeologists stumped by discovery of 3,600 year old pharaoh Woseribre-Senebkay tomb”

Tech Times (USA)


“Secrets from the Temple Mount”

Israel Hayom (Israel)


“Human remains, artefacts found in Bhanbhore”

The Express Tribune (Pakistan)


“What Ancient Dinners Tell Us about Climate Change”

BU Today (USA)


“Japanese archaeologists unearth what could be a complete ‘hadrosaurus’ skeleton”

Japan Daily Press (Japan)


“Found: A lost Egyptian pharaoh and a forgotten dynasty”

Dalje (Croatia)



“A giant sarcophagus has led researchers to a tomb of an unknown pharaoh and evidence of a forgotten Egyptian dynasty from 3,600 years ago, archaeologists say.

Archaeologists working at the southern Egyptian site of Abydos discovered the tomb of Woseribre Senebkay – the first material proof of a forgotten Abydos Dynasty between 1650 and 1600 B.C., the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology reported.

The work that led to the finding of Pharaoh Senebkay’s tomb began during summer 2013 when the Penn Museum team, led by Josef Wegner, the museum’s Egyptian Section Associate Curator, discovered a 60-ton royal sarcophagus chamber at South Abydos.

Probably built for Pharaoh Sobekhotep I, the first king of Egypt’s 13th Dynasty, it showed signs of having been vandalized by later pharaohs for materials to construct and equip their own tombs, the researchers said.”

[Read The Full Story]


“5500 year old Trefael stone reveals it secrets”

Past Horizons (UK)


“Carmel cavemen used plants in rituals 13,000 years ago, archaeologists find”

Ha’aretz (Israel)


“After 2,000 years, Ptolemy’s war elephants are revealed”

Science News (USA)


“Ancient rice uncovered at archaeological site”

The Japan News / Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan)


“Bulgarian archaeologists unearth rare cross in early Christian basilica”

The Sofia Globe (Bulgaria)


“New Pharoah believed to have been discovered”

ABC Radio National News (Australia)


“Poles discovered an over 8 thousand years old grain storage in Turkey”

Nauka w Polsce (Poland)


“Archaeologists Return to Neanderthal Site in Spain”

Popular Archaeology (USA)


“Paphos excavations uncover ancient bath house”

Cyprus Mail (Cyprus)


“Long-lost lake along White Nile may have helped humans out of Africa”

Zee News (India)



“Archaeologists have claimed that a huge long-lost lake along the White Nile may have aided humans in their exodus from Africa.

Archaeologists said that the 45,000-square-kilometre lake was in the right place at the right time for at least one of two key exoduses.

One took people to what is now Israel 100,000 years ago, and another to Eurasia about 70,000 years ago, New Scientist reported.

Martin Williams of the University of Adelaide in Australia joined Tim Barrows of the University of Exeter, UK, to collect samples from former lake-shore deposits, which Barrows dated to about 109,000 years ago. Barrows and Williams traced the long-lost freshwater lake along some 650 kilometres of the White Nile, at points they found that the lake seemed to have stretched to almost 80 kilometres wide.

The lake’s peak extent came in the last interglacial period – a warm interval before the beginning of the last ice age.”


[Read The Full Story]


“New England’s ‘lost’ archaeological sites rediscovered”

NBC News (USA)


“Hump stump solved: Camels arrived in region much later than biblical reference”

Ha’aretz (Israel)


“Archaeology helping to unravel mysteries of ancient Japanese”

The Asahi Shimbun (Japan)


“Archaeologists say Scots were the first to use steel”

Herald Scotland (Scotland)


“Egypt’s lost dynasty found: Royal cemetery dug out”

The Times of India (India)


“The midwinter sunset alignment at Kintraw, Argyll – a response”

Past Horizons (UK)


“Archaeologists discover ancient death chambers used for execution, torture in Bursa”

Hürriyet Daily News (Turkey)


“Galilee woman delivers archaeological treasure from the depths”

The Jerusalem Post (Israel)


“Mystery Pharaoh Found in Egypt”

Discovery News (USA)


“Ireland’s storms unearth 6,000-year-old dwellings near Galway”

Irish Central (Ireland)


“Uproar As Colombia Replaces Ancient Statues With Cardboard Cutouts”

New Tang Dynasty Television (China)


“Ancient Sican tombs found in northern Peru”

Andina (Peru)


“Last grain stores at Çatalhöyük found”

Past Horizons (UK)


“India eyes return of historical Buddha bowl from Afghanistan”

Khaama Press (Afghanistan)


“Pelvic Bone in Museum Storage May Be King Alfred the Great’s”

Live Science (USA)



“A piece of an ancient pelvis bone that had been tucked away in museum storage might belong to the English King Alfred the Great or his son Edward, scholars announced Friday (Jan. 17).

Archaeologists had mounted a search to find the lost remains of Alfred the Great, who was king of Wessex and dominated England from 871 until his death in 899.

Last year, researchers exhumed an unmarked grave at Saint Bartholomew’s Church in Winchester, England, but none of the bodies buried there were a match with Alfred.

After that initial disappointment, the group then turned to bones in storage boxes at the Winchester City Museum that had been excavated from a nearby monastery, Hyde Abbey, in the 1990s.

There, they found a promising fragment of a pelvis bone. Radiocarbon tests showed that it dates between the years 895 and 1017.

Further skeletal analysis showed that the bone belonged to a man who was between 26 and 45-plus years when he died, the researchers said.

If the remains are indeed Alfred’s, the discovery would mark the second English king to be found in the United Kingdom less than two years”


[Read The Full Story]


“Excavations completed at the ‘Hellenistic House’ at Kato Paphos”

Famagusta Gazette (Cyprus)


“First farmers and stockbreeders painted with the same pigments that their hunters ancestors”

EurekAlert (USA)


“Ancient Water Tunnel Discovered in Jerusalem”

The Jewish Press (Israel)


“Archaeologists Discover Rare Ancient Maya Mural in Belize”

Popular Archaeology (USA)


“Storms expose archaeology on Omey island off Connemara”

Irish Times (Ireland)


“Scientists to study parasite eggs in Harappan graves”

The Times of India (India)



“Understanding the founding city of the Khmer kingdom”

Past Horizons (UK)


“Armed gang invade Egypt’s Al-Hammam archaeological site”

Ahram Online (Egypt)


“Work on Olmos Project Turns Up Ancient Sican Cemetery”

Peruvian Times (Peru)



“Hebron dig: Annexation in the guise of archaeology”

Ha’aretz (Israel)



“Brit engineer overturns pyramid-raising theory”

Pune Mirror (India)



“A British engineer has stunned archaeologists by claiming that their theories on how ancient Egyptians built pyramids were wrong.

Peter James said that he believes that they created the structures by piling up rubble on the inside and then later attaching bricks, the Daily Mirror reported.

James’ claim has challenged hundreds of years of accepted belief that the huge structures were built with giant blocks carried up huge ramps.”



[Read The Full Story]



“Mexican archaeologists pinpoint origin of Aztatlan ceramics”

Global Post (USA)


“Bath tunnels of king’s daughters discovered under Turkey’s second largest castle”

Hürriyet Daily News (Turkey)



“Chinese archaeologists uncover 4,000-year-old fortifications”

NZ Week (New Zealand)


“Archaeological Survey of India team to visit Kabul for Buddha’s bowl”

The Times of India (India)



“Archaeologists Find Human Remains in Walls of Wari Complex”

Peruvian Times (Peru)


“New Iron Age Sites Discovered in Finland”

Popular Archaeology (USA)



“Fossil dung study indicates: Ancients in Negev had advanced economy”

Ha’aretz (Israel)


“Ancient tomb reveals its secrets”

ECNS (China)



“Searching for the Amazon’s Hidden Civilizations”

Science (USA)


“How a hunch led to stunning claim on Buddha’s birth date”

Dawn (Pakistan)



“11,000-Year-Old Seafaring Indian Sites Discovered on California Island”

Western Digs (USA)



“Just offshore from the chock-a-block development of Southern California, archaeologists have discovered some of the oldest sites of human occupation on the Pacific Coast.

On Santa Rosa Island, one of the Channel Islands just 65 kilometers from Santa Barbara, nearly 20 sites have been found that reveal signs of prehistoric human activity, from massive middens of abalone shells to distinctive stone points and tool-making debris.

At least nine of the sites have what archaeologists say is ‘definitive evidence’ of ancient Paleoindian occupation, about half of them having been dated to 11,000 to 12,000 years ago — making their inhabitants some of the earliest known settlers of North America’s West Coast.”



[Read The Full Story]



“Ancient times table hidden in Chinese bamboo strips”

Nature (UK)


“Archaeologists discover tomb of Pharoah Sobekhotep I in Egypt”

Panorama (Armenia)


“Volunteers wanted for community archaeological survey at Kiplin Hall, Richmondshire”

Darlington and Stockton Times (England)



“Early Telugu inscription found”

The Hindu (India)


“Chinese archaeologists uncover 4,000-year-old fortifications”

NZ Week (New Zealand)


“Prehistoric Moroccan Teeth Discovered, Fossils Prove Stone Age Hunters Had ‘Rotten’ Oral Health”

International Business Times (UK)


“History smuggled out”

Dawn (Pakistan)



“Secret Location of ‘King David’s Castle’ to be Revealed”

Arutz Sheva (Israel)


“Land by Neolithic site churned up by vehicles”

IOM Today (Isle of Man)


“Lanka was counterfeit capital of ancient world?”

The Island (Sri Lanka)


“‘Rare find’ of Ice Age tools at Guildford fire station site”

GetSurrey (England)


“Japanese archaeological team discovers ancient Egyptian beer-maker’s tomb in Luxor”

Japan Daily Press (Japan)



“Dispute over the oldest inscription found in Jerusalem”

Ha’aretz (Israel)



“A possible decryption of the oldest inscription ever found at an archaeological site in Jerusalem has interesting implications. If correct, the decryption attests to an organized administration and system in which people were literate, and had a system for classifying wine by quality.

The inscription was found in the Ophel area, south of the Temple Mount, at an archaeological dig run by Dr. Eilat Mazar, from the Archaeological Institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The inscription, uncovered six months ago, is etched into a remnant of what was a large clay pitcher, and is eight letters long. It is dated to the second half of the 10th century BCE, the days of King Solomon.”



[Read The Full Story]


“Cave tip-off sparks French search for more prehistoric art near Lascaux”

The Sunday Times (UK)


“Where Are Nigeria’s 6,500 Artefacts Worth N313 Billion?”

AllAfrica (Nigeria)



“King Tut’s Mummified Erect Penis May Point to Ancient Religious Struggle”

Live Science (USA)


“Prehistoric maps of South Downs show theory of recent floods”

The Argus (England)


“Receding water exposes Gold Rush mining town in Folsom Lake”

ABC 30 News (USA)


“Huge blow to Egypt’s ancient treasures”

IOL (South Africa)


“Ancient Fabrics Dyed with Biblical Blue Dye Found in Israeli Cave”

French Tribune (France)



“Ancient Egyptian brewer’s tomb found in Luxor”

BBC News (UK)


“Aztec Offerings Discovered By Archeologists In Mexico City Dig”

Latin Times (Mexico)


“Archeologists find prehistoric elephant fossils in Patiayam site”

Antara News (Indonesia)


“‘Stones talk’ in Asl Çavus, oglu exhibition at Arter Space for Art”

Cihan News Agency (Turkey)



“Danish finds reveal rare glimpse of Neolithic life”

Past Horizons (UK)


“Ancient stone bridge revealed after Chinese lake dries up”

Hürriyet Daily News (Turkey)



“A stone bridge dating back to the Ming dynasty has been discovered after water levels plunged at China’s largest freshwater lake, a Beijing newspaper reported Friday.

The remains of the 2,930-metre-long bridge, made entirely of granite and dating back nearly 400 years, appeared at Poyang lake in the central province of Jiangxi, the Beijing News reported.

The lake, which has been as large as 4,500 square kilometres in the past, has been drying up in recent years due to a combination of low rainfall and the impact of the Three Gorges Dam, experts say.”



[Full Story]


“Fossil primate shakes up history of strepsirrhines”

HeritageDaily (USA)


“Anatolia’s oldest Parliament unveiled in Assos at cross paths of Plato and Aristotle”

Hürriyet Daily News (Turkey)


“Slideshow: Mysteries of Megaliths”

Science (USA)


“Poles seek funds to uncover Ancient Egyptian tomb”

The News (Poland)


“Giraffe was on the menu in Pompeii”

Past Horizons (UK)



“In Siberia, hand-holding couples’ skeletons found in Bronze Age tombs”

The Indian Express (India)


“Earliest evidence for caries, exploitation of starchy plant foods, in Pleistocene hunter-gatherers”

PNAS (USA)



“Mexico subway dig turns up Aztec offering”

3 News (New Zealand)


“3,000-year-old tombs bear secrets of ancient Zeng State”

People’s Daily (China)


“10 Coolest Archaeology Discoveries of 2013”

Yahoo (USA)


“It’s official! Moghulmari houses oldest Buddhist vihara in Bengal”

The Times of India (India)


“Neanderthal speech – hyoid bone hypothesis”

Past Horizons (UK)



“Inscription on jar from time of King Solomon may refer to cheap wine”

Ha’aretz (Israel)


“Phanigiri Buddhist Site Excavation to Begin This Month”

The New Indian Express (India)


“Archaeologists Make Incredibly Rare Find With Roots in the Bible”

The Blaze (USA)



“The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project”

Cardiff/Athens Universites (Cymru/Greece)



[In October 1900, Captain Dimitrious Kondos was leading a team of sponge divers near the the island of Antikythera off the coast of Greece. They noticed a shipwreck about 180 feet below the surface and began to investigate. Amongst the artifacts that they brought up was a coral-encrusted piece of metal that later archaeologists found was some sort of gear wheel.

The rest of the artifacts, along with the shape of the boat, suggested a date around 2000 years ago, which made the find one of the most anomalous that had ever been recovered from the Greek seas. It became known as The Antikythera Mechanism.

In 2006 the journal “Nature” published a letter, and another paper about the mechanism was published in 2008, detailing the findings of Prof. Mike G. Edmunds of Cardiff University. Using high-resolution X-ray tomography to study the fragments of the anomalous Antikythera Mechanism, they found that it was in fact a bronze mechanical analog computer that could be used to calculate the astronomical positions and various cycles of the Moon – as seen from the Earth: – Ed]



Part of the Antikythera Mechanism


an image of Part of the Antikythera Mechanism, which is also a clickable link directly to the Lichfield Blog story



Antikythera Mechanism Research Project


2000-year-old analog computer recreated


More Antikythera Mechanism Information & Commentary:


“Return to Antikythera: Divers revisit wreck where ancient computer found”

The Guardian Science Blog (UK)


“In search of lost time”

Nature (UK)


“World’s First Computer Displayed Olympic Calendar”

Wired Gadget Lab (USA)


“Antikythera Mechanism – World’s earliest existing analogue computer”

HotnHit News (India)


“In search of lost time”

Nature (UK)


“Imaging the Antikythera Computer”

Wired Gadget Lab (USA)


“Decoding an Ancient Computer: Greek Technology Tracked the Heavens”

Scientific American (USA)


“2,000 Year Old Computer Yields Her Secrets”

Wired Gadget Lab (USA)


“Watch a video explaining the Antikythera mechanism”

Nature (UK)


“Antikythera mechanism”

Wikipedia (USA)


“World’s First Computer Rebuilt, Rebooted After 2,000 Years”

Wired Gadget Lab (USA)


“Antikythera: A 2,000-year-old Greek computer comes back to life”

The Guardian Science Blog (UK)


Google image search results for The Antikythera mechanism

Google (USA)

 


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“The 2300 BC Event takes a new look at an old puzzle: what happened at this date to cause the various advanced societies on the Earth to simultaneously collapse?


Civilizations in Anatolia and Greece, through Egypt and the Middle East, and eastward to India and Central Asia were at their height. The collapse of these civilizations due to earthquakes and climatic changes has been mirrored by similar interruptions on all continents, in the Arctic, and extending to the Pacific.


The discontinuities have long puzzled archaeologists and historians. New religions and accompanying mythologies appeared at this time in all cultural regions describing bombardment and flooding from the skies.


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by

M. M. Mandelkehr


“Some time around 2300 BC the Eath encountered a dense clustering of space debris, the early Southern & Northern
Taurid meteoroid stream. The result was an intense fall of meteoroids, some of them sufficiently large to cause surface destruction.


Simultaneous with the meteoroid fall was a huge downpouring of water which caused flash flooding. Extensive destruction and loss of life resulted. An astonishing aspect of the event was the formation of a ring surrounding the Earth, reflecting sunlight during the day, hiding some stars at night, and moving around the sky through a 24-hour period.


Following the ‘main event’, there were crustal movements which shifted the location of water sources, and caused earthquakes which destroyed settlements. Abrupt severe climate changes occurred.”


Get This Book From:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk




“The 2300 BC Event Vol. 3:
Mythology
The Eyewitness Accounts 2″

by

M. M. Mandelkehr


“The Northern/Southern Taurid meteoroid stream is identified as the specific meteoroid stream that the Earth encountered at 2300 BC.


The Earth’s encounter with a dense cluster of large objects would produce atmospheric phenomena very different from the pleasant and interesting night displays of meteor trails that are within our own experience.


The rain of objects would have generated extraordinary visual and auditory effects combined with ground vibrations; and under extreme conditions would bring about severe surface destruction and loss of life.


The overall event was associated by the people with powerful deities and formed the basis for major religions. The mythologies and traditions are, in large part, the residues of those religions.”


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Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk




“Natural Catastrophes During Bronze Age Civilisations”

(British Archaeological
Reports)

by


Benny J. Peiser

Trevor Palmer

Mark E. Bailey


(Editors)


Research in the field of neo-catastrophism and impact cratering has quickened its pace since the early 1980s. Scholars such as Victor Clube, Bill Napier, Mark Bailey, Sir Fred Hoyle and Duncan Steel claim that a more ‘active’ sky might have caused major cultural changes of Bronze Age civilizations, belief systems and religious rituals.”


Get This Book From:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk




“Avebury Cosmos:
The Neolithic World
of Avebury henge”

by

Nicholas R. Mann


“The ancient Britons were inspired by a profound knowledge of the heavens when they erected the monumental stones of Avebury.

Mann throws light on the motive behind the creation of its awe-inspiring mounds and megaliths by demonstrating that they were aligned to the cycles of the Sun, Moon and stars.

This book will help visitors and readers to see Avebury in a wholly new light – the light of the heavenly bodies that guided its Neolithic builders.”


Get This Book From:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk




“Avebury:
Sun, Moon and Earth”

by

Maria Wheatley
&
Busty Taylor


Get This Book From:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk




“Chaco Astronomy:
An Ancient American Cosmology”

by

Anna Sofaer


“After rumors surfaced about the sun bisecting a petroglyph at Chaco Canyon, people never looked at the site the same again.

The discovery proposed a cosmology at Chaco, and the book looks at the people who lived in the San Juan Basin from 850 AD to 1300, developing an elaborate culture around the cycles of the sun and moon.

Anna Sofaer’s pioneering work on Chaco Canyon, a World Heritage Site, should be required reading for anyone interested in how the prehistoric people of the American Southwest conceptualized their universe and placed themselves within that universe.”


Get This Book From:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk




“A Guide to Prehistoric
Astronomy in the Southwest”

by

J. McKim Malville


“Dr. J. McKim Malville has outdone himself in this guide to prehistoric astronomy.

Even a reader with little or no background in archaeoastronomy will like this book.

One reason is the tons of good photos and diagrams that can help anyone better appreciate the miraculous order of our solar system and the stars.

It would make a great gift for children between 10 and 16, potentially stimulating them to enter the field of science.”


Get This Book From:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk




“Patterns in the Sky:
An Introduction to Ethnoastronomy”

by

Stephen M. Fabian


“Since the beginning of humankind, people around the world have had a strong interest in the powers and beings perceived in the sky.

This compelling short work helps students fully understand and appreciate the ways in which non-Western indigenous and small-scale societies perceive, conceptualize, and make sure of what they astronomically observe.

With its concise explanations of prominent astronomical phenomena, discussions of relevant crosscultural examples, and instructive suggestions for active field research, Patterns in the Sky is a unique and practical guide for doing ethnoastronomy.

In addition, Fabian offers exercises in observational astronomy with the naked eye so that students can get in touch with the cosmos and natural world around them.”


Get This Book From:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk

 


January 2014
Monthly, Quarterly and Periodical Magazines & Journals


“Amino acid ratios in reworked marine bivalve shells constrain Greenland Ice Sheet history during the Holocene”


Geology


“How the Monuments Men Saved Italy’s Treasures”


Smithsonian Magazine


“Top 10 Discoveries of 2013: ARCHAEOLOGY’s editors reveal the year’s most compelling stories”


Archaeology Magazine


“The effects of interannual climate variability on the moraine record”


Geology



“The Bronze Age climate and environment of Britain”


The British Museum – Bronze Age Review


“From The Trenches: Tracking the Ancient Apache”


Archaeology Magazine


“Ancient Mining and Smelting Activities in the Wadi Abu Gerida Area, Central Eastern Desert, Egypt”


Archaeometry


“The Race to Save Mali’s Priceless Artifacts”


Smithsonian Magazine


“From The Trenches: French Revolution Forgeries?”


Archaeology Magazine



“Extracting Family Trees From Ancient Genomes”


Discover


“Long-term ecosystem stability in an Early Miocene estuary”


Geology


“World Roundup of Recent Archaeological Discoveries – January 2014”


Archaeology Magazine



Make All Online Science Journals Free For Students

 

 


Morien Institute News Headlines Archive for
2014

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