– Terrestrial Archaeology, Marine Archaeology & Astro-Archaeology – News Headlines Archive – November 2011 – new archaeological discoveries on land and underwater – with emphasis on the ancient sciences reflected in astro-archaeology and archaeoastronomy from new discoveries revealing its practice in ancient societies under ancient skies
The events of July 16th – 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 had a very dynamic history over the past 20,000 years or so and it is only from this wider solar system perspective that the true history of human civilisation can ever
be fully understood. Therefore, The Morien Institute archive contains information from many disciplines
some news sources require registration but this is usually free
“In 2010, the Hong Kong organization Noah’s Ark Ministries International or NAMI announced they had discovered the legendary vessel on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey and were subsequently accused of perpetrating a hoax.
Now, a professional archaeologist states there is significant merit to their discovery.
Harvard University educated archaeologist and director of the Paleontological Research Corporation, Dr. Joel Klenck, surveyed the site, analyzed the archaeological remains and completed a comparative study.
‘The site is remarkable’, states Klenck, ‘and comprises a large all-wood structure with an archaeological assemblage that appears to be mostly from the Late Epipaleolithic Period.'”
“Vikings may have navigated by looking through a type of crystal called Icelandic spar, a new study suggests.
In some Icelandic sagas – embellished stories of Viking life – sailors relied on so-called sunstones to locate the sun’s position and steer their ships on cloudy days.
The stone would’ve worked by detecting a property of sunlight called polarization.
Polarization is when light – which normally radiates randomly from its source – encounters something, such as a shiny surface or fog, that causes the rays to assume a particular orientation.”
“Satellite imagery has uncovered new evidence of a lost civilization of the Sahara in Libya’s south-western desert wastes that will help re-write the history of the country.
The fall of Gaddafi has opened the way for archaeologists to explore the country’s pre-Islamic heritage, so long ignored under his regime.
Using satellites and air-photographs to identify the remains in one of the most inhospitable parts of the desert, a British team has discovered more than 100 fortified farms and villages with castle-like structures and several towns, most dating between AD 1-500.
These “lost cities” were built by a little-known ancient civilisation called the Garamantes, whose lifestyle and culture was far more advanced and historically significant than the ancient sources suggested.”
“Almost nine hundred years ago, in the mid-12th century, the southwestern U.S. was in the middle of a multi-decade megadrought. It was the most recent extended period of severe drought known for this region. But it was not the first.
The second century A.D. saw an extended dry period of more than 100 years characterized by a multi-decade drought lasting nearly 50 years, says a new study from scientists at the University of Arizona.
UA geoscientists Cody Routson, Connie Woodhouse and Jonathan Overpeck conducted a study of the southern San Juan Mountains in south-central Colorado. The region serves as a primary drainage site for the Rio Grande and San Juan rivers.
Dendrochronology is a precise science of using annual growth rings of trees to understand climate in the past. Because trees add a normally clearly defined growth ring around their trunk each year, counting the rings backwards from a tree’s bark allows scientists to determine not only the age of the tree, but which years were good for growth and which years were more difficult.”
“Neolithic remains and elements of bronze and iron weaponry from the Cypro-Classical period, were found during the excavations that were completed at the site of Kataliondas Kourvellos, located in the eastern Troodos foothills, about twenty kilometers from Cyprus capital, Nicosia.
According to an announcement by Cyprus’ Department of Antiquities, preliminary study of the finds revealed that during the Neolithic period the site was occupied in the 8th millennium BC, and thus did not belong to the later Choirokoitian phase, as was previously thought.
Excavations at the site have been completed, following the second and last season of excavations conducted by the University of Geneva, under the direction of Dr Julien Beck.”
“Archaeologists have discovered a Qing dynasty era coin at a proposed gold mine site in the Yukon, potentially adding to evidence about ancient trade routes.
The discovery of a 300-year-old Chinese coin in the Yukon is shedding light on ancient trade routes, Canada’s Postmedia News reports. The coin was discovered by archaeologists near a proposed gold mine site about 185 miles northwest of Whitehorse in Canada’s Yukon territory.
According to Postmedia News, the coin appears to have been minted during the Qing dynasty reign of the Manchu emperor Kangxi, who ruled China from 1662 to 1722.”
[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]
More news stories and websites about The Antikythera mechanism
Rising concerns about the effects of electromagnetic fields (EMFs) on the human body are being voiced by doctors and scientists all around the world.
The selection of recent books below will give you more information about the scientific facts behind those concerns so you can better avoid exposure to EMFs.
