DOES A COPROLITE BY ANY OTHER NAME STILL SMELL AS SWEET?

First of all, apologies to Sir William Shakespeare for paraphrasing one of his well know lines. -- This article interests me for several reasons. First, it has pushed back the accepted date of human presence in the US by at least 1,000 years. Second, the manner in which the early date was discovered, and thirdly, that someone can proudly  say, after years and years of college and university, when asked what they do, can proudly respond:  "I work with crap."  Enjoy -- John

 

Ancient Poop Gives Insight Into First North Americans

CBCNews.CA  The Canadian Press

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/04/04/tech-poop-fossil.html

New evidence shows humans lived in North America more than 14,000 years ago, 1,000 years earlier than had previously been known.

Fossil feces discovered in a cave in Oregon yielded DNA indicating these early residents were related to people living in Siberia and East Asia, according to a report in the online edition of the journal Science.

Newly discovered fossilized human feces from a cave deposit in Oregon are the oldest evidence of humans in North America, according to a study in the journal Science. (Dennis LeRoy Jenkins/Associated Press)   [ I don't know about you Dear Reader, but this does not look fossilized to this humble blogger! -- John]

Humans are widely believed to have arrived in North America from Asia over a land-bridge between Alaska and Siberia during a warmer period.

A variety of dates have been proposed, and some are in dispute.

"This is the first time we have been able to get dates that are undeniably human," said Dennis Jenkins, a University of Oregon archeologist.

Few artifacts were found in the cave, leading Jenkins to speculate that the people stayed there only a few days at a time before moving on, perhaps following game animals or looking for other food.

Diet included squirrels, bison and sunflowers

The ancient poop — coprolites to scientists — gives an indication of the diet of these ancient Americans, Jenkins said.

While the analysis is not yet complete, he said there are bones of squirrels, bison hair, fish scales, protein from birds and dogs and the remains of plants, including grass and sunflowers.

The oldest of several coprolites studied is 14,340 years old, said co-author Eske Willerslev, director of the Centre for Ancient Genetics at Denmark's University of Copenhagen.

"The Paisley Cave material represents, to the best of my knowledge, the oldest human DNA obtained from the Americas," he said. "Other pre-Clovis sites have been claimed, but no human DNA has been obtained."

The prehistoric Clovis culture has been dated to between 13,200 and 12,900 calendar years ago and is best known by the tools left behind.

The date for the new coprolites is similar to that of Monte Verde in southern Chile, where human artifacts have been discovered, added Willerslev.

It isn't clear exactly who the people living in the Oregon caves were, Jenkins said, since there were few artifacts found. He said there was one stone tool, a hand tool used perhaps to polish, grind or mash bones or fat.

Human migration from Asia to North America

"We are not saying that these people were of a particular ethnic group," Jenkins stressed. "At this point, we know they most likely came from Siberia or Eastern Asia, and we know something about what they were eating, which is something we can learn from coprolites. We're talking about human signature.

"If you are looking for the first people in North America, you are going to have to step back more than 1,000 years beyond Clovis to find them."

The Oregon find, along with indications of human presence at other locations, adds to the evidence for a pre-Clovis human presence in North America, said Michael Waters, director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University.

"The genetic evidence from the coprolites from Paisley Caves is also consistent with the current genetic data for the peopling of the Americas — that the earliest inhabitants of the Americas came from Northeast Asia," added Waters, who was not part of the research team.

Anthropologist Ripan Malhi of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, said this data along with material from Alaska provide increasing "evidence that ancestors of Native Americans used a coastal route during the colonization of the Americas." Malhi was also not part of the research team.

Jenkins said that discoveries like those in the Oregon caves "help us to reconstruct the American past."

"Our heritage is really important, and it is important to the majority of the American public. If you don't know where you come from, it's hard to have a feeling of community, of participation."

(A little more information on the Paisley Caves  -- John)http://www.uoregon.edu/~ftrock/paisley_caves_description.php

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And just to show you we are not talking about your everyday normal crap, I present a cut and polished Coprolite pendant.  Do I need to mention that these coprolites are from Dinosaurs?

by Belle Rustique Jewelry http://www.bellerustique.com/ss_pendants.htm

 

 

And another by Tony Payne http://picasaweb.google.com/tonypay1/TonySCustomJewelryBlog/photo#5127935230802235554

What better way to tell that special someone you love her than to give her a piece of crappy jewelry to wear!!

 

Wow, surprised and happy I found this when lookng for music, Lydia Pense and Cold Blood takes me back to the Daze and Haze times, not sure what ever happened to her, last I heard she was living up near Humboldt county and working with animals. It was once said of her, she would be the next Janis Joplin.

A TIME MACHINE

several layers of ancient scrolls that are too fragile to separate

*********

I have often wondered what marvels of the written word we have lost over the thousands of years of writing. How many Libraries of Alexandria have we lost. In Pompeii they have just started to excavate a Villa Of The Scrolls, where a very rich Roman had his own personal library. Most are carbonized and cannot be read, YET! But this new science breakthrough may change that.

Most everything that can be written about has already been written about sometime in deep history. We have marvelous writers now, but to read something written by a person who lived a thousand, two thousand years ago, is something special. To bring us into touch with our humanity, and to feel, to see, to taste events, love, tragedy, happiness, a breeze off the Aegean, or travel in a caravan in ancient Egypt, read poetry written to a lover in Rome, or a soldiers letter home from Hadrian's Wall. To touch the lives of those who came before and realize they are really no different than us. Enjoy the read. I am looking forward to following this story, as it is our story.--John

'Super-scope' to see hidden texts BBC NEWS--Science/Nature http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6991893.stm

By Liz Seward Science reporter, York Super-powerful X-rays could peer beneath the skin of manuscripts Animation: How synchrotron light unravels the text The hidden content in ancient works could be illuminated by a light source 10 billion times brighter than the Sun. The technique employs Britain's new facility, the Diamond synchrotron, and could be used on works such as the Dead Sea Scrolls or musical scores by Bach. Intense light beams will enable scientists to uncover the text in scrolls and books without having to open - and potentially damage - them. The research was presented at the British Association science festival. Iron gall ink, which is made from oak apples, has been in use from the 12th Century, but causes parchment to deteriorate rendering precious documents unreadable. There are some parts of the Dead Sea scrolls which have not been unrolled Professor Tim Wess Both paper and parchment - thinly stretched skins from cows, sheep or goats - contain collagen, which reacts with iron ink to become gelatine. When dry, gelatine is very brittle; but as soon as it gets wet, it turns into jelly, destroying some documents if they are disturbed. Unrolling the scroll Now, scientists from the University of Cardiff have developed a technique that uses a powerful X-ray source to create a three-dimensional image of an iron-inked document. The team then applies a computer algorithm to separate the image into the different layers of parchment, in effect using the program to unroll the scroll. HOW DIAMOND WORKS Electrons fired into straight accelerator, or linac Boosted in small synchrotron and injected into storage ring Magnets in large ring bend and focus electrons accelerated to near light-speeds Energy lost emerges down beamlines as highly focused light at X-ray wavelengths Diamond opens for business Professor Tim Wess, who led the research, said: "We've folded up a real piece of parchment and then done a process of X-ray tomography on it. We've been able to recover the structure where we can see the words that are written inside the document." The team now plans to use the Diamond synchrotron's powerful X-ray source to penetrate many layers of parchment. The synchrotron, which covers the area of five football pitches, generates light beams that can probe matter down to the molecular and atomic scale. Professor Wess explained: "The letters have got iron in them, so you shine a band of X-rays through, and you end up with an absorption image, rather like your bones would absorb on an X-ray. "This is something we can take forward with Diamond, to try to unravel the secrets inside documents that we're too scared to try to open, or that are beyond the point of conservation." Wish list The National Archives has donated some 18th Century fire-damaged scrolls that have never been unrolled, due to their condition. But the team also has a wish-list of works that they plan to probe. Professor Wess said: "There are some parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls which have not been unrolled." Reading books without opening them was a goal of the project, added Professor Wess. The technique works best with rolled parchment. The flat nature, as well as the thickness of books, presents a challenge. He said: "I know of books which have been damaged by iron gall ink corrosion where the conservators are actually afraid to open the book because of all the letters. You really end up with a stencil rather than the lettering." Conserving works Another target of the project is to image documents before they become too damaged, to monitor levels of gelatine. The team can then advise on the most appropriate conservation methods, depending on the state of the parchment. Using modern technology to reveal secrets of the past is a rewarding task. Professor Wess said: "If you can bring together a £260m ($527m) synchrotron, and the cutting edge science from that, the provenance and the depth of history that you can access when you see these things is actually a revelatory moment."

A SNOW BRIG

Stories like this fascinate me. If only the ship could speak. What other deep water finds are yet to be found. I did a web search and could not find an update about any recovery of the ship and the artifacts starting. There may be a short story or a poem in this for some of 360's talented writers. Enjoy the read. John The Mystery Snow Brig Some years have now past since this unique and mysterious find, and no investigation is planned. If nothing is done soon, this ship may well be wiped out by one of the many trawler fishers of the Baltic Sea.
In early 2002, the Swedish Navy submarine rescue ship HMS Belos was on a routine exercise* in the middle of the Baltic Sea, when the side scan sonar caught a strange-looking wreck. The on-board ROV Sjöugglan – Swedish for sea owl – was sent down 100 metres to the bottom. Despite bad visibility near the bottom, the crew got a spectacular sight on their TV monitors – an old ship standing upright with its two masts standing and bowsprit, perfectly intact. The reason for sinking is a mystery, since both hull and rigging are intact. Snow brig The ship is 26 m long and the masts rise about 20 m, with perfectly-preserved tops (platforms) about halfway. The rigging is clearly a brig, with yard sails on both masts and a gaff sail behind the rear mast. It is specifically a snow brig (Swedish: snaubrigg), since there is a separate minor mast for the gaff sail, just behind the rear mast. The snow brig was a common rigging for minor ships during the entire 18th century. One of the earliest snow brigs was “Mjöhunden”, built for the Swedish Navy by Charles Sheldon in 1698 and sunk in battle off Arkangelsk in 1701. Mjöhunden was 21 m long and carried six 3-pound guns. Later on, in the 19th century, the snow brig was gradually replaced by the regular brig, where the gaff sail is attached directly to the rear mast. Golden seahorse The figurehead on the wreck is a fantastic gilded horse with (human) hands clasped under its belly and a fish tail. The gunwales (shipsides) have deck-level gunports and at least one gunport seems to have been decorated. But there are no guns to be seen. Several planks and possible decorations of the sterncastle have fallen off, perhaps because they were attached with (now rusted) nails, while other planks are attached with wooden pegs. The ship seems to be a minor naval or postal ship, or maybe a private or Royal yacht. Skulls from at least two crewmen lie on the deck, which is unusual, since casualties usually float away during sinking. Perhaps those men were trapped. Why? Why did it sink? Ships that sink in storms usually lose parts of the rigging and suffer general damage. But this ship is in mint condition. Perhaps she had all sails set and was caught by a sudden wind, like the Hamilton and Scourge. Perhaps she suddenly started leaking. On the video, one of the skulls on the deck seems like it might have an axe buried in it. Strange. Could the ship have been taken by pirates or mutineers and then sunk to remove all trace? But there were hardly any pirates in the Baltic Sea in the18th century. Perhaps it was pirates, and they were unknown until now, since no witnesses were left alive... Identity? Questions, questions, questions... The identity and reason for sinking is still a mystery. Archival search may tell us more. But perhaps only a site investigation will tell for sure. Meanwhile, having seen the video, here are some notes: The ship and rigging look roughly similar to some of the 1768 Chapman plates (link below). The stern part of the hull and of course the rigging look similar to the model of snow brig Gustaf Adolf, built in 1783-85. The model is at the National Maritime Museum. However, the bow and bowsprit of this ship look roughly a century older. It is similar to the Nonsuch from 1650. So one guess would be dating this wreck to first half of 18th century. Since the ship so far has not been identified as a known Swedish ship, perhaps it's Russian, or some other nationality. Archival search may tell. Where are the guns? Was this a new-built ship not fully fitted? Funding & action needed The position is kept secret by the Swedish Navy, to prevent looting by treasure hunters. The idea is that an official investigation will be performed. But when? And who will pay? Presently neither the National Maritime Museum nor the Swedish Navy has the money for an investigation. If you have ideas on how to contribute to or finance an investigation, please feel free to contact the museum. Perhaps it's time for a national fundraising program, just like it was 40 years ago, when private donors and sponsors helped pay the Vasa project. Or perhaps this investigation can be co-produced with e.g. National Geographic. The possible investigation Archaeologist Bert Westenberg at the National Maritime Museum is presently (January 2004) hoping to find an outside partner that can provide resources for an investigation. According to Mr Westenberg, an investigation would primarily aim at dating and identifying the ship, by video documenting, by bringing up some loose objects, as well as sample wood for dendro dating. The HMS Belos would be rented from the Swedish Navy for the operation (they don't do it for free), and would have these resources: The ROV Sjöugglan, remote-controlled from surface. "Mantis", a mini submarine operated by one man using robot arms to grab surrounding objects. If needed, trimix divers can be assigned. Mr Westenberg, if you had the resources now, when would an investigation start? – If we started planning now, we could expect to be on-site during the spring of 2005, says Bert Westenberg. Mr Westenberg's museum is fighting a battle against time. Two years have passed, and if nothing is done soon, this ship may be wiped out by one of the many trawler fishers of the Baltic Sea. Per Åkesson April 2002, revised Jan 2004		present state of the wreck guilded figurehead horse from the video, courtesy Swedish Navy figurehead from the video, courtesy Swedish Navy, note the horse's fingers, clasped under its belly bow section interpretation with figurehead original ship interpretation, the Swedish flags are pure speculation, the ship could just as well be Russian or Danish crosstrees on fore topmast, from the video, courtesy Swedish Navy top on forward mast, from the video, courtesy Swedish Navy

BABYLON and JEREMIAH

This story is from The Australian

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,22055722-2703,00.html

Tablet aids Old Testament's credibility

• Dalya Alberge
• July 11, 2007

THE British Museum has hailed a discovery within a modest clay tablet in its collection as a breakthrough for biblical archaeology - dramatic proof of the accuracy of the Old Testament.

The cuneiform inscription in a tablet dating from 595BC has been deciphered for the first time - revealing a reference to an official at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, that proves the historical existence of a figure mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah.

This is rare evidence in a non-biblical source of a real person, other than kings, featured in the Bible.

The tablet names a Babylonian officer called Nebo-Sarsekim, who according to Jeremiah xxxix was present in 587BC when Nebuchadnezzar "marched against Jerusalem with his whole army and laid siege to it".

The cuneiform inscription records how Nebo-Sarsekim lavished a gift of gold on the Temple of Esangila in the fabled city of Babylon, where, at least in folk tradition, Nebuchadnezzar is credited with building the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

British Museum staff are excited by the discovery. Irving Finkel, assistant keeper in the Department of the Middle East, said: "A mundane commercial transaction takes its place as a primary witness to one of the turning points in Old Testament history. This is a tablet that deserves to be famous."

The discovery was made by Michael Jursa, associate professor at the University of Vienna, on a routine research trip to the museum.

"It's very exciting and very surprising," he said. "Finding something like this tablet, where we see a person mentioned in the Bible making an everyday payment to the temple in Babylon and quoting the exact date, is quite extraordinary."

Since 1991, Dr Jursa has been visiting the museum to study a collection of more than 100,000 inscribed tablets - the world's largest holdings.

Although they are examined by international scholars daily, reading and piecing together fragments is painstaking work and more than half are yet to be published.

Cuneiform is the oldest known form of writing. During its 3,000-year history it was used to write about 15 languages including Babylonian, Assyrian, Hittite and Urartian.

A wedged instrument - usually a cut reed - was used to press the signs into clay. This gave the writing system its name, "cuneiform", or wedge-shaped.

There are only a small number of scholars worldwide who can read cuneiform script. One of them is Dr Jursa, who told The Times yesterday (Tuesday) that the British Museum tablet was so well preserved that it took him just a couple of minutes to decipher.

This one - which is 2.13 inches (5.5cm) wide - was acquired by the British Museum in 1920.

Dr Jursa said: "But no one realised the connection. They didn't really read it." It was unearthed from the ancient city of Sippar, where there was a huge sun temple, just over a mile from modern-day Baghdad. It was part of a large temple archive excavated for the British Museum in the 1870s.

Dr Jursa, who made the discovery while conducting research into officials at the Babylonian court, said that the tablet recorded Nebo-Sarsekim's gift of gold to the temple - a gift so large that it would be comparable in value today to the cost of a large townhouse.

On hearing of the discovery yesterday (Tuesday), Geza Vermes, the eminent emeritus professor of Jewish studies at the University of Oxford, said that such a discovery revealed that "the Biblical story is not altogether invented".

He added: "This will be interesting for religious people as much as historians."

BRITISH ARCHEOLOGISTS LOOK TO NORTH SEA FOR ANCIENT SETTLEMENTS

American Archeologists are not the only ones searching the sea bed for signs of prehistoric travelers, hunter/gatherer villages. What fantastic discoveries will they make, not only for what they are searching for, but things that they may happen upon. ********************** Lost world warning from North Sea

By Sean Coughlan BBC News education How a homestead might have looked in the flooded area Archaeologists are uncovering a huge prehistoric "lost country" hidden below the North Sea. This lost landscape, where hunter-gatherer communities once lived, was swallowed by rising water levels at the end of the last ice age. University of Birmingham researchers are heralding "stunning" findings as they map the "best-preserved prehistoric landscape in Europe". This large plain disappeared below the water more than 8,000 years ago. The Birmingham researchers have been using oil exploration technology to build a map of the once-inhabited area that now lies below the North Sea - stretching from the east coast of Britain up to the Shetland Islands and across to Scandinavia. 'Terrifying' "It's like finding another country," says Professor Vince Gaffney, chair in Landscape Archaeology and Geomatics. Prehistoric rivers, hills and valleys are mapped off the east coast It also serves as a warning for the scale of impact that climate change can cause, he says. Human communities would have lost their homelands as the rising water began to encroach upon the wide, low-lying plains. "At times this change would have been insidious and slow - but at times, it could have been terrifyingly fast. It would have been very traumatic for these people," he says. "It would be a mistake to think that these people were unsophisticated or without culture... they would have had names for the rivers and hills and spiritual associations - it would have been a catastrophic loss," says Professor Gaffney. As the temperature rose and glaciers retreated and water levels rose, the inhabitants would have been pushed off their hunting grounds and forced towards higher land - including to what is now modern-day Britain. The rising water levels began to remake the coastline "In 10,000 BC, hunter-gatherers were living on the land in the middle of the North Sea. By 6,000 BC, Britain was an island. The area we have mapped was wiped out in the space of 4,000 years," explains Professor Gaffney. So far, the team has examined a 23,000-sq-km area of the sea bed - mapping out coastlines, rivers, hills, sandbanks and salt marshes as they would have appeared about 12,000 years ago. And once the physical features have been established, Professor Gaffney says it will be possible to narrow the search for sites that could yield more evidence of how these prehistoric people lived. These inhabitants would have lived in family groups in huts and hunted animals such as deer. The mapping of this landscape could also raise questions about its preservation, says Professor Gaffney - and how it can be protected from activities such as pipe-laying and the building of wind farms. ******************* More information and graphics about this research at the University of Birmingham site: http://www.iaa.bham.ac.uk/research/fieldwork_research_themes/projects/North_S...

COASTAL MIGRATIONS FOR EARLY AMERICA

Years ago, I read a book relating the stories of several archelogists who were being riduculed for their research. They were saying they had found 12,000 year old to an extreme of 35,000 year old acheological sites in the Americas. Another held that there was a migration across the Atlantic (Clovis/Solutrean stone tools), another that there was a coastal migration from Siberia to the Americas, and another that was proposing the theory that there was another water migration into the Americas from the south and working its' way up South America. And of course the land bridge migration across the Bering Straight.

I have always thought we, as "modern" people, do not give our ancient kin the credit they deserve. The research that Bob Ballard and others are now carrying out with the most modern of equipment is going to uncover some theory changing finds. Oh to have a time machine to travel back and see our ancestors. . .

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Archaeologists explore ocean floor for clues to early coastal settlement

by Cindy Weiss - April 21, 2007

University of Connecticut

Anthropologists in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences are identifying new sites to study archaeology that are fathoms, not feet, under the surface.

Anthropology professor Kevin McBride and doctoral candidate David Robinson are scoping out early coastal human settlement sites, now under water, that could reveal clues to how the Americas were settled.

Graduate student David Robinson emerges from the US Navy’s NR-1 nuclear-powered submarine. The sub is used for underwater research.

Photo by David Robinson

McBride says early submerged sites may yield evidence of how the earliest coastal residents lived and how they got here.

McBride, who is also director of research at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, was co-director and Robinson, a professional underwater archaeologist, one of the lead field archaeologists on a research expedition off Galveston, Texas, in March.

During the week-long expedition, teams of scientists from several federal agencies and research institutions explored the submerged landscape around the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, 115 miles off the Texas-Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico.

The area, one of 13 U.S. national marine sanctuaries, was chosen because of its interesting geology and biology and its potential to contain preserved landforms with signs of some of America’s earliest inhabitants.

The expedition used the U.S. Navy’s NR-1, the nation’s only nuclear-powered submarine dedicated to underwater research.

The tools of exploration also included a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), and state-of-the-art “telepresence” technology that enabled scientists and educators on shore to track from thousands of miles away what was going on in the Gulf.

McBride monitored the expedition from Mystic, along with co-director Robert Ballard, professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island and president of the Institute for Exploration at Mystic Aquarium.

Looking for preserved elements of an old landscape, they surveyed 50-plus miles and found a six mile-long area about 300 feet under water that showed signs of what could be the intact remains of an old coastline and old river channels that would have led from shore to sea.

It’s an area that holds promise for more detailed analysis, he says.

At the height of the last glaciation, more than 20,000 years ago, the sea level was 350 to 400 feet lower than today, so what is now under water was then exposed land.

The NR-1 is able to sink down and roll along the ocean floor on truck tires, allowing scientists to look out through portholes and visually examine features from only a few feet away.

They could also map the sea floor with side-scan sonar while cruising 30-50 feet above the bottom.

“We were essentially going for a walk on the sea floor in an area where there had been an old coastline,” says Robinson.

The area was too deep for scuba diving, but the researchers were able to use the sub and the ROV’s high-definition video camera and sub-bottom profilers to see above and below the surface of the sea floor, learning more about its features than if they were diving.

McBride and Ballard monitored the work in real time, 24-hours a day, and produced 35 broadcasts for middle school students across the country.

Robinson will introduce students to underwater archaeology during this summer’s UConn Archaeology Field School, which is managed by McBride.

Robinson, who holds a master’s degree in shipwreck archaeology from Texas A & M University, is focusing his doctoral research at UConn on submerged settlements.

His interest stems from work he has done during the past decade in Maryland and currently with the Public Archaeology Laboratory in Rhode Island.

He has also traveled to Denmark several times during the past five years to work with some of the world’s experts in Stone Age underwater archaeology from the Danish National and Viking Ship museums.

While McBride and Robinson are developing research opportunities in underwater archaeology, Nicholas Bellantoni, associate professor of anthropology and state archaeologist, is interested in the management and preservation of sites.

Bellantoni hopes to explore the Long Island Sound for native sites in collaboration with UConn’s National Undersea Research Center (NURC) at Avery Point.

With a rich maritime history, Connecticut is a prime place to explore offshore, he says.

He expects there are probably hundreds, maybe thousands, of underwater archaeology sites, including shipwrecks, plane wrecks, and early Native American settlements in the Sound.

Bellantoni says the prospects for underwater archaeology in Connecticut include tourism as well as science.

He envisions creating “diver parks,” where recreational divers could visit and study historic shipwrecks.

He is working with NURC on topographical maps and locating archaeological sites in the Long Island Sound.

“We have not been able to pay enough attention to our submerged coastal resources,” he says.

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If you are interested, listed below are some links to other Deep Sea Archeology sites:

http://web.mit.edu/deeparch/www/expeditions/1997Skerki/SkerkiVehicles.html

http://www.whoi.edu/sbl/liteSite.do?litesiteid=2740

http://www.therafoundation.org/Projects/woodsholeoceanographicinstitute/archa...