Two North Norwegian Wonders
Eider ducks are well taken care of by the people in Vega. They build nests and small house for them as protection against predators. In return, people get both eggs and the finest natural down available – eider down. (Photo: Bente Sundsvold) Some places are so important that losing them would represent an irreplaceable loss for humanity as a whole. We all have a shared responsibility to take care of these places for future generations. Researchers at the University of Tromsø are studying two of Norway’s wonders that made the list: the Vega islands and the rock carvings in Alta. Ea as the island residents’ “animals” “Most of the people who live on the Vega Islands were surprised when they found out that the islands had been included on the World Heritage list in 2004. The Vega islands, about 6,000 islands in all, are found on the exclusive list because it is home to a place where there is a very special relationship between human and birds. Etched and drawn in 5000 years
Egyptian Mummy's Elaborate Hairstyle Revealed in 3D | CT Scans of Mummies
Nearly 2,000 years ago, at a time when Egypt was under the control of the Roman Empire, a young woman with an elaborate hairstyle was laid to rest only yards away from a king's pyramid, researchers report. She was 5 feet 2 inches in height, around age 20 when she died, and was buried in a decorated coffin whose face is gilded with gold. A nearby pyramid, at a site called Hawara, was built about 2 millennia before her lifetime. The location of her burial is known from archival notes. High-resolution CT scans reveal that, before she was buried, her hair was dressed in an elaborate hairstyle. "The mummy's hair is readily appreciable, with longer strands at the middle of the scalp drawn back into twists or plaits that were then wound into a tutulus, or chignon at the vertex (crown) of the head," writes a research team in a paper published recently in the journal RSNA RadioGraphics. The mummy of the young woman is in its coffin at the Redpath Museum in Montreal. The 'matron' Theban male
University of Tennessee professor finds prehistoric rock art connected; maps cosmological belief
Public release date: 19-Jun-2013 [ Print | E-mail Share ] [ Close Window ] Contact: Whitney Heinswheins@utk.edu 865-974-5460University of Tennessee at Knoxville It is likely some of the most widespread and oldest art in the United States. Recently, the discoveries of prehistoric rock art have become more common. The research led by Simek, president emeritus of the UT system and a distinguished professor of science, is published in this month's edition of the journal Antiquity. The researchers proposed that rock art changed the natural landscape to reflect a three-dimensional universe central to the religion of the prehistoric Mississippian period. "Our findings provide a window into what Native American societies were like beginning more than 6,000 years ago," said Simek. Simek and his team analyzed 44 open- air art sites where the art is exposed to light and 50 cave art sites in the Cumberland Plateau using nondestructive, high-tech tools, such as a high-resolution laser scanner.
Rich People Are Full of Different Chemicals Than Poor People
Inca kids drugged before being sacrificed
The oldest mummified girl, known as La Donchella – the Maiden. She and two other child mummies have been under intense examination since 1999. (Photo: José Fontanelli) Three child mummies, a girl aged 13 and a boy and girl aged four or five, were discovered in 1999, entombed in separate ritual graves, a few metres from the peak of the Llullaillaco Volcano on the border of Argentina and Chile. They had been undisturbed for 500 years, frozen in the dry Andean climate at an elevation of 7,000 metres. Scientists understood immediately that the children had been sacrificed. The corpses from Llullaillaco have been thoroughly examined. But they were given more than just an abundance of nutritious food, scientists have found. Length of hair Researchers at the UK’s University of Bradford sought to reconstruct what they could of the last year for the trio prior to their sacrifice. La Donchella’s face in a photo, an x-ray and CT scans. The ritual begins Supernatural intoxication Who were they?
Oldest Rock Art in North America Revealed
On the west side of Nevada's dried-up Winnemucca Lake, there are several limestone boulders with deep, ancient carvings; some resemble trees and leaves, whereas others are more abstract designs that look like ovals or diamonds in a chain. The true age of this rock art had not been known, but a new analysis suggests these petroglyphs are the oldest North America, dating back to between 10,500 and 14,800 years ago. Though Winnemucca Lake is now barren, at other times in the past it was so full of water the lake would have submerged the rocks where the petroglyphs were found and spilled its excess contents over Emerson Pass to the north. [See Photos of Amazing Cave Art] To determine the age of the rock art, researchers had to figure out when the boulders were above the water line. The overflowing lake left telltale crusts of carbonate on these rocks, according to study researcher Larry Benson of the University of Colorado Boulder. "We have no idea what they mean," Benson said.
Did Neanderthals Teach Modern Humans How to Make Tools?
Neanderthals apparently created the oldest known examples of a kind of bone tool used in Europe, thus raising the possibility that modern humans may have learned how to make these tools from Neanderthals, researchers say. Neanderthals were once the closest living relatives of modern humans, dwelling across a vast area ranging from Europe to the Middle East to western Asia. This ancient lineage of humans went extinct about 40,000 years ago, about the same time modern humans expanded across the world. Neanderthals created artifacts similar to ones made at about the same time by modern humans arriving in Europe, such as body ornaments and small blades. "There is a huge debate about how different Neanderthals were from modern humans," said Shannon McPherron, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. New Neanderthal behavior "We have found an entirely new aspect of Neanderthal behavior," McPherron said. Neanderthal invention?
Ancient migration: Coming to America
The mastodon was old, its teeth worn to nubs. It was perfect prey for a band of hunters, wielding spears tipped with needle-sharp points made from bone. Sensing an easy target, they closed in for the kill. Almost 14,000 years later, there is no way to tell how many hits it took to bring the beast to the ground near the coast of present-day Washington state. But at least one struck home, plunging through hide, fat and flesh to lodge in the mastodon's rib. The hunter who thrust the spear on that long-ago day didn't just bring down the mastodon; he also helped to kill off the reigning theory of how people got to the Americas. For most of the past 50 years, archaeologists thought they knew how humans arrived in the New World. As caches of Clovis tools were uncovered across North America over subsequent decades, nearly all archaeologists signed on to the idea that the Clovis people were the first Americans. Overthrowing king clovis That means going back in time, by studying ancient genomes.
Ötzi, the Iceman
Culture: Copper Age Europe Location: Italy Date: 3500-3100 B.C. (Courtesy South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology; Courtesy South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology/Eurac/Samadelli/Staschitz) Perhaps the most famous tattooed ancient man is Ötzi the Iceman, who died high in the Italian Alps more than 5,000 years ago.
