For Those Interested in Archaeology

Swedish divers have uncovered what they believe to be the legendary Swedish warship Mars, lost in a sea battle with the Danish-Lübeckian navy in 1564, near the coast of the Baltic island of Öland.


“The ship is lying port-side up and the site is virtually littered with cannons," said diver Richard Lundstedt to The Local.

Mars was one of the largest ships of its time with 107 guns and a crew of 800 men, both out-sizing and outgunning the famous warship Vasa, which has been on show in Stockholm since it was lifted from city's harbour in the 1960s.

Divers have been searching for the legendary Mars for decades. And on Friday it was announced that it might have been found.

“We certainly don’t know of any other ships sinking near those coordinates,” said Andreas Olsson, head archaeologist at the Royal Swedish Maritime museum (Sjöhistoriska muséet).

The shipwreck was discovered at a depth of 75 metres, near the northern promontory of the Baltic island of Öland off of Sweden's east coast. The wreckage is reportedly solid oak and the seabed is strewn with bronze cannons.

The Mars was the largest ship in the Baltic in its heyday and was sunk, only a year after its maiden voyage, during a sea battle with the Danish-Lübeckian navy in 1564.

'New Vasa' shipwreck found on Baltic seabed - The Local

And some footage

Sensationellt vrak hittat i Östersjön | Nyheter | Aftonbladet

 

Feathers believed to be from dinosaurs have been found beautifully preserved in Alberta amber.
Dinosaur feathers found in Alberta amber - Edmonton - CBC News

The primitive, hair-like feathers known as protofeathers likely belonged to theropods — dinosaurs similar to tiny Tyrannosaurus rexes — that roamed the swampy forests of Alberta 80 million years ago, said Alexander P. Wolfe, a University of Alberta earth sciences professor who co-authored the research published Thursday in Science.



The protofeathers don't look like feathers from any modern bird, but are similar to those seen in fossils of therapods. (Science/AAAS)"Protofeathers aren't known from any modern, existing groups of birds and therefore the most obvious interpretation is that they belong to dinosaurs," he said.
Theropods, which are thought to be closely related to modern birds, were already known to have feathers, based on features surrounding fossils found in China. But a lot of details were lost in the fossilization process.

"The feathers get altered, they get substituted by minerals and you can't see any of the detail," Wolfe said.
[h=3]Hair vs. feathers[/h]The protofeathers may look very hair-like, but the researchers confirmed they were feathers by looking at them under a microscope, Wolfe said. Hair, found on mammals, has microscopic scales. Feathers, found in birds and dinosaurs, have features called nodes and internodes instead.

"With amber, it's different. We actually have the actual object.… we actually have this protofeather for the first time in the flesh."
The feathers are preserved down to the pigments that show what colour they are and microscopic details of their structure.
Based on the fact that the protofeathers were just single filaments or clumps of filaments, just two centimetres long, the researchers concluded "these had nothing to do with flight," Wolfe said.
Instead, he believes they were used to keep the dinosaurs warm.



A theropod fossil from China shows bristle-like feathers on the head, neck, back and tail. However, many of the details have been obscured by the fossilization process. (Nanjing Institute/Associated Press)The protofeathers were among a wide range of feathers found in Alberta amber specimens by Ryan McKellar, a researcher who recently completed his PhD under Wolfe's supervision. McKellar's research was initially interested in insects, but stumbled upon some very bird-like feathers in the process of sorting through amber from the Royal Tyrell Museum and the University of Alberta's collection, Wolfe said.

He decided to keep an eye out for other feathers. After sorting through around 4,000 chunks of amber, each less than two centimetres in diameter, he had collected a wide range, from the protofeathers to more complex feathers from the same time period that were most certainly from birds.

Some were downy "like the kind you have in your pillow," Wolfe said. Others look like modern flight feathers. Some also had special features found in diving birds such as grebes.
Wolfe, an expert in amber chemistry, said such birds likely shared the same ecosystem as the dinosaurs — a steamy, "very buggy" coastal forest similar to Florida's everglades, dominated by cypress and cedar-like trees. The remains of the forest were compressed into coal deposits in Alberta where the amber samples were found.

Wolfe said now that the new research, including photographs, has been published, he hopes researchers in other parts of the world where feather dinosaur fossils have been found will start keeping an eye out for dinosaur feathers in amber. He also hopes to do a biochemical analysis on the proteins in the feathers.

 

BBC News - Lock of hair pins down early migration of Aborigines

By Leila Battison Science reporter



A lock of hair is all that is needed to decode the history of an entire race

A lock of hair has helped scientists to piece together the genome of Australian Aborigines and rewrite the history of human dispersal around the world.

DNA from the hair demonstrates that indigenous Aboriginal Australians were the first to separate from other modern humans, around 70,000 years ago.

This challenges current theories of a single phase of dispersal from Africa.
An international team of researchers published their findings in the journal Science.
While the Aboriginal populations were trailblazing across Asia and into Australia, the remaining humans stayed around North Africa and the Middle East until 24,000 years ago.
Only then did they spread out and colonise Europe and Asia, but the indigenous Aborigines had been established in Australia for 25,000 years.
Australian Aborigines therefore have a longer claim to the land in which they now live than any other population known.

The research also highlights the exciting future possibilities of comparing the genomes of multiple individuals to track migration of small indigenous groups.

Tiny genetic differences
Archaeological remains are known from Australia from around 50,000 years ago, putting a maximum age of the Aborigines' settlement there. But the history of their journey and their relationship with the indigenous people of Asia and Europe had not been solved. They could walk almost the entire way because the sea level was much lower”
Dr Francois Balloux Imperial College London
It was previously thought that modern humans dispersed in one pulse out of Africa and the Middle East, and because of the distances involved, the modern Europeans would have separated from the Asians and Australians first.
Genetic information from a lock of Aboriginal hair has been used to show that the Australians set off a lot earlier.
By looking at the tiny (fraction of a percent) differences between the DNA of Aborigines and other ancient humans, the scientists show that the indigenous Australians were first isolated 70,000 years ago.
Dr Francois Balloux, of Imperial College London described how a "population expanded along the coastline because of the rich resources available there. They could walk almost the entire way because the sea level was much lower". Just one small sea crossing would be required to reach Australia.

Any potential archaeological remains of this journey, which lasted 25,000 years, would be lost to the deep sea under rising sea levels.
The remaining populations in the Middle East moved out to colonise Europe and Asia 24,000 years ago, and the aboriginal genome records some interbreeding between Asian populations and aboriginal ancestors at this time.
Discovering the history of human migration with DNA has been made possible by improvements in the techniques used to study the genome.

Traditionally, genetic divergence dates were arrived at by combining the number of unique mutations in the DNA with an assumed rate of acquiring those mutations.

Now, computationally powerful models can simulate lots of different scenarios for migration timings and directions, and researchers can compare and choose the situation that most closely matches what is seen in the genome.
By comparing the Aboriginal genome with the DNA of African, European and Han Chinese individuals it was possible to highlight the later interbreeding after initial colonisation.

Australia was the first place to be colonised; Eurasians remained in the Middle East until 24,000 years ago.
Comparison with Eurasian populations show that the Australian Aborigines have a similar percentage of Neanderthal genes within their DNA as their Eurasian counterparts, suggesting that any interbreeding occurred before the Aborigines embarked on their colonising journey.

The findings of these researchers are supported by an independent study, published this week in the American Journal of Human Genetics, which looks at the characteristic DNA from an extinct, archaic form of human, the Denisovans.
Denisovans lived over 30,000 years ago, and contributed genes mostly to present-day New Guineans.
This independent study identifies a pattern of Denisovan DNA in Asian individuals that can only be explained by two separate waves of human migration: the first of Aboriginals colonising Australia, and the second involving the occupation of Asia itself.
'Jurassic Park science' The Aboriginal research was carried out on a single lock of hair, which was donated by a young Aboriginal man to the British anthropologist Dr A C Haddon in 1923.

"At this time, it was fashionable to take human samples," said Dr Balloux. The collection of hair was one of the more innocuous efforts of anthropologists at the time.

The researchers chose to examine the hair, as opposed to any other type of remains, for legal reasons. Hair is not classified as a human tissue.
"More important to us was that the research would be acceptable from a social and moral point of view" said Dr Balloux.To the surprise of the scientists, the people they consulted were very supportive of the study and its results. Dr Balloux explained that in the past, indigenous people have been "extremely sensitive of the motivations of western scientists".

The research has been published with "strong endorsement" from the Goldfields Land and Sea Council, the organisation that represents the Aboriginal traditional owners of parts of Western Australia, he said.
Genomics techniques like those used in this study have the potential to be used more extensively in the study of human migrations and the evolution of health and disease.

The international team next plans to look in more detail at the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa, as well as solving how and when the Americas were colonised.

Dr Balloux said he was excited about the unexpected potential of the techniques, describing it as "borderline Jurassic Park science".

 

"Archaeologists have uncovered one of the most significant Romano-British sites in the Trent Valley, at Langford Quarry in Nottinghamshire. However, it is clear from the evidence that Langford was a focus for activity from the Neolithic onwards."
New Romano-British village appears in quarry excavation | Past Horizons

"A MEDIEVAL burial ground discovered earlier this year in Rush, Co Dublin, is several hundred years older than it was originally thought to be.
While the discovery in June by semi-State body Eirgrid was met with much initial excitement, interested parties were then forced to wait until radiocarbon tests from Queen’s University, Belfast could more precisely conclude how old it was."
Burial site believed linked to Vikings is centuries older - The Irish Times - Sat, Oct 01, 2011

"STILLWATER, N.Y. (AP) — Archaeologists are digging for artifacts in a battle-scarred and history-rich stretch of the upper Hudson River where thousands of Europeans, Americans and Native Americans fought and died during more than a century of sporadic warfare, culminating in the Americans' defeat of the British at Saratoga."
Dig under way at historic Saratoga battlefield - seattlepi.com

 

"Archaeology has long associated advanced blade production with the Upper Palaeolithic period, about 30,000-40,000 years ago, linked with the emergence of Homo Sapiens and cultural features such as cave art. Now researchers at Tel Aviv University have uncovered evidence which shows that "modern" blade production was also an element of Amudian industry during the late Lower Paleolithic period, 200,000-400,000 years ago as part of the Acheulo-Yabrudian cultural complex, a geographically limited group of hominins who lived in modern-day Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan."
American Friends of Tel Aviv University: Archaeologists Find Sophisticated Blade Production Much Earlier Than Originally Thought

"ScienceDaily (Oct. 13, 2011) — An ochre-rich mixture, possibly used for decoration, painting and skin protection 100,000 years ago, and stored in two abalone shells, was discovered at Blombos Cave in Cape Town, South Africa."
100,000-year-old ochre toolkit and workshop discovered in South Africa

"The Taínos were the first Native Americans to meet European explorers in the Caribbean — and they soon fell victim to the diseases and violence brought by the outsiders. Today, the genomes of most if not all descendents of Taínos now contain few of the unique markers that characterized their ancestors.
But the genetic footprints of these ancestors are scattered throughout the genomes of modern Puerto Ricans, according to geneticist Carlos Bustamante at the Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, California. On average, the genomes of Puerto Ricans contain 10–15% Native American DNA, which is largely Taíno, says Bustamante."
Rebuilding the genome of a hidden ethnicity : Nature News

 

"COLLEGE STATION -- Did climate change or humans cause the extinctions of the large-bodied Ice Age mammals (commonly called megafauna) such as the woolly rhinoceros and woolly mammoth? Scientists have for years debated the reasons behind the Ice Age mass extinctions, which caused the loss of a third of the large mammals in Eurasia and two thirds of the large mammals in North America, and now, an inter-disciplinary team from more than 40 universities around the world led by Professor Eske Willerslev and his group from the Centre for GeoGenetics, University of Copenhagen, have tried to answer the contentious question in one of the biggest studies of its kind ever."
Texas A&M professor helping to unravel causes of Ice Age extinctions


2RUJM AL-HIRI, Golan Heights (AP) — A newly proposed solution to an ancient enigma is reviving debate about the nature of a mysterious prehistoric site that some call the Holy Land's answer to Stonehenge.
Some scholars believe the structure of concentric stone circles known as Rujm al-Hiri was an astrological temple or observatory, others a burial complex. The new theory proposed by archaeologist Rami Arav of the University of Nebraska links the structure to an ancient method of disposing of the dead."
The Associated Press: AP ENTERPRISE: Grisly theory for Holy Land mystery

"A team led by Professor Raj Somadeva has recently made finds supporting the theory that Sri Lankan Culture is not borrowed from any other country or region, as has long been supposed.
The expedition is excavating a site near Haldummulla town, 835 metres above sea level on the Southern Platform of central hills - the oldest recognisable human settlement in Sri Lanka at a significant altitude.
According to Somadeva, considerable evidence of a well organised prehistoric hunting culture and civilisation were earlier found in minor excavations and caves."
Stone Pages Archaeo News: Prehistoric man emerges in Sri Lanka

"Federal archaeologists are investigating a jawbone that was discovered recently along the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington State. The human remains were found a short distance from where Kennewick Man was discovered in 1996 and sparked a decade-long legal conflict."
Jawbone find near Kennewick Man site, raises potential of new controversy | Past Horizons

"First excavated in 1927 from the limestone context of Kent's Cavern in southwestern England, the fragment of a modern human upper jaw bone (maxilla) containing three teeth was dated by Oxford University scientists in 1989 to about 35,000 B.P.
But there was a fly in the ointment.
The specimen had traces of modern glue on the surface, a result of the efforts to conserve the bone after discovery. This, according to scientists who examined the maxilla at a later time, would skew any results from dating the object."
Evidence of Earliest Known Modern Human in Northwest Europe Discovered | Popular Archaeology - exploring the past

 

"Our human ancestors did come from Africa but left the continent to spread across the world via a different route than first thought, scientists have revealed.

A six-year study mapping genetic patterns found that people who ended up in Europe, Asia and Oceania got there by crossing the sea to Arabia around 70,000 years ago.

Scientists had thought that humankind left for other continents in a northern direction through Egypt's Sinai region but now it seems they wandered further south, probably via Yemen."
Early humans were from Africa but their route out was via Arabia not Egypt | Mail Online

"A new study at the University of Arizona's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research has revealed a previously unknown multi-decade drought period in the second century A.D.

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."
UA scientists find evidence of Roman period megadrought

 

"Work to Uncover Massive Mayan City Begins

Mexican archaeologists have begun recovery of a great Mayan city buried under tons of earth and jungle in the area of Ichkabal on the Yucatan peninsula, according to the National Anthropology and History Institute (INAH).
Previous archaeological digs in Ichkabal have indicated existence of a vast Mayan settlement of buildings, the biggest roughly 650 feet wide at the base and 150 feet high. The buildings are believed to be part of a city covering about 11.5 square miles whose study will add important archaeological information to what is known about ancient Mayan civilization."
Work to Uncover Massive Mayan City Begins

"Castles in the desert - satellites reveal lost cities of Libya
Fall of Gaddafi lifts the veil on archaeological treasures

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."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/uol-cit110711.php

"PALMYRA, Mo. -- What started as a routine survey of the land surrounding a historic bridge has ended up unearthing two significant sites in the region's Native American history. Larry Grantham, an archaeologist with the Missouri Department of Transportation's Environmental Studies and Historic Preservation department, said his team has discovered a pair of Native American sites bookending the Mo. 168 bridge over the North River just west of Palmyra. "
http://www.whig.com/story/news/Palmyra-Archaeological-Dig-110711

"LAS VEGAS — A famous trail of footprints once thought to have been left behind by a family of three human ancestors may have actually been made by four individuals traveling at different times.
In a new examination of Laetoli in northern Tanzania, where a 3.6-million-year-old track of footprints of the bipedal human ancestor Australopithecus is preserved, researchers now argue that the classic understanding of this site is mistaken. The footprints have been buried since the mid-1990s for preservation, but a section recently opened for study as Tanzanian officials make plans for a museum on the site. "
http://www.livescience.com/16894-human-ancestor-laetoli-footprints-family.html

 

"Computational modeling that examines evidence of how hominin groups evolved culturally and biologically in response to climate change during the last Ice Age also bears new insights into the extinction of Neanderthals. Details of the complex modeling experiments conducted at Arizona State University and the University of Colorado Denver will be published in the December issue of the journal Human Ecology, available online Nov. 17."
Archeologists investigate Ice Age hominins adaptability to climate change | ASU News


'It's well known that Earth's most severe mass extinction occurred about 250 million years ago. What's not well known is the specific time when the extinctions occurred. A team of researchers from North America and China have published a paper in Science this week which explicitly provides the date and rate of extinction.
"This is the first paper to provide rates of such massive extinction," says Dr. Charles Henderson, professor in the Department of Geoscience at the University of Calgary and co-author of the paper: Calibrating the end-Permian mass extinction. "Our information narrows down the possibilities of what triggered the massive extinction and any potential kill mechanism must coincide with this time."'
Researchers pinpoint date and rate of Earth's most extreme extinction


"Using data obtained from the archaeological record, a team of researchers at Arizona State University and the University of Colorado, Denver, conducted experiments using complex computer modeling to analyze evidence of how human hunter-gatherers responded culturally and biologically to the dramatic changes that took place during the last Ice Age. The results showed, among other things, that the Neanderthals, thought by many scientists to have become extinct at least in part because of their inadaptability and inability to compete with the expanding presence of modern humans, may have actually been victims of their own success. "
Neanderthals Vanished Because of Their Own Success, Suggests Study | Popular Archaeology - exploring the past

 

"Recent reexamination of a Manis site — excavated bones of a mastodon — in Washington State has sparked reevaluation of when the first humans inhabited the Americas. Using current technology, researchers were able to put the site's controversial age ambiguity, which has been contested since the late 1970s, to rest.
Michael Waters, anthropology and geography professor and lead author of the paper that appeared in the academic journal Science on Oct. 21, dated the site and its "key artifact" — a bone projectile weapon — to approximately 13,800 years of age."
Ancient bone weapon sheds light on human origins - The Battalion - Texas A&M

"An impressive Peruvian archeological site, Marcahuamachuco, might become the new Machu Picchu relieving pressure on the hugely popular ruins. It was the most important city in the Peruvian Andes before the Incas, probably constructed between 400 and 1200 AD."
Marcahuamachuco, the new Machu Picchu? - Yahoo! News

"New Delhi, Nov. 20: A study of human bones from the ruins of Harappa has revealed signs of lethal interpersonal violence and challenged current thinking that the ancient Indus civilisation was an exceptionally peaceful realm for its inhabitants. An American bioarchaeologist has said that her analysis of skeletal remains from Harappa kept at the Anthropological Survey of India, Calcutta, suggests that women, children and individuals with visible infectious diseases were at a high risk of facing violence. "
Bones kill myth of happy Harappa​

 

"The Sicevo Gorge is a rugged, picturesque river canyon cut into the Kunivica plateau in southeastern Serbia. Containing a nature park, it draws visitors for its beautiful landscape, the result of the occurrence and interaction of geological, geomorphological and hydrological phenomena. But it also contains a series of caves, at least one of which has yielded evidence of human presence during the shifting glacial times of the Ice Age of present-day Europe. The Gorge was placed on the map of popular attention when, in 2008, anthropologists uncovered a partial human mandible (lower jaw), complete with three teeth, while excavating in a small cave.
"We were looking for Neanderthals," said Dr. Mirjana Roksandic, a participating paleoanthropologist with the University of Winnepeg and a leading research team member. "But this is much better."'

Excavations in Serbia Raising New Questions About Early Humans in Europe | Popular Archaeology - exploring the past

 

"NEW HAVEN -- The words "ancient Egyptian art" brings to mind the popular tomb art found in the region of the Upper Nile, created between 5000 BC and about 300 AD.
As ancient as those works are, they're almost contemporary compared to what a Yale University professor and a team of Belgian scientists found in Qurta, Egypt -- rock carvings dating back to between 15,000 and 23,000 years ago. They are the oldest Egyptian works of art known to exist and are among the oldest art found anywhere."
Yale: Art find in Egypt 15,000 years old - Connecticut Post




Read more: Yale: Art find in Egypt 15,000 years old - Connecticut Post

 

"Neandertals are stumping for bragging rights as the first builders of mammoth-bone structures, an accomplishment usually attributed to Stone Age people.
Humanity’s extinct cousins constructed a large, ring-shaped enclosure out of 116 mammoth bones and tusks at least 44,000 years ago in West Asia, say archaeologist Laëtitia Demay of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and her colleagues. The bone edifice, which encircles a 40-square-meter area in which mammoths and other animals were butchered, cooked and eaten, served either to keep out cold winds or as a base for a wooden building, the scientists propose in a paper published online November 26 in Quaternary International."
Neandertals

 

"from the Sakha Republic's mammoth museum and Japan's Kinki University will launch fully-fledged joint research next year aiming to recreate the giant mammal, Japan's Kyodo News reported from Yakutsk, Russia.
By replacing the nuclei of egg cells from an elephant with those taken from the mammoth's marrow cells, embryos with mammoth DNA can be produced, Kyodo said, citing the researchers"
Japan, Russia see chance to clone mammoth

"When archaeologists hear whispers of humanity’s past, it’s through the painstaking work of piecing together a story from artifacts and fossilized remains: The actual calls, grunts, and other sounds made by our evolutionary ancestors didn’t fossilize. But working backward from clues in ancient skeletons, Dutch researcher Bart de Boer has built plastic models of an early hominin‘s vocal tract—and, by running air through the models, recreated the sounds our ancestors may have made millions of years ago."
What Did Australopithecines Sound Like? More “Duh” Than “Ugg” | 80beats | Discover Magazine

"Archaeologists are ecstatic as they study a 24,000-year-old human bone fragment that’s been discovered on Ishigaki Island in southern Okinawa Prefecture.
The Okinawa Prefectural Museum and Art Museum is among those poring over the bone piece found in the Shirahosaonetabaru cave. Officials believe the bone fragment is part of a rib. The bone’s already been tested using direct dating, and scientists now say the latest bone discovery is 4,000 years older than any other bone found in Japan."
Ancient human bone found in Ishigaki cave - JapanUpdate.com

"The Romans started making concrete more than 2,000 years ago, but it wasn’t quite like today’s concrete. They had a different formula, which resulted in a substance that was not as strong as the modern product. Yet structures like the Pantheon and the Colosseum have survived for centuries, often with little to no maintenance. Geologists, archaeologists and engineers are studying the properties of ancient Roman concrete to solve the mystery of its longevity.
“Roman concrete is . . . considerably weaker than modern concretes. It’s approximately ten times weaker,” says Renato Perucchio, a mechanical engineer at the University of Rochester in New York. “What this material is assumed to have is phenomenal resistance over time.”
The Secrets of Ancient Rome

 

IIRC it had certain other interesting properties, such as setting underwater...?

 

You're right, Phylo. The longer it remains underwater, the harder it sets.

 

"The number of Native Americans quickly shrank by roughly half following European contact about 500 years ago, according to a new genetic study.
The finding supports historical accounts that Europeans triggered a wave of disease, warfare, and enslavement in the New World that had devastating effects for indigenous populations across the Americas."
Massive Population Drop Found for Native Americans, DNA Shows

 

"Scientists have answered one of the most contentious questions in history – was it climate change or the presence of humans which caused extinction of some of the most iconic Ice Age mammals?
An interdisciplinary team of researchers from over 40 academic institutions analysed ancient megafauna DNA, climate data and the archaeological record and concluded that both were to blame.
“Our findings put a final end to the single-cause theories of the Ice Age extinctions, and suggests that care should be taken in making generalisations not just regarding past and present species extinctions but also those of the future,” said Professor Eske Willerslve from the Centre for GeoGenetics at the Natural History Museum, University of Copenhagen"
http://www.labnews.co.uk/news/caused-ice-age-mass-extinctions/