And the year keeps getting better. "The site of a lost early monastery in north east Scotland where monks wrote the historic Book of Deer may have been found, researchers have said. The 10th Century illuminated manuscript is noted for containing the earliest surviving Gaelic writing from Scotland. The latest attempt to find the site of the monastery focused on a field near ruined Deer Abbey in Aberdeenshire. Archaeologists uncovered pottery, a stone hearth and charcoal which they said was "extremely exciting". The pottery has been carbon-dated to medieval times and the charcoal to the early medieval monastic period. The archaeologists said this was "the most compelling evidence" yet of the lost monastery. Further digs could be done at the site in an effort to find more evidence of early medieval activity." Book of Deer monastery dig find 'exciting'
And another groundbreaking discovery. "The oldest known human fossil found outside of Africa suggests modern humans left the continent around 100,000 years earlier than previously thought. The fossil, an upper jawbone with several teeth, was found in one of several prehistoric cave sites in Israel. Dating techniques of the jawbone suggest it is between 175,000 and 200,000 years old, pushing back the modern human migration out of Africa by 100,000 years. Before the latest discovery, the earliest modern human fossils found outside of Africa were those estimated to be between 90,000 to 120,000 years old." The fossil that could rewrite the history of mankind | Daily Mail Online
Yeah, "three feet out of Africa". A health man could walk from the Suez to the discovery point in a week or less. Still, it's a new piece to the puzzle.
I've seen the petrified forest preserved in a Glasgow park, but would love to compare this one- "Archaeologists are studying Scotland’s “woodlands under the waves” which were created thousands of years ago when dramatic rises in sea levels pushed vast stretches of forest underwater. Recent work has been carried out at the Bay of Ireland near Stromness ,Orkney, with similar research underway at Benbecula and Berneray in the Outer Hebrides. Dr Scott Timpany of the Archaeology Institute at the University of the Highlands and Islands, said the small stumps and roots found at the Bay of Ireland were around 6,000 years old. The discoveries have helped to build a picture of life on the island from the early Mesolithic period when Orkney, then a single island populated by hunter gatherers, was broken up by rising sea levels into the archipelago we know today. Dr Timpany said: “For these early Mesolithic communities, this landscape must have been a dynamic place. They would have been aware of the sea encroaching onto the land and the coastal area changing. “A fair bit of the landscape would once have been woodland, so we have been thinking about how people would have navigated that landscape, which would have been wet, boggy ground, and how people adapted to the change in sea levels.” Archaeologists survey Scotland’s forests under the sea
Sheese. "More than 60,000 previously unknown Mayan structures - including pyramids, palaces and causeways - have been revealed under jungle foliage in Guatemala in what has been hailed as a 'major breakthrough'. Researchers used laser technology to look beneath the forest canopy in northern Peten - an area close to already-known Mayan cities. The lasers revealed the 'breathtaking' remains of a sprawling pre-Columbian 'megalopolis' that was far more complex than most specialists had ever believed. The discovery suggests that Central America supported a civilization that was, at its peak 1,500 years ago, more advanced than ancient Greek and Chinese cultures. The landscape may have been home to up to 15 million individuals and the abundance of defensive walls, ramparts and fortresses suggests that warfare was rife throughout their existence and not just at the end." www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5343567/Thousands-Mayan-pyramids-palaces-Guatemala.html#ixzz560ZDbc76
Well, THIS is going to shock a few folks...can't wait to see the programme! "The first ancient Britons had black skin, dark curly hair and blue eyes, according to DNA tests. The ‘extraordinary’ findings were made by cutting-edge genetic tests and facial reconstruction techniques carried out for the first time on the bones of ‘Cheddar Man’ who died 10,000 years ago. The bones, found in Somerset's Cheddar Gorge, are the oldest near-complete human skeleton ever found in Britain and scientists said they were surprised to discover that the earliest Briton would be considered ‘black’ if he lived today. The research suggests the first inhabitants of the British isles developed white skin later on than previously thought. Experts also revealed that Cheddar Man is directly related to 1 in 10 people living in the UK today. The Natural History Museum and Channel 4 unveiled a reconstruction of the ancient human yesterday, which was made for a documentary: The First Brit: Secrets of the 10,000 Year Old Man." www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5358699/First-Brit-dark-skinned-blue-eyed.html#ixzz56NYpjxOA
interesting...I always thought the "indigenous" Brits originally came from Spain...who would have had olive to darker skin, black hair and quite possibly coloured eyes of almost all Europeans...in other words, what I would have expected?
Yeah...this one is a chest nut...they way I look at "white skin" - Which isn't white, there is no white pigment, instead its transparent...you can even see the blood vessels through it...light travels through this transparent medium called skin..hits a vein and bounces back through the skin a second time and into our eyes, the red is absorbed making our veins "seem" blue...we have pigment melanin...to protect us from the rays of the sun which can damage our cells causing cancers...the more sun one lives under the darker the skin or more concentrated the melanin...not having fur or shells to protect us Melanin does an extraordinary job...so why are we "white" - Two big reasons IMO 1. We live/lived at the top of the Earth (northern Europeans) - the angle of the sun is low, think lumins per square foot...far more lumins per square foot at the equator (where everyone has brown skin - even me) - the further away from the equator the less sun or sun exposure one has...Even southern Spanish or Italian have darker skin than their northern brothers. So...sun exposure is the key here... 2. Living in the north/far north its also colder, which means we not only spend less time outside but when we ARE outside we cover up, all over...Our bodies need Vitamin D - the vast majority of which we get from the sun and a little from our diets. Our body NEEDS that vitamin D, so it does away with almost ALL our melanin to capture what little sun light we got exposed to. Creating a whiter look (the white is the fat underneath the skin) Ive never heard of a connection between white skin - Vitamin D and meat. Indeed I can recall a story from WW2 that flys in the face of the meat theory... New Guinea WW2, Japanese would threaten villagers that If they told the allies about their presence and location they would come back and shoot the young men in the village - There was only two young men in the village...the villagers did tell the allies that the Japanese were in the area and then spotted them coming back to the village...the two young men took off and hid deep in a local cave system they knew well... The Japanese couldn't find them. The two young men stayed hidden in the cave and would only come out a few nights a week to get a supply of food and water from their village and be back in the cave long before day break...it took two - three months before the Japanese were pushed out of the area and the two villagers could come back...when they did the villagers ran away from them! They were so "white" that they thought the Japanese had caught and killed them and this was their ghosts! They had lost most of their melanin in their skin due to a lack of sunlight...they were on the same diet as the other villagers...
I remember reading an article that indicated it took 50 to 100 generations to change the skin color from "white" to "black" or visa versa. Vitamin D and resistance to sunburn and melanoma were the drivers from what I recall.
Aye, it's a fascinating subject. Going to post this as an aside; been following this for years- Ancient Human Occupation of Britain
Indeed it is an environmentally driven change. I'll see if I can find a reference to the study. Since this is from NPR it may be where I came across it: Your Family May Once Have Been A Different Color
The Science Daily website had one up recently, IIRC. It's a matter of energy budget. Why produce melanin if the danger of sunburn is low?
Intriguing! "A group of 8,000-year-old human skulls, some embedded on stakes, has been found in a mysterious underwater grave that has baffled archaeologists. One of the pierced skulls, found preserved in what was once a prehistoric lake in Sweden, was discovered with some of its brain tissue still intact. The gruesome discovery challenges our understanding of European Stone Age culture and how these early humans handled their dead, experts said. The finding, from researchers at Stockholm University and Sweden's Cultural Heritage Foundation (CHF), is the first evidence that Mesolithic hunter-gatherers displayed heads on wooden spikes." www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5386839/8-000-year-old-human-skulls-stakes-lake-grave.html#ixzz572ezzQgN
NOVA (on PBS) recently ran a show on a 13,000 old girl found in a cenote in Mexico. Naia (skeleton) - Wikipedia