One of archaeology's most hotly debated topics, the arrival of humans in the Americas, has received an added impetus. New evidence emerged from Parsons Island
Snippet: HERVs are “non-coding” sequences comprising of genetic material that originated from the infection of germ cells with ancient retroviruses during evolution, which now constitute approximately 8% of the human genome7,8,9. After the initial infections took place, these sequences inserted in the genome and multiplied...
The Neolithic site of Dispilio, Northern Greece, is a pile-dwelling site with 900+ piles excavated. Here, the authors use the 5259 BC Miyake event to date the juniper tree-ring chronology constructed from these piles to 5140 BC, making it the first Neolithic site in the region to be absolutely calendar dated.
@bananabob As much as I like reading this sort of stuff, it perturbs me that it garners so much more attention than even immediately pressing threats like Covid and climate change and dangerous pedestrian crossings and kennel cough.
For the first time, dynamic modelling of terrain at the University of Sydney has helped us better understand how humans first travelled across the combined continent of Sahul - Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania - between 35,000 and 70,000 years ago.
So this is the pictograph to the left of the really crisp one seen in my last post. Sadly, this one has not fared well over the centuries. The left side of it has mostly been washed away by water running down the cliff face. I enhanced this one quite a bit so we could see some of the detail. When it was fresh, I think this one would have really been spectacular! It has many more elements to it than the last one I posted.
@elaterite
Ink rendition of the left panel.
Projected transparency, blueprint scale scanner, prints 8.5 x 11 at about 300 dpi.
My impression, the mud covers the pictographs. #RockArt#Pictographs #Utah#Archaeology#Art
Last week in the #PleiadesGazetteer of ancient places, the editorial college published 19 new and 185 updated place resources, reflecting the work of Jeffrey Becker, Catherine Bouras, Tom Elliott, Greta Hawes, Brady Kiesling, Chris de Lisle, Rosemary Selth, R. Scott Smith, and Richard Talbert.
Abstract: The transition from hunting-gathering to agriculture stands as one of the most important dietary revolutions in human history. Yet, due to a scarcity of well-preserved human remains from Pleistocene sites, little is known about the dietary practices of pre-agricultural human groups. Here we present the isotopic...
I'm not sure who that old coot is photo bombing this cliff dwelling, but I saw him free climb down into the canyon from the mesa top. Silly old guy must have went up the wrong canyon looking for this ruin, climbed out, walked across the mesa, & then climbed down into this, the right canyon with its really cool cultural site. There's rock art decorating the canyon walls, pottery shards, 800-year-old corn cobs, & pressure flakes everywhere!
Nice! Using parametric masks in Darktable I was able to enhance the extremely faded green pictographs in this panel! Green is a very rare color to see in Utah Four Corners area pictographs.
Nice pictograph and hand print I found hiking canyons in Utah the other day. (Note: I enhanced the saturation a bit in Darktable using parametric masks. The original is quite faded, sadly.)
@miscelaneapatr1 Thanks! Looks like a great plugin if I want to aggressively pull out details. I think I prefer a natural look, however. With Darktable's parametric masks I can create masks based on color, saturation, and contrast and, in most cases, exactly select the part of the image I want to enhance.
So, @archeaids has been posting some cool flaked tools and that reminded me about this rad quartz preform I found out by Reserve. #NewMexico#archeology
@archeaids
That's cool! Thank you for the id! I guess that means this stone must have come from a long way off. The mountains in this area are almost exclusively basalt and welded ash flows.
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@ambivalena Yes, love seeing them. And ya, if Natives want to interpret them, that's one thing. But it feels too much like cultural appropriation for me to do it.
An inscribed Roman altar with game board scratched into the back, posted (nice photos, both front and back, but no alt text ... see my thread below) by @Rome_and_stuff:
First photo shows the rough-cut rear face of a rectangular stone altar into which an apparent game board has been cut. The board consists of three concentric squares, with straight lines connecting the center of each side of the outermost square to the corresponding center of each side of the innermost square.
Second photo shows the front of a rectangular, inscribed altar, bearing a five-line Latin text in early imperial characters with common abbreviations ... 1/2
I don't see how this monument can be called "funerary". Rather, I'd say "dedicatory". I'll try a translation:
To the Fortunae(!) of the Valerian Baths, C(aius) Hostilius Agathopus gave (this altar) as a gift.
Per EDR, the inscription was first seen in Rome, but not in situ (i.e., we don't know precisely where it was from). EDR reports it last observed in the Antiquarium Comunale del Celio, NCE 4993, but now ???
Any Roman topographers know anything else about a "bal(neum) Verul(anum)" vel sim?
Any Roman epigraphists know where this inscription is now held?
Abstract: Teotihuacan was one of the thriving cultures in the Mesoamerica pre-Hispanic times, located in the Central Valley of Mexico. The city-state was a dominant centre point during the Classic period and its influence affected other contemporaneous cultures. Around the year 550 CE, a continuous decrease in urban population...
Abstract: The known languages of the Americas comprise nearly half of the world's language families and a wide range of structural types, a level of diversity that required considerable time to develop. This paper proposes a model of settlement and expansion designed to integrate current linguistic analysis with other...
snippet “ The settlement unearthed at Cap d'Erquy comprises approximately twenty circular dwellings strategically positioned around a central plaza. Based on archaeological assessments, it is estimated that this village was inhabited by a Gallic community between the 8th and 5th centuries B.C....
Abstract: For the past four decades, the ‘Secondary Products Revolution’ model, i.e., the exploitation of animal resources that do not involve killing the animal, such as the production of milk and wool and the use of animals for physical labour has been the object of heated discussion between Neolithic scholars. According...
Abstract: Mutually beneficial partnerships between genomics researchers and North American Indigenous Nations are rare yet becoming more common. Here, we present one such partnership that provides insight into the peopling of the Americas and furnishes another line of evidence that can be used to further treaty and Indigenous...
@ipxfong Points usually overall shape. Flakes same. Now, there are quarry sites, one 1.5 miles in length, that have up to 2.5 m of debitage. Trying to sort thick flakes from blocky shatter pieces would not be fun if they were weathered.