Author: Ginger.Perales

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Biblical Gate Once Considered a False Idol Excavated in Israel

lachish-front-gate

Live Science. The gate-shrine was found in the ancient city of Tel Lachish. The gate’s northern section was uncovered decades ago by archaeologists from Tel Aviv University and the United Kingdom. This recent dig was focused on unearthing the entire structure, no small task considering the gate-shrine is the biggest one constructed in Israel, going back to the First Temple era when the kingdom worshiped at the temple King Solomon built. Sa’ar Ganor, a director with the IAA, said in a statement released by the Authority: “The size of the gate is consistent with the historical and archaeological knowledge we possess.” According to the Hebrew Bible, “everything took place” where the gate/shrine of Tel Lachish was originally built. High-ranking officials, including city elders, governors, and judges, would sit on benches by the city gate. Those benches have been found as part of the excavation project. Thirteen feet (4 meters) of the Tel Lachish gate-shrine have been exposed and preserved. The excavation has revealed benches which included armrests, oil lamps, arrowheads, and jars and scoops used for loading grain. Some of the jar handles had the name “lmlk” on them, which was the king’s seal. These jars may have been related to the administrative and military preparations made by the Kingdom of Judah for the war against the king of Assyria, Sennacherib, late in the eighth century BCE. “Steps to the gate-shrine in the form of a staircase ascended to a large room, where there was a bench upon which offerings were placed,” Ganor said in the statement from the IAA, “An opening was exposed in the corner of the room that led to the holy of holies [the gate-shrine]; to our great excitement, we found two four-horned altars and scores of ceramic finds consisting of lamps, bowls, and stands in this room.” The horns on the altar, however, had been intentionally cut off. “That is probably evidence of the religious reform attributed to King Hezekiah, whereby religious worship was centralized in Jerusalem and the cultic high places that were built outside the capital were destroyed,” Ganor added. Ze’ev Elkin, the minister of Jerusalem affairs, heritage and environmental protection, as well as a member of the Israeli parliament, told Live Science the discovery shows “how biblical tales that are known to us become historical and archaeological stories” The site, which is in the Tel Lachish National Park, has not been opened to the public. ]]>

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The Last Continent Colonized by Homo Sapiens

Sample of the lithic artifacts found in the levels associated with extinct fauna.

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Never Seen Before Headless Burials Discovered in Siberia

Siberian Times: “Burials without heads are quite common. Usually it is because of war. There was a widespread practice in which bowls were made of the heads of defeated enemies.” As he describes it, eating from the enemy’s skull was the ultimate victory celebration. “But this is obviously a different case,” he added. In other burials, the heads were not placed in the same grave as the body. Also unusual, if these were the remains of enemies, was the care taken to ensure the deceased received the rituals associated with an honored death, such as being well dressed. When burying their own, as opposed to war enemies, the Pazyryks typically took great care to not distort the bodies of the diseased. Additionally, tombs containing headless children have never been seen before now. The archeologists have considered whether grave-robbers, in the act of stealing the ornaments buried with the bodies, might have severed the heads on purpose and then placed them by the knees for some unknown reason. However, the skeletons had not been disturbed, as one would expect after such an act. The discovery has resulted in more questions than answers, Dr. Konstantinov admitted in the Siberian Times, adding, “We have no similar cases, so we need to investigate this one very thoroughly. We will continue the research of these skeletons. We need to determine their gender and (approximate) age. It is also important to study the traces on their cervical vertebrae to understand how and when the heads were cut off or separated in some other way. We hope to get the first results in December or January.” Photos of the burial can be found here: siberiantimes.com ]]>

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Research Shows Aboriginal Boomerang as Deadly as Metal Weapons

Boomerangs

The Australian that his team’s two-year investigation unearthed evidence the indigenous communities had been using deadly clubs and boomerangs which could inflict damage equal to that caused by sharp metal weapons. “The investigation of Aboriginal skeletal remains is a very ­sensitive topic,” Dr. Westaway said in The Australian. “Griffith University was invited by the Kurnu Barkindji to undertake this research to try and help understand when, how and why this man was killed. The results ended up being a surprise to us all,” adding, “The nature and expression of trauma suggests that some edged weapons from traditional Aboriginal culture had the capacity to ­inflict injuries similar to those produced by edged metal weapons.” The position of Kaakutja’s remains when he was found indicated a proper burial and not the disposal of a murder victim. To get a better understanding of what could have produced the head wound, the researchers studied the rock art at the Gundabooka Ranges, in the same vicinity and dated to approximately the same time period as the skeleton. The rock art depicts warring tribes wielding parrying shields, wonnas, fighting clubs and lil-lis. The length of the wound and the lack of injuries on the forearms (typical in hand-to-hand combat) suggests a boomerang (lil-lil) was likely the weapon. A thrown boomerang would have traveled in an arced path toward the victim, allowing it to slip behind a shield if the victim had one. The study is published in the journal Antiquity. ]]>

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New Carbon Dating May Tie Early Humans to Hobbits' Extinction

Homo Floresiensis

Homo floresiensis – the “hobbit” species – was discovered, have been carbon dated to approximately 46,000 years ago. Because the upper premolar and lower molar are somewhat younger than any of the known hobbit remains, this new information seems to support the theory that humans were involved in the demise of H. floresiensis. Discovered at Liang Bua in 2003, the remains of H. floresiensis, widely believed to be in the genus Homo, suggest they would have been around 3.5 feet (1.1 m) tall. Nine partial skeletons from nine individuals, including a single complete skull, have been discovered. Recent re-dating efforts in the cave moved the hobbits’ extinction back to approximately 50,000 years ago, when early humans were known to already be living in South-East Asia, according to the study co-authored by geochronologist Richard Roberts and archeologist Thomas Sutikna, both with the University of Wollongong, Australia. “It’s a smoking gun for modern human interaction, but we haven’t yet found the bullet,” Roberts told Nature, which published the research. Although the team is confident the teeth are from H. sapiens, partly because they’re larger than those of H. floresiensis; a paleoanthropologist from University College London, María Martinón-Torres, believes that the premolar appears slightly more primitive. To conclusively prove the teeth are human, she believes they should be compared to a wide range of H. sapiens and H. erectus remains. There is other evidence which puts humans on Flores Island immediately after H. floresiensis disappeared, supporting the possibility that humans contributed to the hobbits’ extinction by out-competing them for limited resources on the island. Animals which may have been a food source for early human hunter–gatherers, including giant storks (Leptoptilos robustus), miniature elephants; known as stegodons (Stegodon florensis insularis), and vultures (Trigonoceps), all vanish from the sediment layers in the cave after approximately 46,000 years ago. During this same time period, freshwater mollusk shells start to show up. These shellfish are commonly found at other early human sites across Africa and Eurasia. Stone tools constructed using chert, a material which is also regularly seen at other early human sites, and evidence of fire hearths are further examples of findings more recent than the Liang Bua hobbit remains. “What we don’t yet know is whether there was at least a short overlap in the populations, thus raising the question once again of the possible role of modern humans in the extinction of floresiensis”, paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer with the Natural History Museum in London told Nature, adding that if humans and hobbits had overlapped, interbreeding is also a possibility. Meanwhile, the research team intends to return to Liang Bua in order to explore cave deposits from 46,000 to 50,000 years old. The discovery of the teeth was revealed at the European Society for the study of Human Evolution in Madrid’s annual meeting. ]]>

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80-Year-Old Nazi Time Capsule Unearthed in Poland

Mein Kampf as wedding present (1)

Mein Kampf, other books and historical materials describing the town of Falkenburg, as it was known then. Ordensburg Krössinsee was one of three educational centers constructed in the 1930s in Germany for the purpose of training future leaders of the Nazi Party. It was built near the town of Falkenburg in what was Germany at the time. Today it’s the town of Zlocieniec, Poland, and the former training camp is used by the Polish army The individual buildings and designated areas which made up the facility included a Hall of Honor, twenty separate living quarters, a dining hall, an educational hall, the commander’s house, administrative buildings, a house for female employees, a sick bay, a sports field, an arena for riding, horse barns and two towers (although four had been planned). A hotel, swimming pool and water sports facility were also planned but never constructed. To attend the educational center, cadets, called Ordens Junkers, had to be a minimum 5 feet 4 inches (1.63 m) tall and be between 23 and 26 years old. They were required to be racially pure, in good health and have no physical limitations. Classes included the study of politics, world history and philosophy, while afternoons were spent on battle tactics, military drills, equestrian techniques (a program for which it was recognized), and sports. In 1937, the facility was shared with the Hitlerjungen or Hitler Youth. Between 1933 and 1945, the Hitler Youth was Germany’s only official youth organization and consisted of the Hitlerjugend for males between the ages of fourteen and eighteen and the Deutsches Jungvolk for younger boys between ten and fourteen years old, as well as the League of German Girls. The Hitler Youth members would become the sole occupants of the camp following the invasion of Poland in 1939 and the start of World War II. The capsule and its contents have been transferred to the National Museum in Szczecin for translation, categorizing, preservation and display. ]]>

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23,000-Year-Old Fish Hooks Discovered on Okinawa

Fishing for Ayu

CNN that humans are thought to have originally crossed over to Australia approximately 50,000 years ago, but that any evidence of maritime adaptation by humans had only been reported between Australia to Wallacea, a collection of primarily Indonesian islands. “Our findings suggest that Paleolithic people had adapted their maritime technologies to live not only in Wallacea and Australia, but a much wider geographic zone,” Fujita told CNN. “We found fish and human bones that dated back some 30,000 to 35,000 years. We don’t know what kind of tools were used to catch these fish, but we’re hoping to find some even older fishing tools.” The study was recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. An image of the hooks can be found here: here ]]>

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American Alligators are as Old as They Look

Two American Alligators (1)

Gavialosuchus americanus: the huge crocodile which once dominated the coastline of Florida but went extinct around 5 million years ago, and alligator fossils at a variety of locations indicated that the two species could have coexisted. Despite their adaptability and resilience, American alligators were nearly driven to extinction by hunting early in the twentieth century. The number of alligators left in the wild has significantly increased under The Endangered Species Act, and with a more comprehensive evolutionary history, conserving the habitats where alligators have been the dominate species for millions of years may be more effective. “The same traits that allowed alligators to remain virtually the same through numerous environmental changes over millions of years can become a bit of a problem when they try to adapt to humans,” Whiting is quoted as saying in the statement, “Their adaptive nature is why we have alligators in swimming pools or crawling around golf courses.” Although modern alligators do appear prehistoric, the group they’re part of, Crocodylia, has been around for at least 84 million years, with a diverse line of ancestors that dates back to over 200 million years ago, as far as the Triassic. This research was published in the Journal of Herpetology and Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. ]]>

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Documents Belonging to “Scotland’s Schindler” Discovered

Jane Haining Memorial Dunmore (4)

Huffington Post. Haining was born in 1897 and moved to Budapest to take a position as matron of the Jewish Mission School, where 315 pupils, 48 of them boarders and a number of them orphans, were educated. As the Nazis moved across Europe, her situation became increasingly dangerous, resulting in her superiors ordering her to return to Scotland on three separate occasions. Haining, however, refused to leave “her” girls behind. Rev. Ian Alexander, the Secretary of the Church of Scotland World Mission Council, explained to the Huffington Post: “Scottish missionaries were advised to return home from Europe during the dark days of the Second World War but Jane declined and wrote ‘if these children need me in days of sunshine, how much more do they need me in days of darkness’.” For four years Haining was able to keep the children in her care safe, despite constant Nazi surveillance. She was ultimately betrayed by the son-in-law of the school’s cook, after she caught him eating the scarce amount of food intended for the girls. Charged with the following eight offenses: working alongside the Jews, weeping at the sight of the girls wearing yellow stars in class, firing her housekeeper, listening to BBC news broadcasts, receiving a large number of British visitors, being politically active, visiting British war prisoners, and sending war parcels to British prisoners; Haining was imprisoned and ultimately sent to Auschwitz, along with several of her wards, where she later died. Her will, which was dated July, 1942, includes instructions pertaining to the distribution of her belongings and money, and many of the photographs feature her young wards. She is believed to be one of ten Scottish people to have been killed in the Nazi death camps. Haining was named in Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. The items will be housed at the Church of Scotland, in Edinburgh. ]]>

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Neolithic Cochno Stone to be Digitally Resurrected

Graffiti (2)

here Featured image, showing pre-1965 graffiti on the Cochno Stone, is courtesy of University of Glasgow]]>