FOOTPRINTS OF ICE AGE MAMMOTHS & PREHISTORIC HUMANS IN USA

One of the largest collections of vertebrate animal tracks from the Ice Age can be found preserved on a dried lake bed called Alkali Flat, at White Sands National Monument in south central New Mexico USA, about 1,300 kilometres east of Los Angeles.

Locally referred to as 'ghost tracks' they're extremely difficult to see, but researchers using ground-penetrating radar at the site have now been able not only to identify and map tracks made by big animals such as mammoths and giant ground sloths, but also those of the humans that hunted them.

Examination of the radar images reveals something resembling 'hooks' below the bases of the mammoth footprints - possibly from compression of the sediment at the time the tracks were made - which could provide crucial information about the way the animals walked. The pressure data from the mammoth footprints closely resembles those of modern elephants.

HOMO ERECTUS SURVIVED LONGER THAN WE THOUGHT

An ancient relative of modern humans survived into comparatively recent times in South East Asia, a new study has revealed.

Homo erectus evolved around two million years ago, and was the first known human species to walk fully upright.

New dating evidence shows that it survived until just over 100,000 years ago on the Indonesian island of Java - long after it had vanished elsewhere.

This means it was still around when our own species was walking the Earth. Details of the result are described in the journal Nature.

7,000 year old seawall discovered off Israeli Coast

A 7,000-year-old seawall has been discovered off the Israeli coast, and it's now the oldest-known defense against rising sea levels. The seawall eventually failed, and the village had to be abandoned, in what's serving as an ominous lesson from the past.

The Tel Hreiz archaeological site is located off the Carmel coast of Israel and once hosted a vibrant Neolithic community. This Mediterranean settlement thrived for hundreds of years, as its villagers hunted gazelle and deer, farmed cows and pigs, fished for tilapia, raised their dogs, and manufactured copious amounts of olive oil. But with each passing generation, the villagers noticed something rather frightening: The waters of the Mediterranean were getting higher and higher.

The rising sea levels would have been noticeable across a person's lifespan, as they rose at an alarming rate of 4 to 7 mm each year, or around 70 cm (28 inches) every 100 years. Reluctant to leave their settlement, and to protect against the increasingly powerful waves and the destructive effects of erosion, the Tel Hreiz villagers decided to take matters into their own hands by constructing a 100 m long (330-foot) seawall that ran parallel to the shore.

The seawall, as the new research suggests, was nothing too fancy, having been built by piling large boulders atop each other. The seawall's length, the use of big boulders sourced from outside the community, and its careful arrangement on the shore "reflect the extensive effort invested by the Neolithic villagers in its conception, organisation and construction," wrote the authors in the study. The seawall may have helped for a while, but it ultimately failed, and the village - after nearly 500 years of continuous occupancy - had to be abandoned.

The seawall, which is today submerged under 3 meters of water, was constructed some 7,000 years ago, and it's now the oldest known coastal defense system in the archaeological record. It's an exceptional find, as infrastructure improvements such as these didn't start to appear in the region until the Bronze and Iron Ages. Importantly, the new research, led by archaeologist Ehud Galili from the University of Haifa, shows that humanity's battle against rising sea levels dates back for thousands of years.

Edited from The Times of Israel (18 December 2019), Gizmodo (20 December 2019)
https://www.timesofisrael.com/scientists-find-9000-year-old-seawall-built-to-stave-off-rising-sea-levels/

EARLIEST KNOWN SITE IN CONNECTICUT FOUND IN AVON

In January, once excavation was underway, crews discovered evidence of what scientists have called southern New England’s earliest inhabitants. The site, located near Old Farms Road, is estimated to be about 12,500 years old, dating back to a time known as the Paleoindian Period. It has been named in honor of Brian D. Jones, the state archaeologist who died in July. The Paleoindian site is the crowning discovery after years of archaeological digs in that part of Avon, according to Catherine Labadia, a staff archaeologist with the State Historic Preservation Office.

Archaeologists found about 15,000 artifacts at the Avon site. The tools were all lithic — made of stone — because pottery had not yet been invented in the Paleoindian Period. The DOT hired a Storrs-based firm, Archaeological & Historical Services Inc., to conduct the dig itself. The principal investigator on the dig, Senior Archaeologist David Leslie, said excavation turned up about 15,000 artifacts and 27 features.

In general, features are remnants of human activity, including holes and walls — what Leslie described as “traces of behavior” that have been recorded in the earth. At the Avon site, Leslie said, archaeologists found an open fire pit, or hearth, and a number of posts from temporary houses. Only a handful of Paleoindian features have ever been discovered in this part of the country, Leslie said, and the Avon site revealed more than two dozen. The site shows evidence of the earliest known population in Connecticut, he said.

The Avon site was discovered as the DOT prepped to reconstruct the Farmington River bridge at Old Farms Road, near Route 10. The project cost about $14.7 million, the Courant previously reported.

In the case of the Avon site, the DOT project required deep excavation for the construction of bridge abutments. Labadia said that such a deep dive — the artifacts and features were lodged about six feet under the surface — would likely have been cost prohibitive to archaeologists working on thei

The Avon site and all of its artifacts may have been left undiscovered if not for the work of Brian Jones, an archaeologist who worked at Archaeological & Historical Services and later became the state archaeologist. Jones, who died over the summer after a battle with cancer, had a “knack” for finding Paleoindian sites, Leslie said. In 2018, when Jones was the state archaeologist, his former firm was once again contracted for work at the site. This time, the crews dug about five feet down, Leslie said. Within a week or two, with artifacts and features already popping up, they realized they’d found a Paleoindian site.


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WORLD'S OLDEST ART WORK UNCOVERED IN INDONESIA CAVE

An Indonesian cave painting that depicts a prehistoric hunting scene could be the world's oldest figurative artwork dating back nearly 44,000 years, a discovery that points to an advanced artistic culture, according to new research. Spotted two years ago on the island of Sulawesi, the 4.5 metre (13 foot) wide painting features wild animals being chased by half-human hunters wielding what appear to be spears and ropes, said the study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

"This hunting scene is—to our knowledge—currently the oldest pictorial record of storytelling and the earliest figurative artwork in the world," researchers said. "I've never seen anything like this before," Griffith University archaeologist Adam Brumm told Nature. "I mean, we've seen hundreds of rock art sites in this region, but we've never seen anything like a hunting scene," he added. in the latest dated scene, the animals appear to be wild pigs and small buffalo, while the hunters are depicted in reddish-brown colors with human bodies and the heads of animals including birds and reptiles.

"We don't know what it means, but it seems to be about hunting and it seems to maybe have mythological or supernatural connotations," Brumm was quoted as saying. The Sulawesi painting, which is in poor condition, suggests that a highly advanced artistic culture existed some 44,000 years ago, punctuated by folklore, religious myths and spiritual belief, the team said.

CHESS PIECE FOUND IN JORDAN MAY BE WORLD'S OLDEST

John Oleson with the University of Victoria has reported that a small object found in Jordan made of sandstone might be the oldest chess piece ever found. In his presentation at the American Schools of Oriental Research this past week, he spoke about the object and what it might represent.

Historians believe the game of chess originated in India approximately 1,500 years ago, though it is also believed that its name, rules and piece names have changed over time. Since its invention, the game has spread around the world. In his abstract for the conference, Oleson notes that references to chess playing in the Islamic world go as far back as the seventh century AD, and it was apparently a very popular pastime.

In his presentation, Oleson described the two-pronged object carved from sandstone that has been dated (using context) to approximately 1,300 years ago. The object, found in 1991, is otherwise rectangular in shape. Oleson claims it looks very much like other early Islamic chess pieces—specifically, a rook (castle). He points out that other objects identified as rooks in Jordan and the Near East, whether wood, stone or ivory, are nearly identical to the sandstone object. In modern chess games, the piece resembles a medieval tower—it moves horizontally or vertically through any number of unoccupied squares. In earlier times, the rook was fashioned to look like a dual-horse chariot, which may account for the two-pronged look of early Islamic figures.

The sandstone rook was found at a site called Humayma, which Oleson notes was along the busy Via Nova Traiana—a trade route between Asia and the Near and Middle East. It appears likely that the game of chess made its way to the Middle and Near East along the route. Humayma was a trading outpost run by the Abbasid family. Oleson notes that the family kept up with what was going on in Iraq and Syria. Taken together, the evidence suggests that the rook is possibly the earliest evidence of such a chess piece design, and possibly the oldest example of any type of chess piece. More work is required to verify that the stone object is, indeed, a chess piece before it can be designated as such.

Book read Nov 30,2019

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa Sea


Women divers in Korea during WWII --- Confusing but interesting.