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Models of Earliest (Camel-Pulled) Vehicles Found
June 29, 2009. Some of the world's first farmers may have sped around in two-wheeled carts pulled by camels and bulls, suggests a new analysis on tiny models of these carts that date to 6,000-5,000 years ago.
The cart models, which may have been ritual objects or children's toys, were found at Altyndepe, a Chalcolithic and Bronze Age settlement in Western Central Asia near Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. Together with other finds, the cart models provide a history of how wheeled transportation first emerged in the area and later developed.
"Horsepower" is a common term today, but the ancients had bull-power, followed by camel-power, researcher Lyubov Kircho explained to Discovery News.
"I think that the carts pulled by bulls were mostly used in agriculture in the 4th millennium, when the climate was more humid," said Kircho, who is at the Institute for the History of Material Culture at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
His study, published in Russian, appears in the journal Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia. An English version has been accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the 19th International Conference of the European Association of South Asian Archaeologists.
As time went on, he believes the carts carried heavy goods, such as metals, alabaster and the coveted, semi-precious stone, lapis lazuli, over long distances.
He added, "Later this kind of long distance transport became impossible (due to the region becoming more arid), and the people began to use the camel in the middle of the third millennium B.C."
The earliest of the cart models he studied had two wheels with shafts linked to a yoke. Visual representations of the associated harness suggest oxen were the primary draft animals. The carts at this stage were not driven chariot-style, but a person instead could have "directed the bulls from the side," which Kircho says would have been "the easiest way" to control both the cart and its animal pullers.
Carts dating to the second half of the third millennium B.C. gained an additional two wheels.
"The most common type had high walls and two shafts, drawn by a single animal -- a camel or, less often, a bull," said Kircho.
The design of the carts, and the behavior of camels, suggests just a single camel pulled each cart.
"It is very difficult to use a pair of camels," he explained. "They are too malicious."
Prehistoric little boys may have played with vehicles just as they do today, since at least one of the early model carts was found in the grave of a boy who died at age 11.
The carts may help to explain apparent connections between the early residents of what is now Turkmenistan and the ancient people of south-eastern Iran and southern Afghanistan. Wheeled transportation would have permitted travel and the sharing of goods and ideas.
Kircho notes that a unity of these places was reflected in their "house-building traditions, collective sequential burials in mudbrick chambers, and close parallels between the composition of the grave offerings and types of seals."
The early camel and bull-drawn carts likely led to the emergence of some of the first dedicated "freeways" for vehicles. David Christian, author of the book "A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia," describes a "huge monumental gateway" that was erected in Altyndepe around 3500 B.C.
"It was 15 meters (over 49 feet) wide, and divided into two alleys: the narrower one for pedestrians, and a wider one paved with stones for carts and wheeled traffic," he explained.
Christian added that the main city had a population of around 6,000-7,000 people but, perhaps due to the convenience of wheeled transportation, mini suburb-type communities quickly sprouted around the more urban hub.
STONE AGE FLUTES FOUND IN GERMANY
Prehistoric people made musical instruments out of bone and ivory soon after reaching Europe
The hills may be alive with the sound of music, but so were vulture bones and mammoth tusks for ancient Europeans. Researchers working at two Stone Age German sites have unearthed a nearly complete flute made from a vulture’s forearm as well as sections of three mammoth-ivory flutes.
These 35,000- to 40,000-year-old finds are the oldest known musical instruments in the world, says archaeologist and project director Nicholas Conard of the University of Tübingen in Germany.
Bone flutes previously unearthed at Stone Age sites occupied by humans in France and Austria date to between 19,000 and 30,000 years ago. And many researchers now consider the spaced holes in a controversial 43,000-year-old find, dubbed a Neandertal bone flute in 1995, as the products of chewing by cave bears.
The bone flute, which excavators found in 12 pieces, and the ivory flutes were discovered in the summer of 2008 at Hohle Fels cave. The team reports in an upcoming Nature that the finds are from the time of the Aurignacian culture, when modern humans first migrated to Europe from Africa. Scientists estimate that the culture existed from about 40,000 to 29,000 years ago.
Conard’s group found no human bones near the ancient flutes. But since human remains accompany later Aurignacian finds at other sites, the scientists assume that Homo sapiens, not Neandertals, made the musical instruments.
“Our finds demonstrate the presence of a well-established musical tradition at the time when modern humans colonized Europe, more than 35,000 years ago,” Conard says.
Pieces of three other bone and ivory flutes, found earlier in another German cave, date to approximately 30,000 years ago, he notes.
In Conard’s view, musical practices and other cultural developments allowed Aurignacian people to establish social networks more extensive than any formed by Neandertals. Excavators found the Hohle Fels bone flute near a female figurine with exaggerated sexual features (SN: 6/20/09, p. 11). Some researchers, however, regard artifacts from this sediment layer as no more than 32,000 years old.
Conard’s age estimate for the newly discovered flutes appears reasonable, remarks archaeologist April Nowell of the University of Victoria in Canada. “The finger holes on the Hohle Fels bone flute are clearly human produced and are so different from the carnivore puncture holes on the Neandertal ‘flute,’” Nowell says.
The preserved portion of the bone flute is about 8.5 inches long and one-third of an inch wide. Finely incised lines near four finger holes probably indicated where to carve these openings using stone tools, Conard suggests. A partial fifth finger hole lacks such markings.
Musicians presumably blew into an end of the bone flute that contains two V-shaped notches. The researchers plan to make a replica of the ancient flute to investigate how it was played and what type of sounds it made.
Hohle Fels excavators also recovered two pieces from what were probably two ivory flutes, Conard says. Examination of material unearthed nearby, at Vogelherd Cave, identified part of another ivory flute.
Ivory flutes required especially complex construction techniques, Conard says. Flute makers carved a rough shape for the instrument along a piece of tusk, split the ivory open lengthwise, hollowed out the halves, carved finger holes and reattached the halves with an airtight seal.SOURCE: Science News
Bulgarian Archaeologists Uncover Intact Thracian Settlement
team of Bulgarian archaeologists has uncovered a Thracian settlement close to the southeast town of Nova Zagora.
The team of Konstantin Gospodinov and Veselin Ignatov from the city of Burgas hope that their finding would be the first Thracian settlement to be uncovered in its entirety.
The settlement is located along the Blatnitsa River. It had a moat around it, and include large buildings rising above the ground, news.dir.bg reported.
So far the archaeologists have discovered remains of stored grain, weaving looms, pottery including imported ceramics made by the ancient Greeks. They have also found parts of decorations made of bronze, glass, and bones, as well as alloys of gold, silver, and copper.
Among their most precious findings is a silver coin from the nearby Greek coastal town of Apolonia (today's Sozopol) dating back to 5th century BC. The coin is cited an example showing the trade relations between the Thracian-populated interior and the Greek towns along the Black Sea coast.
The Thracian settlement in question existed in the 6th-5th century BC.
SOURCE: novinite.com
Ancient Buddha statue found in Afghan capital
KABUL: Afghan archaeologists have discovered an ancient statue of Buddha in the capital Kabul that is likely to date from around the fifth century, the culture ministry said Thursday.
The statue, found at the site of a pre-Islamic temple in April but only made public this week, was intact from the upper arms downwards but its head was missing, deputy culture minister Mohammad Zia Afshar told AFP.
It is likely from the fifth or sixth century but this had not been established, added Zafar Faiman, a research official at the site at Naranj Hill south of Kabul.
The statue is in a sitting position and is the height of a normal man, he told AFP.
The temple at Naranj Hill has been excavated for years, yielding more than two dozen ancient statues, the minister said.
Afghanistan had a rich store of ancient heritage, having once stood on the Silk Route that connected Asia and Europe, but much of it has been looted or destroyed in years of war and neglect.
Centuries-old giant statues of Buddha standing were blown up by the Taliban regime in April 2001 in the central province of Bamiyan, where there are some calls for them to be rebuilt.
Archaeologists last year discovered the remains of an ancient 19-metre-long sleeping Buddha in Bamiyan. SOURCE: dawn.com
Astronomers May Have Cracked the Case of the Quiet, Spotless Sun
The sun has been surprisingly quiet lately, and until now astronomers couldn’t figure out why. An 11-year cycle governs solar flares and sunspots, and researchers knew that we were at the end of a cycle in a “solar minimum” or quiet period–but that somnolence has continued for an extra year beyond the point at which researchers expected sunspot activity to resume. Comments Australian astronomer Phil Wilkinson: “We have had a drought of sunspots…. This is the longest period the sun has been quiet since the start of the Space Age. Seeing the sun doing nothing is really exciting,” he said, adding it made physicists wonder how little they really understood [Sydney Morning Herald].
Now, new observations announced at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society reveal a possible explanation: “sluggish” solar jet streams 4,350 miles below the surface of the sun. Every 11 years, the sun simultaneously generates twin streams of plasma at each of its poles. Unlike the jet streams on Earth, the solar versions are magnetized and travel only toward the equator. This migration takes place very slowly–at about 10 kilometers per hour. For reasons still not understood, when the streams reach 22 degrees of latitude, north and south, they touch off a new solar cycle, and the sunspots reappear [ScienceNOW Daily News].
National Solar Observatory researchers Frank Hill and Rachel Howe monitored the jet stream with ground- and space-based telescopes, using a relatively new science called helioseismology that traces sound waves to reveal conditions in the Sun’s interior [Physics World]. They studied subtle movements in the Sun’s outer layer to trace the movement of the buried jet stream, and determined that the stream had taken an extra year to migrate down towards the equator–although it is now reaching the critical latitude point. “The sunspot cycle is about to take off,” [Hill] adds, based on the latest solar jet stream measurements [USA Today].
As for why the jet stream was moving slower than usual–well, researchers don’t have an answer for that yet. But there are a lot of things that researchers don’t yet understand about the sun’s behavior. To try to answer some questions, another group of researchers has also created the first ever model of an entire sunspot (pictured), using a supercomputer to calculate its dynamics, crunching data from 1.8 billion individual points. The model, described in a paper in Science, may help explain both earthly and solar phenomenon. Says lead researcher Matthias Rempel: “If you want to understand all the drivers of Earth’s atmospheric system, you have to understand how sunspots emerge and evolve.” … Solar flares and coronal mass ejections are typically found in magnetically active regions around groupings of sunspots. These plasma storms can buffet the Earth’s atmosphere and disrupt power grids, satellites and other systems.
SOURCE: Live Science
Earth's poles may be tugged around by oceans
Ocean currents push floating rafts, plastic trash, and warm air around the planet – now the Earth's magnetic field can also be added to the list, according to a controversial new hypothesis.
Physicist Gregory Ryskin of Northwestern University has proposed that the oceans' currents are responsible for the slow wandering of the magnetic poles.
The hypothesis has provoked a strong reaction among geophysicists, with one that New Scientist spoke to labelling it "garbage". Most agree that the magnetic field is generated by movements of the molten iron that makes up Earth's outer core. However Ryskin says his idea that ocean movements may affect the field is worth investigating.
Oceans could drag the field along global currents, and they could also generate their own weak magnetic field, he says.
Classical fluid dynamics says that a conductive fluid – even a weak one like seawater – will drag magnetic field lines along with it as it moves, though the field lines may "slip" and fall behind.
Ryskin has calculated how the Earth's magnetic field lines are dragged by ocean currents and modified by the oceans' own magnetic field lines. He found that the motion fits snugly with observations of how the magnetic field has been changing with time, in particular, how the geomagnetic poles have been moving.
In addition, weak electric currents generated as seawater flows through the Earth's magnetic field generate secondary "oceanic" magnetic fields. Ryskin included the effect of these magnetic fields in his calculations.
Ryskin also showed that the places on the globe where distortions on the geomagnetic field lines are greatest correspond to areas where ocean currents are strongest.
Despite the supporting evidence, the hypothesis has been met with strong objections from mainstream geophysicists.
"Physicists should know better," said one when contacted by New Scientist.
Another, Alexei Kuvshinov, a planetary magnetism physicist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, says: "My strong impression that his numerical calculations are wrong."
Not everyone is as dismissive of Ryskin's research. "The oceans almost certainly slightly modify the geomagnetic field observed at the surface due to electric currents flowing within the Earth and in the ionosphere," says geophysicist Raymond Hide of Imperial College London. "Geophysicists would be in Ryskin's debt if he could improve on what others have already done. I wish him well."
SOURCE: New Journal of Physics
First Proof of Ancient Shores Found on Mars
June 18, 2009—The first-ever shoreline discovered on Mars would be a prime place to try and dig up proof of past microbial life on the red planet, researchers have announced.
The newfound shore (seen above in an artist's rendering) lies along what was once a body of water about the size of North America's Lake Champlain (see map), said the University of Colorado at Boulder team that spotted the feature.
Although most ancient deltas on Mars have been badly eroded by winds, the new lake has been sheltered within a valley just north of the equator called Shalbatana Vallis.
Planetary geologist and lead author Gaetano Di Achille said he and his colleagues first spotted hints of the ancient lake in 2007 in sediment data from European Space Agency's Infrared Imaging Surveyor.
Now the scientists say they have "unambiguous evidence" of the well-maintained shoreline, thanks to high-resolution pictures of the region from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The lake is thought to be just three billion years old—which would mean the region was watery 300 million years after Mars's warm, wet period is thought to have ended, the team says.
(Related: "NASA Images Add a Billion Years to Mars's Wet Period?")
Despite the lake's scientific attractiveness, it might be a while before robotic probes can make the trek.
"It wouldn't be that easy to land in the lake," Di Achille said. But "in the future, it will definitely be one of the best places for looking at the presence of life."
Findings appear online in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Scientists capture the first image of memories being made
The ability to learn and to establish new memories is essential to our daily existence and identity; enabling us to navigate through the world. A new study by researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (The Neuro), McGill University and University of California, Los Angeles has captured an image for the first time of a mechanism, specifically protein translation, which underlies long-term memory formation.
The finding provides the first visual evidence that when a new memory is formed new proteins are made locally at the synapse - the connection between nerve cells - increasing the strength of the synaptic connection and reinforcing the memory. The study published in Science, is important for understanding how memory traces are created and the ability to monitor it in real time will allow a detailed understanding of how memories are formed.
When considering what might be going on in the brain at a molecular level two essential properties of memory need to be taken into account. First, because a lot of information needs to be maintained over a long time there has to be some degree of stability. Second, to allow for learning and adaptation the system also needs to be highly flexible.
For this reason, research has focused on synapses which are the main site of exchange and storage in the brain. They form a vast but also constantly fluctuating network of connections whose ability to change and adapt, called synaptic plasticity, may be the fundamental basis of learning and memory.
"But, if this network is constantly changing, the question is how do memories stay put, how are they formed? It has been known for some time that an important step in long-term memory formation is "translation", or the production, of new proteins locally at the synapse, strengthening the synaptic connection in the reinforcement of a memory, which until now has never been imaged," says Dr. Wayne Sossin, neuroscientist at The Neuro and co-investigator in the study. "Using a translational reporter, a fluorescent protein that can be easily detected and tracked, we directly visualized the increased local translation, or protein synthesis, during memory formation. Importantly, this translation was synapse-specific and it required activation of the post-synaptic cell, showing that this step required cooperation between the pre and post-synaptic compartments, the parts of the two neurons that meet at the synapse. Thus highly regulated local translation occurs at synapses during long-term plasticity and requires trans-synaptic signals."
Long-term memory and synaptic plasticity require changes in gene expression and yet can occur in a synapse-specific manner. This study provides evidence that a mechanism that mediates this gene expression during neuronal plasticity involves regulated translation of localized mRNA at stimulated synapses. These findings are instrumental in establishing the molecular processes involved in long-term memory formation and provide insight into diseases involving memory impairment.
Source: McGill University
Egyptian Archaeologists Discover 3,500-Year-Old Tomb in Luxor
June 17 (Bloomberg) -- Egyptian archaeologists digging in a necropolis at Luxor where the Pharaohs buried their dead have found a tomb dating back 3,500 years ago that belonged to an official known as the Supervisor of Hunters.
The tomb of the supervisor, known as Amun-em-Opet in ancient Egyptian, dates back to the so-called 18th dynasty of Egyptian Pharaohs between 1570-1315 B.C., the Cairo-based Culture Ministry said in an e-mailed statement today. The west bank necropolis where it was found is called Dra Abu el-Naga.
Two other undecorated tombs were also found northwest of the tomb of Amun-em-Opet in which the names of the Supervisor of the Cattle of Amun and the Royal Messenger and Supervisor of the Palace were found, the statement said.
Unidentified fragments of mummies were found as well as funerary figures called ushabti in the two tombs.
When Good News Is Bad News: the latest "crop circles".
It's about time crop circles made the headlines in Britain's top newspapers. And suddenly they are. But for all the wrong reasons.
In recent weeks we have seen small, yet complex-looking patterns depicting a dragonfly, a jellyfish, several fish heads (!) and now a stylized phoenix. But given the hostile reaction by farmers on whose fields these works of art appeared, it seems that whoever put them there did so with malicious intent.
I say this because, after careful observation, the tell-tale signs of human hoaxers are present in all of these works.
First, the designs are all based on techniques used by the same gang of criminals who've used the exact same template for earlier, already proven hoaxes. But more damaging is the evidence on the ground: they all required construction lines. And thanks to a couple of good observers, these have been found. But not, it seems, by the people reporing these 'crap circles' to the media.
Despite the fact that there has existed—and continues to exist—a real phenomenon based on the principles of light, sound and magnetics, these sensationalist articles are both good and bad. On the one hand they put the phenomenon top-of-mind in the public realm; on the other they help to further the aims of the hoaxing gangs— with as many as 14 people per group— who are getting high on precisely the kind of high-profile attention these works are now receiving. Like terrorist bombers, the more media coverege they get, the more they are encouraged.
For many years I have tried to promote the concept of not promoting images of crop circles if the designs are deemed to have been made by mechanical means. And all to little avail since this was deemed 'bad for business'. But since when did true researchers get involved for the sake of business? Surely the love of knowledge should be superior to the pay-off
The problem is exacerbated by individuals who now pass themselves off as 'crop circles experts' but yet know little about crop circles, and se the phenomenon as a prop for commercial gain.
I was speaking with a veteran crop circles researcher back in 2001 about a sudden and unusual rash of fake crop circles and their unusual placement along the flight path of commercial helicopters. He was able to confirm that this was indeed the case, and shared with me further evidence that it was possible that a minor number of croppies were working with hoaxers for comemrcial interests. While I am not at liberty to name my source or the names he volunteered, this information will come to light in his own good time.
Needless to say the idea left me shocked and moved. Even last year, while conducting a tour in southern Britain, another self-styled expert told the audience "it doesn't matter whether a crop circle is real or fake." It doesn't matter!? Let's take a look at the subtle difference: a hoax is a criminal act intended to deceive. On the other hand, the intent behind a genuine circle is to educate, enlighten, communicate, imprint information into the Earth's magnetic grid (proven), even heal. And given that beneficial energy fields have been noted in real crop circles, which have led to a number of healing experiences, I would say that there IS quite a difference.
Thus, telling the truth to the best of your ability is paramount in this subject.
In fact it is more than that: it is about responsibility and integrity. And right now there seems to be very little of either.
Back in 1991, when hoaxing was as rare as ice cubes in hell, the media embraced crop circles as a real phenomenon. The reporting was based on factual evidence by true experts in their fields, many of whom put their livelihoods at stake to bring the truth to the world. Like myself, at crushing personal expense. Then the British Ministry of Defense created Doug and Dave, fed them to the media, and spawned a generation of copy-cat hoaxers, attention-seekers and skeptics. And I don't just refer to those small-minded criminals out damaging farmer's livelihoods: I'm referring to those opportunists now masquerading as 'researchers'. My, how things have changed in a decade.
Source: Freddy Silva, www.cropcirclesecrets.org
Huge Pre-Stonehenge Complex Found via "Crop Circles"
Etched into crops, the outlines of Bronze Age burial mounds surround a roughly 190-foot (57-meter) circular Stone Age temple site about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from Stonehenge in southern England in an undated aerial photo.
Discovered during a routine aerial survey by English Heritage, the U.K. government's historic-preservation agency, the "crop circles" are the results of buried archaeological structures interfering with plant growth. True crop circles are vast designs created by flattening crops.
The features are part of a newfound 500-acre (200-hectare) prehistoric ceremonial site which was unknown until the aerial survey, archaeologists announced in June 2009.
Source: National Geographic News, June 18, 2009
Scientists Debate Shading Earth As Climate Fix
Engineering our climate to stop global warming may seem like science fiction, but at a recent National Academy of Sciences meeting, scientists discussed some potential geoengineering experiments in earnest.
Climate researcher Ken Caldeira was skeptical when he first heard about the idea of shading the Earth a decade ago in a talk by nuclear weapons scientist Lowell Wood.
"He basically said, 'We don't have to bother with emissions reduction. We can just throw aerosols — little dust particles — into the stratosphere, and that'll cool the earth.' And I thought, 'Oh, that'll never work,' " Caldeira said.
But when Caldeira sat down to study this, he was surprised to discover that, yes, it would work, and for the very same reasons that big volcanoes cool the Earth when they erupt. Fine particles in the stratosphere reflect sunlight back into space. And doing it would be cheap, to boot.
Caldeira conducts research on climate and carbon cycles at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University. During the past decade, he said, talk about this idea has moved from cocktail parties to very sober meetings, like the workshop this week put on by the National Academy of Sciences.
"Frankly, I'm a little ambivalent about all this," he said during a break in the meeting. "I've been pushing very hard for a research program, but it's a little scary to me as it becomes more of a reality that we might be able to toy with our environment, or our whole climate system at a planetary scale."
Attempting to geoengineer a climate fix raises many questions, like when you would even consider trying it. Caldeira argued that we should have the technology at the ready if there's a climate crisis, such as collapsing ice sheets or drought-induced famine. At the academy's meeting, Harvard University's Dan Schrag agreed with that — up to a point.
"I think we should consider climate engineering only as an emergency response to a climate crisis, but I question whether we're already experiencing a climate crisis — whether we've already crossed that threshold," Schrag said.
In reality, carbon-dioxide emissions globally are on a runaway pace, despite rhetoric promising to control them. University of Calgary's David Keith suggested that we should consider moving toward experiments that would test ideas on a global scale — and do it sooner rather than later.
"It's not clear that during some supposed climate emergency would be the right time to try this new and unexplored technique," Keith said.
And experiments could create disasters. Alan Robock of Rutgers University cataloged a long list of risks. Particles in the stratosphere that block sunlight could also damage the ozone layer, which protects us from harsh ultraviolet light. Or altering the stratosphere could reduce precipitation in Asia, where it waters the crops that feed 2 billion people.
Imagine if we triggered a drought and famine while trying to cool the planet, Robock said. On the plus side, it's also possible that diffusing sunlight could end up boosting agriculture, he said.
"We need to evaluate all these different, contrasting impacts to see whether it really would have an effect on food or not," he said. "Maybe it's a small effect. We really don't know that yet. We need more research on that."
Thought experiments to date have focused primarily on the risks of putting sulfur dust in the stratosphere. There are many other geoengineering ideas — like making clouds brighter by spraying seawater particles into the air. But none of them is simple.
"I don't think there is a quick and easy answer to employing even one of those quick and cheap and easy solutions," said social scientist Susanne Moser.
There's no mechanism in place to reach a global consensus about doing this — and a consensus seems unlikely in any event. Who gets to decide where to set the global thermostat? And will this simply become an excuse not to control our emissions to begin with? These were all questions without answers at the academy's meeting.
Source: NPR, June 16, 2009
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