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Ancient Judean Scroll Bears First non-Biblical Mention of Jerusalem

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USA Today, Israeli archaeologists have dated the scroll to the seventh century BCE, the time of the First Temple. The scroll itself, written in ancient Hebrew, is made of papyrus; once translated it revealed the details of a purchase order for a shipment of wine, with the relevant text reading “from the King’s maidservant, from Na’arat, jars of wine, to Jerusalem.” The Israel Antiquities Authority robbery prevention unit recovered the papyrus. As it was initially discovered decades ago in the same region as the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, this shipping order was likewise well-preserved thanks to the dry, arid climate of the West Bank, a region also known as the Judean Desert. Eitan Klein, the unit’s deputy director, remarked that the newly-recovered and analyzed scroll is some of the rarest evidence that the Kingdom of Judah had some sort of organized administrative bureaucracy in place at the time. The find, Klein added, underlines just how central a role Jerusalem played as the financial capital of the entire kingdom during the time period, especially the second half of the seventh century BCE. There are three possible kings that the wine might have been intended for, Klein said, based on historical data gleaned from the Hebrew Bible. Israel Hasson, the director of the IAA, remarked that this new discovery proves that the caves of the Judean Desert hold an untold number of archaeological finds of such tremendous importance. Calling for a systematic investigation into the desert cave systems, Hasson added that time is of the essence, considering how delicate these scrolls are – and how susceptible they are to changing climatic conditions. The new find is not without controversy, however, especially in light of a highly contentious and criticized decision by UNESCO, the world heritage administrative arm of the United Nations, to ratify a pair of resolutions to refer to the Temple Mount – the epicenter of Jewish worship around the globe – exclusively by its Arabic name. While Jerusalem is considered the third holiest site in Islam behind Mecca and Medina, the decision to exclude Judaism’s ties to the city – and by extension the city’s ties to the Christian faith – has resulted in a public outcry from many in Israel’s government. One such politician, Miri Regev, a former Israeli Defense Forces brigadier-general and the current minister of culture and sport for the country, seized on the discovery of the papyrus scroll as a tool for politicizing the event, declaring that the reference to Jerusalem was additional tangible proof that Jerusalem “was and will remain the eternal capital of the Jewish people.” Regev added that the Temple Mount, a site that she called “the very heart of Jerusalem and Israel”, will nonetheless continue to be the most holy site for Judaism and the Jewish people regardless of the UNESCO ratifications, both now and in the future. ]]>

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Swords Found in 6th-Century Japanese tomb One-of-a-kind

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Asahi Shimbun newspaper. The two weapons were located alongside the skeletal remains found within the tomb, indicating that the individual buried within was of high social status, according to the Kagoshima University Museum’s Tatsuya Hashimoto. An associate professor of archaeology who was involved in the research, Hashimoto remarked that the swords likely belonged to someone very close to the upper echelons of the Yamato kingdom, perhaps even a servant to someone close to the king of the dynasty which once ruled Japan during the third to seventh centuries CE (known as the Kofun Period). Burial Site 139’s style and construction reinforce its ties to the Kofun Period, as it matches other underground tunnel tombs found in the Mizazaki prefecture and the nearby Kagoshima prefecture. In addition to the swords, there were two sets of remains found in 139, additional weapons and armor, and grave goods such as horse harnesses as well. Careful curation work by the Gangoji Institute for Research of Cultural Property was conducted on both swords. One weapon was found to be approximately 142 centimeters long, including the remains of a wooden pommel; researchers say that the fully reconstructed length of the sword would be approximately 150 centimeters, giving it the title of the longest sword ever found in an ancient Japanese tomb. Details such as a warp-patterned brocade on the scabbard of the sword further distinguish the weapon, as there have only been three other archaeological finds of the expensive textile, known as “tatenishiki”, dating back to the Kofun Period. The other weapon, an 85 centimeter long sword with a round pommel decorated with silver, features hilt wrappings made from granular ray skin. Researchers believe that the sword originated from the Paekche Kingdom, one of the “Three Kingdoms” that once ruled the Korean Peninsula. Paekche is thought to have had strong ties to Yamato Japan. Surviving historical documents indicate that cultural exchange between the two regions was strong, with the Korean kingdom exporting works of art and religious teachings in exchange for military aid in its struggles with its neighbors – reinforcing the theory that the ray-skin decorated sword might have been made there and was then purchased by, or given as a gift to, one of the individuals found in Burial Site 139. ]]>

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Excavations Interrupted by WW2 Continue at Khirbat al-Minya

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Science Daily, “The new excavations and the accompanying architectural survey will provide us for the first time with detailed insights into what happened on the shores of the Sea of Galilee before the palace was built and after it was destroyed by the earthquake of 749 AD. Our results will then contribute to the future development of the site.” ]]>

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Ancient Desert Graves Indicate Possible Blood Feuds

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here Illustration by Caitlin McPherson]]>

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Chinese Fossilized Fish Sheds New Light on Jaw Evolution

Qilinyu rostrate, a fish-like Silurian placoderm species, has led to new information regarding the evolution of the jaw in vertebrate species. The roughly 423 million year old fossil is approximately 126 millimeters in length – with an estimated total body length for the creature of 20cm – and is associated with several different species including the Guiyu and Megamastax (classified as osteichthyans), the Entelognathus (a maxillate placoderm) and the Dunyu (a galeaspid). Osteichthyans, which include tetrapods and bony fish species, have facial and bone structure differences when compared to placoderms. The discovery of Entelognathus revealed a placoderm with many facial characteristics more suited to osteichthyans, but the relationship between Entelognathus’ development and the rest of the placoderms from the same time period remained uncertain until this new discovery. According to a recently published research study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Sweden’s Uppsala University, and the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of Beijing, the new Qilinyu fossil bridges the gap between placoderms such as Entelognathus and osteichthyans. The new specimen, according to the team of international researchers, has dentary, premaxilla, and maxilla structures that are constructed in the same way as the gnathal plates of less advanced placoderms while also predating the addition of certain lower jaw bones that characterized the evolutionary move away from gnathal jaws to maxillate ones. According to Uppsala University professor Per E. Ahlberg, one of the authors of the new study, examining the jaw bones of both Qilinyu and Entelognathus reveals that both fish species combine the characteristics of placoderm gnathal plates and bony fish jaw bones. Extrapolating from these findings, Professor Ahlberg remarked that if gnathal plates from placoderm species represented an inner jaw arcade that was similar to certain bones of bony fish species, there would be an expectation to find gnathal plates in distinct locations in Qilinyu and Entelognathus. With no evidence of these gnathal plates, the professor states that one interpretation of this is to conclude that the jaw bones of humans are lightly remodeled gnathal plates of placoderms, accomplished through several hundred million years of evolutionary process. Based on the team’s findings, Professor Ahlberg remarked that it looks as if substantial anatomical details of humanity can be traced back even beyond early bony fish species, into the Silurian period in the form of these “ungainly” placoderm species. The scientific community has largely agreed with the team’s findings, with John Long, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology’s president and professor from Australia’s Flinders University, commenting that the new insights into Qilinyu help to fill a large gap in the evolution of vertebrate jaws. The new research study, published recently in the journal Science, can be found online here Image drawn by YANG Dinghua]]>

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New Evidence of a Battle Still Mourned during Jewish Fast

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Jewish Press: “This is a fascinating testimony of the intensive bombardment by the Roman army, led by Titus, on their way to conquering the city and destroying the Second Temple. The bombardment was intended to attack the sentries guarding the wall and provide cover for the Roman forces so they could approach the wall with battering rams and thereby breach the city’s defenses.” As described by historian Flavius Josephus, who witnessed the event, the last battle against the Jewish rebels started with the Romans using catapults to hurl large stones, spears and gravel at the outer third wall and its defenders. The Romans were firing from siege towers which Jewish weapons were unable to reach. When the Jews were forced to retreat, they were no longer able to prevent the endless onslaught of Roman battering rams which gradually destroyed the wall. Josephus wrote: “The soldiers who reached the top of the wall opened the gates and brought the entire military force inside. Therefore on the 15th day of the siege, the 7th day of Artemisius [corresponding to the Hebrew month of Iyar], the Romans took control of the … wall, most of which was destroyed to the foundations along with the northern part of the city.” It took another two and a half months of battle before Titus was able to breech the remaining two walls. The findings attesting to the battle at the third wall were discovered in the Russian Compound, an area west of Jerusalem’s Old City, named for the Russian Orthodox church built there during the nineteenth century. Construction of Jerusalem’s third wall was started by Judean King Agrippa I, however, construction was halted and the wall was only completed years later, haphazardly and with inadequate resources making it a weak spot in the city’s defense. The destruction of the first and second temples is still mourned yearly as the Jewish fast Tisha B’Av, while the Arch of Titus, which celebrates the Roman’s victory in Jerusalem and the Temple’s destruction, is still standing in Rome. The excavation findings are scheduled to be presented at the “New Studies in the archaeology of Jerusalem and its Region” conference. ]]>

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Nan Madol Earliest Pacific Settlement Ruled by a Chief

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Science Daily: “The kind of society that we live in today, it wasn’t born last year, or even 100 years ago. It has its roots in a pre-modern era like Nan Madol where you have a king or chief. These islanders invented a new kind of society — that is a socially creative achievement. The idea of chiefs, someone in charge, is not a new thing, but it’s an extremely important precursor. We know tribes and bands predate chiefdoms and states. But it’s not a straight line. By looking at these intermediate stages we get insight into that social phenomenon.” The research team is the first to use uranium-thorium series dating, a significantly more precise method than radiocarbon dating, to determine the age of the stone structures that comprise the site of Nan Madol. Portable X-ray fluorescence (XRF) geochemically matched the basalt stones to natural sources found on the island. The uranium-thorium technique calculates a date based on characteristics of the radioactive isotope thorium-230 and its radioactive parent, uranium-234. “The thing that makes this case special is Nan Madol happened in isolation, it happened very recently, and we have multiple lines of evidence, including oral histories to support the analysis,” McCoy is quoted as saying in Science Daily, “And because it’s an island we can be much more specific about the natural resources, the population, all the things that are more difficult when people are on a continent and all connected. So we can understand it with a lot more precision.” Previous dating indicated that Nan Madol, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, had been established in 1300 CE. McCoy’s team has narrowed that to a 20-year window over 100 years earlier, between 1180 CE and 1200 CE, which means the dynasty of Saudeleur chiefs who ruled the island society for over 1,000 years was also established earlier than previously believed. Uranium dating shows that by 1180 CE, the huge stones used to construct the tomb were being transported from a volcanic plug located on the opposite side of the island, and that by 1200, the island’s chief was interned there. Pohnpei Island is an inactive volcano (for a million years at least), much larger than neighboring islands at 128 square miles (334 square kilometers). It was originally settled around 1 CE by islanders from the Vanuatu or Solomon island groups. To construct the tomb and other structures, basalt boulders, weighing tons apiece, were moved somehow from quarries on the other side of the island to the lagoon where they remain today. The research has been published in the journal Quaternary Research. Image courtesy of Mark McCoy ]]>

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Breeding With Neanderthals Altered Human Immune Systems

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study suggested that this process could have contributed to the Neanderthals’ extinction, humans passing on unfamiliar viruses from Africa to the Neanderthals. According to the two new studies, recently published in the journal Cell, this breeding could have also helped humans from Africa adapt to the new pathogens they encountered in Europe. Breeding with Neanderthals might have seen humans obtain the Neanderthals’ different immune system responses. This would have helped them fight off the new infections they encountered on the continent. Neanderthals left Africa much earlier than modern humans, arriving in Europe up to 300,000 years ago. Humans made their way to the continent sometime between 100,000 and 60,000 years ago. In the first of the studies, geneticist Luis Barreiro of the University of Montreal and colleagues collected blood samples from 80 African Americans and 95 people of European descent. A type of immune cell called macrophages, which engulfs and destroys bacteria, was isolated in each of the samples. The isolated macrophages cells were grown in a dish, and then infected with two types of bacteria. It was found that the macrophages from African Americans killed the bacteria three times faster than those from Europeans. The researchers also discovered that gene expressions responded differently to the infections. Many of the genes whose activity changed the most during the immune reactions had sequences that were very similar to Neanderthals and Europeans, not Africans. In the second study, population geneticist Lluis Quintana-Murci and his colleagues at the Pasteur Institute in Paris collected samples from 200 people living in Belgium. 50% of their subjects were of African descent, 50% of European. Again, the researchers grew immune cells from the subjects in dishes and infected them with diseases and viruses, although this time the immune cells were monocytes. Once again, the two groups showed differences in the activity of various genes. Neanderthal-like gene variants in the European group playing a significant role in altering their response. For some diseases, such as tuberculosis, a lower immune response actually tends to improve chances of survival and recovery. Modern humans in Europe may have therefore adopted Neanderthal traits to survive the disease, the process perhaps happening as the result of an ancient outbreak. Similarly, modern African-American women are three times more susceptible to the autoimmune disease lupus than white Americans. This is a trend which can be seen beyond environmental, social and economic factors. Barreiro suggests that at least part of this difference could be explained by genetics. Beyond providing insight into the development of the immune system, the findings by these studies have the potential to deepen our understanding of modern disease, showing the importance of considering racial diversity and history for detecting the roots of disease. ]]>

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Earliest Evidence of Right-Handedness Discovered

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Homo habilis fossil. Although scientists have learnt a lot about “handedness”, they still haven’t been able to precisely explain why humans favour using one hand over the other, or why human populations are biased towards right handedness over left handedness. The lack of a standard, empirical definition for measuring handedness means scientists disagree on what percentage of the human population are left or right handed. However, it is agreed that the majority of humans are right handed (between 70 and 95 percent) and the minority left handed (30 to five percent). By comparison, the ratio among apes is 50:50. At 1.8 millions years old, the Homo habilis fossil studied by the University of Kansas researchers marks the oldest known evidence of right handedness in the fossil record. “We think that tells us something further about lateralization of the brain,” said David Frayer, a KU professor emeritus of anthropology and the lead author of the study, in a press release. “We already know that Homo habilis had brain lateralization and was more like us than like apes. This extends it to handedness, which is key.” Brain lateralisation refers to the fact that the left and right hemispheres of the brain are not exactly alike, leading to certain neural processes and cognitive functions being more dominant in one hemisphere than the other. Scientists have long theorised that this brain lateralisation has some correlation to a person’s handedness. Frayer and team made their discovery by analysing labial striations – small cut marks, which are lip side of the anterior teeth in the intact Homo habilis jaw fossil. Known as OH-65, the fossil was found in a stream channel of the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. Most of the deep cuts on the lip face of the upper front teeth veered downwards from left to right. After analysing the marks, Frayer and his team believe they most likely came from OH-65 using a tool with its right hand to cut food it was holding in its mouth while pulling at it with its left hand. The scratches can be seen with the naked eye, but the team used a microscope to accurately determine their alignment. “Experimental work has shown these scratches were most likely produced when a stone tool was used to process material gripped between the anterior teeth and the tool occasionally struck the labial face leaving a permanent mark on the tooth’s surface,” said Frayer. The direction of the marks strongly suggests that the Homo habilis specimen was right handed. Of course, OH-65 is only one sample but it could be the first evidence of a dominant handed pre-Neanderthal. As such, it could lead to the search for similar marks in other Homo fossils, allowing scientists to gain further insight into the development of handedness. “Handedness and language are controlled by different genetic systems, but there is a weak relationship between the two because both functions originate on the left side of the brain,” explained Frayer. “One specimen does not make an incontrovertible case, but as more research is done and more discoveries are made, we predict that right-handedness, cortical reorganization and language capacity will be shown to be important components in the origin of our genus.” A host of different studies have pointed towards brain reorganization, the use of tools and use of a dominant hand all occurring early in the human lineage. This latest study, published in the Journal of Human Evolution, is the first to look into the directionality of striations in the earliest specimens of our evolutionary lineage. It shows how something seemingly as basic as the dominance of one hand over the other is well embedded in our evolutionary history. “We think we have the evidence for brain lateralization, handedness and possibly language, so maybe it all fits together in one picture,” said Frayer. Image courtesy of David Frayer]]>

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Stone Age Humans Heat-treated Stone Tools

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PLOS ONE, is available here Image courtesy of Delagnes et al (2016)]]>