– Terrestrial Archaeology, Marine Archaeology & Astro-Archaeology – News Headlines Archive – March 2012

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 archæology 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 ocean scientists of all descriptions. But it will likely be the Marine Archæologists, 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 just 29% of the total surface area of our planet and the remaining 71% is currently ocean. Over the last 15 years or more The Morien Institute has been carefully documenting as much information about new discoveries underwater as we can find, and The Morien Institute Marine Archæology Archive gives just a glimpse of the many recent discoveries showing evidence of sometimes vast coastal settlements that were inundated by the seas in ancient times.


During the last Ice Age the sea-levels were some 300 feet lower than they are today, and a wide band either side of the equator enjoyed a pleasent 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 archæologists and prehistorians who have traditionally regarded them simply as ‘quaint myths’ which they claimed have no bearing on reality.


But that is a very foolish perspective. The countless oral traditions of every ancient society that has ever 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 20th century 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 academia, we cannot afford to let this ancient knowledge die away simply becasue the supposed “experts” of today cannot understand it.


Neither can we continue to look at the prehistory of human civilisation 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 evidence is emerging which shows that the environmental impact of encounters with comets, asteroids and cometary debris has probably been responsible for the destruction of a number of ancient civilisations on many occasions in the prehistory of the archaic world over the past 15 to 20 millennia.


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. These individuals were ridiculed and vociferously opposed by academic archæologists 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 history.


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 years or so,but are only just beginning to get a proper hearing. Such theories, if proven, could help not only to date these monuments, but would also illustrate how well their builders were oriented in time and space. The simple appreciation that the Earth orbited the Sun and periodically encountered streams of cometary debris suggests that ancient peoples may well have been far more aware of the position of the Earth in the solar system, and the dynamics of the solar system itself, than has previously been suspected.


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” is must reading for all serious students of ancient astronomy, astro-archæology 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 case the total destruction, of various Bronze Age civilisations right across the so-called ‘fertile crescent’ from Greece and Anatolia through Mesopotamia and Afghanistan to Harrapan India.


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Morien Institute News Headlines Archive for
2012

January |
February |
April |
May |
June |
July |
August
September |
October |
November |
December

2011 |
2010 |
2009 |
2008 |
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2006 |
2005 |
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2003 |
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2001 |
2000


Marine Archæology News Archive |
Astro-Archæology News Archive


Marine Archæology 2012 News |
Astro-Archæology 2012 News

 


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Top March 2012 New Discoveries


“Mysterious Animal-Shaped Structures In Peru Are Oldest Known”

   

“World’s earliest stringed instrument found in cave from 2,300 years ago”

   

“4,000-year-old Monolith Likely an Astronomical Marker”

   

“1,000-year-old skeleton found at Taichung dig”

   

“European Neanderthals Were On the Verge of Extinction Long Before Humans Showed Up”

   

“Study Shows Mixing Between Prehistoric Populations of Europe and Africa”

   

“Coelacanth fossil to reveal anatomical secrets of ancient fish”

   

“Greeks find remains of healing sanctuary”

   

“Megafauna collapse led to mega changes”

   

“From foraging to farming: the 10,000-year revolution”

   

“Hoard of 30,000 silver Roman coins discovered in Bath”

   

“In search of pirate Black Jack”

   

“Ancient civilizations reveal ways to manage fisheries for sustainability”

   

“Vikings ‘carried mice to colonies'”

   

“Bulgarian Archaeologists Claim Oldest Monastery in Europe”

   

“Butchered sloth bone lends more evidence to early North American settlement”

   

“Remarkable Russian Petroglyphs”

   

“Polish researcher changes the dating of the famous Egyptian necropolis”

   

“Greece, Antikythera shipwreck on display”

   

“A New Pharaoh was discovered, The Royal name of the 17th Dynasty at Karnak Temple”

   

“New research shows ancient Maya women were powerful leaders”

   

“Greek helmet discovered in Israeli harbor”

   

“Did Neanderthals take to the seas first?”

   

“The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project”

   


 


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News Headlines Digest
March 2012


“Faking it?: The case of the Israeli antiquities collector accused of fraud”

Ha’aretz (Israel)


“The penny that’s worth a mint”

Northumberland Gazette (England)



“Mysterious Animal-Shaped Structures In Peru Are Oldest Known”

LiveScience (USA)



“World’s earliest stringed instrument found in cave from 2,300 years ago”

Mail Online (UK)


“UNESCO chief calls for protection of Syrian cultural heritage during crisis”

People’s Daily (China)



“4,000-year-old Monolith Likely an Astronomical Marker”

KSEE 24 News (USA)



“1,000-year-old skeleton found at Taichung dig”

The Taipei Times (Taiwan)


“‘Lucy’ Wasn’t Alone? Had Neighbors in Trees, Fossil Foot Suggests”

National Geographic News (USA)


“‘Prehistoric’ antler hammerhead and human skeleton unearthed in Burren”

Irish Times (Ireland)



“European Neandertals Were On the Verge of Extinction Long Before Humans Showed Up”

Science Daily (USA)


“Roman statues rescued in Spain”

The Olive Press (Spain)



“Study Shows Mixing Between Prehistoric Populations of Europe and Africa”

Popular Archaeology (USA)



“Scientists already know from genetic evidence that human populations of Africa and Europe mixed in ancient times, from the days of the Roman Empire through to the slave trade of the colonial period. But evidence of any mixing prior to that has been comparatively less abundant.

Now, researchers conclude from a recently completed study (published online on March 27, 2012 in Genome Research) that genetic material was exchanged between Europe and Africa as far back as 11,000 years ago, or more.

‘It was very surprising to find that more than 35 percent of the sub-Saharan lineages in Europe arrived during a period that ranged from more than 11,000 years ago to the Roman Empire times’, said senior study author Dr. Antonio Salas of the University of Santiago de Compostela. The other 65% of European lineages showing African lineage represent population groups that arrived more recently.

The researchers analyzed and compared mtDNA genome sequences from different regions of Europe with that of other groups around the world. During this process they analyzed the mtDNA genomes of “haplogroup L”, (a lineage of sub-Saharan African origin) in Europe.

Because small changes occur over long periods of time in the mtDNA sequence of different populations, geneticists can use the changes as “markers” that hint at movements and migrations of human groups in the past, classifying them into distinct “haplogroups.”

For the first time, researchers were able to identify abundant traces from prehistoric times indicating contact and exchange between European and African populations long before the advent of the civilizations of recorded history.”


[Full Story]


“Calendar Puzzles Deciphered in Ancient Statue: Photos”

Discovery News (USA)



“Coelacanth fossil to reveal anatomical secrets of ancient fish”

Radio National – The Science Show (Australia)



“Greeks find remains of healing sanctuary”

The Asian Age/AFP (India)


“Leaked Government Memo Warns of Organized Looting in Syria”

Popular Archaeology (USA)


“Signs of thawing permafrost revealed from space”

ESA News (France)


“Mammoths’ extinction not due to inbreeding, study finds”

BBC News (UK)



“Megafauna collapse led to mega changes”

ABC Science News (Australia)



“From foraging to farming: the 10,000-year revolution”

PhysOrg (USA)


“Nalanda buzz around Bengal Buddha statues”

Telegraph (India)



“Hoard of 30,000 silver Roman coins discovered in Bath”

The Daily Telegraph (UK)



“In search of pirate Black Jack”

The West Australian (Australia)


“18th-Century Bone Telescopes Discovered in Amsterdam”

Live Science (USA)



“Five telescopes made of bone and dating to the 18th century have been discovered in Amsterdam, with two of the scopes found in the equivalent of toilets.

At the time, called the Enlightenment, the telescopes would have been considered luxury items and were likely used to gaze at objects on land or sea, rather than to look at the stars. They were created during a period when Amsterdam was a flourishing center for trade, one that attracted talented craftsmen.

They were created during a period when Amsterdam was a flourishing center for trade, one that attracted talented craftsmen.

Ranging in length from roughly 3 to 5 inches (80 to 140 millimeters), the telescopes were made using cattle metatarsal bone.

“This particular bone of cow, the metatarsal bone, is actually quite straight and round”, Marloes Rijkelijkhuizen, of the Amsterdam Archaeological Centre at the University of Amsterdam, told LiveScience.

“It’s a nice shape to make these telescopes from, it’s straight and (has a) very round narrow cavity.”


[Full Story]



“Ancient civilizations reveal ways to manage fisheries for sustainability”

EurekAlert (USA)


“Six Old Kingdom tombs to be opened at Giza Plateau”

Ahram Online (Egypt)



“Vikings ‘carried mice to colonies'”

The Independent (UK)



“Bulgarian Archaeologists Claim Oldest Monastery in Europe”

Novinite (Bulgaria)


“Meteorite-Times Magazine – March 2012 Edition”

Meteorite-Times (USA)


“StarStuff: Early Earth’s atmosphere clear and cloudy”

ABC Science Radio (Australia)



“Butchered sloth bone lends more evidence to early North American settlement”

The Montreal Gazette (Canada)


“A Canadian scientist’s analysis of ancient animal remains found in Ohio — including the leg bone of an extinct giant sloth believed to have been butchered by an Ice Age hunter more than 13,000 years ago — has added weight to a once-controversial argument that humans arrived in North America thousands of years earlier than previously believed.


The discovery of what appear to be dozens of cut marks on the femur of a gargantuan, 1,300-kilogram Jefferson’s ground sloth is being hailed as the earliest trace of a human presence in the Great Lakes state

But the find also represents a significant new piece of evidence in support of the theory that the first inhabitants of Canada, the U.S. and the rest of the Americas were not the so-called Clovis people — known from distinctive tools they left at various archeological sites from about 12,600 years ago — but a much earlier wave of Ice Age migrants ancestral to many of today’s New World aboriginal populations.

The butchered-sloth discovery — recently confirmed by University of Manitoba researcher Haskel Greenfield, co-author of a paper published in the latest issue of the journal World Archaeology — bolsters the growing consensus that prehistoric Asians crossed from eastern Russian to western Alaska as early as 16,000 years ago, possibly travelling down the coast of B.C. before spreading to the continental interior and the far reaches of South America.”


[Full Story]



“Remarkable Russian Petroglyphs”

Past Horizons (UK)


“Roman slabstone, early-Ottoman column discovered after Bisser disaster”

The Sofia Echo (Bulgaria)


“Archaeologist investigates legend of mythical ruler of ancient Peru”

UCLA Today (USA)


“Artefacts find halts work on bad bend”

The Press (New Zealand)



“Polish researcher changes the dating of the famous Egyptian necropolis”

Serwis Nauka w Polsce (Poland)


“Neolithic horned cairns near Caithness wind farm scanned”

BBC News (UK)


“The newly re-erected colossal statue of Amenhotep III in the Funerary Temple of the King”

Luxor Times (Egypt)



“Greece, Antikythera shipwreck on display”

ANSAmed (Italy)



“Over a century after the wreckage of Antikythera was found by chance (as often happens in the field of archaeology), the archaeological finds brought to light will be showcased together in the exhibition ”The Antikythera Shipwreck: the ship – the treasures – the Mechanism” organised by Greece’s National Archaeological Museum.

The show will be inaugurated on April 5 and will remain open until the end of April 2013. It boasts 378 finds, including sculptures, clay and bronze vases, coins, jewels, fragments of the ship, and, of course, the famous Antikythera Mechanism, considered the oldest computer ever made.

”The oldest example of technology surviving to the present day, which entirely changes our knowledge about ancient Greek technology,” the British physicist and mathematician Derek De Solla Price said in speaking about this mysterious object, of which he is its first scholar.

Among the finds to be exhibited in the show are also dishes, jugs and amphorae with an acute base for the transporting of the water, oil, wine and dry food necessary for lengthy journeys.”


[Full Story]


“Ancient ‘Graffiti’ Unlock the Life of the Common Man”

Science Daily (USA)



“A New Pharaoh was discovered, The Royal name of the 17th Dynasty at Karnak Temple”

Luxor Times (Egypt)


“La Brea Tar Pits”

ABC Radio – The Science Show (Australia)


“Cambodians Work to Recover Priceless Antiquities”

JTW (Turkey)



“New research shows ancient Maya women were powerful leaders”

Medill Reports (USA)


“Alexander and his Macedonian heirs”

Al-Ahram Weekly (Egypt)


“Greece arrests 44 for trafficking historical antiques”

The China Post (Taiwan)


“Desert palms ‘not so ancient after all'”

ABC Science News (Australia)


“Greece: Antiquities Safer in the Ground”

Arutz Sheva (Israel)


“Raising Amenhotep III’s colossus”

Ahram Online (Egypt)



“A quartzite colossus of 18th Dynasty King Amenhotep III is to be raised on Luxor’s west bank on Saturday .

The colossus was unearthed in 2004 by an Egyptian-European archaeological mission led by Horig Sourouzian during routine excavation work. It was 100 meters behind the gigantic colossi of Memnon which represent the same king at the main entrance of its temple.

The colossus was half buried under Nile alluvia in seven pieces.”


[Full Story]



“Greek helmet discovered in Israeli harbor”

Dalje (Croatia)


“Wreckage of 16th Century Spanish Ship Discovered off Brazil”

Latin American Herald Tribune (Venezuela)


“Iwi leader concerned at destruction of country’s history”

TangataWhenua (New Zealand)



“Did Neanderthals take to the seas first?”

Dalje (Croatia)



“The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project”

Cardiff/Athens Universities (Cymru/Greece)


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

HotnHit News (India)


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

Scientific American (USA)


“Watch a video explaining the Antikythera mechanism”

Nature (UK)


“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)


Academic archæologists and historians are publicly confident that they understand most
if not all aspects of prehistory: when and where the first settled communities appeared,
when and where the first experiments with agriculture and domestication of animals

began, and they collectively paint a picture of a gradual development from small

hunter-gather groups to larger tribal societies and then the eventual rise of the
first supposedly civilised urban cultures of Mesopotamia, Akkad and Egypt


But numerous discoveries being made all over the world are increasingly questioning
that well-established wisdom, and as the standard paradigm of prehistory begins
to fall apart the 11,000-year-old megalithic complex at Göbekli Tepe is just one
of the discoveries that is changing our misunderstanding of the archaic past

 



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March 2012
Monthly Magazine Articles
………………………………………………………………………………


“A 2400 yr Mesoamerican rainfall reconstruction links climate and cultural change”

Geology (USA)


“The oldest maritime sanctuary? Dating the sanctuary at Keros and the Cycladic Early Bronze Age”

Antiquity (UK)


“Saga of the Northwest Passage: Discovering evidence of an ill-fated mission in the frigid waters of the Arctic”

Archaeology Magazine (USA)


“Climate warming in the latest Permian and the Permian–Triassic mass extinction”

Geology (USA)


“Later hunter-gatherers in southern China, 18 000–3000 BC”

Antiquity (UK)


“From The Trenches: New Discoveries at Stonehenge”

Archaeology Magazine (USA)


“Cretaceous forest composition and productivity inferred from a global fossil wood database”

Geology (USA)


“Chronology, mound-building and environment at Huaca Prieta, coastal Peru, from 13,700 to 4,000 years ago”

Antiquity (UK)


“Rome’s Lost Aqueduct: Searching for the source of one of the city’s greatest engineering achievements”

Archaeology Magazine (USA)


“Onset of North Atlantic Deep Water production coincident with inception of the Cenozoic global cooling trend”

Geology (USA)

 


Morien Institute News Headlines Archive for
2012

January |
February |
April |
May |
June |
July |
August
September |
October |
November |
December

2011 |
2010 |
2009 |
2008 |
2007 |
2006 |
2005 |
2004 |
2003 |
2002 |
2001 |
2000

 



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