Hal Rager: blivet radio: Archaeology

Glacial Records Depict Ice Age Climate In Synch Worldwide

Sat, 20 Mar 2004 22:03:21 GMT

"An answer to the long-standing riddle of whether the Earth's ice ages occurred simultaneously in both the Southern and Northern hemispheres is emerging from the glacial deposits found in the high desert east of the Andes.

Using a new technique to gauge the effects of cosmic rays on minerals found in boulders carried by South American glaciers thousands of years ago, a group of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has demonstrated that the Earth's most recent ice ages were global events, likely driven by change in the atmosphere.

The work, reported in the current (March/April) issue of the Geological Society of America Bulletin, a leading earth science journal, is important because it reveals that ice ages were global in nature, a fact scientists had trouble determining due to the difficulty of precisely dating the jumble of debris - sand, gravel, clay, boulders - that ice age glaciers leave in their wakes. The new work suggests that ice ages were worldwide phenomena due, in part, to the sluggish redistribution of solar energy through the world's oceans punctuated by repeated, rapid cooling of the Earth's atmosphere." [Science Daily]

Nimble-Fingered Neandertals

Fri, 28 Mar 2003 06:18:40 GMT

The latest salvo in the ongoing Neander skirmishes, reported at Scientific American.

Update

Fri, 28 Mar 2003 06:09:40 GMT

There is an update on current and not quite current events over at the other place. I did forget to mention there that on top of everything else, my Mom had to have emergency gall bladder surgery on Monday as well. She's fine. Now that it is over. When she called [a phone call at 2:30 am is never good news] to say that she was calling 911 she sounded like Darth Vader. Grandma, however, was back last night.

Professional Gear

Sun, 09 Mar 2003 05:12:00 GMT

Doug was intrigued by the frequent references to Cayce Pollard's Buzz Rickson's MA-1 Flight Jacket scattered throughout Gibson's Pattern Recognition. He found a MA-1 jacket at U.S. Wings. In due course, U.S. Wing's Type 440 (G-8) US Navy Leather Flight Jacket led me to Indiana Jones Gear. Just professional interest mind you. Jackets are one thing, but it has become quite a challenge these days to find a good fedora or bullwhip.

Ian and Dad's Excellent Weekend

Sat, 09 Nov 2002 19:26:46 GMT

We saw Audrey off for a joint three-day field trip for her Structural Geology and Field Geology classes early this morning, so this will be an Ian and Dad weekend. She will be in and around Death Valley. Ian just went down for his nap, so I am checking email and seeing what you all are up to.

This will be a fun weekend, I think we may take a field trip to the Lost City Museum in Overton. They are opening a new exhibit today. I doubt there will be any Father-Son male-bonding over a football game. Instead, our 'guy stuff' will include helping SirDeath put up ceiling fans in his new house tomorrow.

Bonneville Estates Rockshelter

Sun, 28 Jul 2002 07:56:58 GMT

Here is a teaser for my pictures of Bonneville Estates Rockshelter.

This is part of the stratigraphic profile in the main trench inside the shelter. The lowest excavated stratum has been carbon-dated to 10,080 ± 80 years ago with 1.5+ meters to go. Such is the stuff of archaeological nirvana.

The Radio is on again

Sun, 28 Jul 2002 05:03:42 GMT

I'm back from a busman's holiday in northern Nevada at Bonneville Estates Rockshelter. When I get my trip gallery up I'll post a link here.

More on Sahelanthropus tchadensis

Thu, 11 Jul 2002 07:52:13 GMT

Meet the Oldest Member of the Human Family [Scientific American]

OK, a little bit more.

Oldest hominid skull shakes human family tree

Thu, 11 Jul 2002 03:15:52 GMT

"The wind-blown Djurab Desert of Chad has opened a new window on early human evolution - a hominid skull six to seven million years old, at least two million years older than any skull previously discovered.

The stunning find was unearthed by Michel Brunet of the University of Poitiers in France and his team. "It's a lot of emotion to have in my hand the beginning of the human lineage. I've been looking for 25 years."

Named Sahelanthropus, the new species is close to the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees. It and other recent discoveries "strongly shake our conceptions of the earliest steps of hominid history," Brunet says. "The divergence between chimp and human must be even older than we thought."

Sahelanthropus shows the last common ancestor "did not closely resemble any modern ape," said Tim White of the University of California at Berkeley. Although its body and brain were the size of a modern chimp's, its face was quite different, with large brow ridges and much smaller canine teeth.

From the back, the skull "looks like a chimpanzee, whereas from the front it could pass for a 1.75 million year old advanced australopithicine" says Bernard Wood of the George Washington University. Such a mosaic of features is also evident in a newly discovered 1.8 million year old skull from Georgia." [New Scientist]

This really does blow everything open. Things have gotten very interesting.

Sat, 08 Jun 2002 08:03:14 GMT

Sears Modern Homes. In the early 1900's, you could buy a home by mail order. [Erehwon Notebook via Mike's Weblog] This is very interesting historical information. Some research we did a year and a half ago tied the arrivial of reliable rail service in Las Vegas and the advent of these 'pre-fab' homes here. About a year ago, there was a show on PBS concerning the disappearance of the family farm in Minnesota that discussed architecture styles of farm houses through time that made us realize that it wasn't just confined to the West.

My hometown of Osage City, Kansas had many examples of these houses as did John's hometown of Lyndon, eight miles away. I lived in Lyndon, it was in a Sears Modern Home. We moved to Osage City when I was five.

What's an Archaeologist Doing at a Design Firm?

Mon, 03 Jun 2002 03:11:22 GMT

"By now, I'm used to the question, "How did your background lead you to this job?" People aren't quite sure how several degrees in Archaeology and Anthropology connect to a career in high tech design. The best way to explain the connection is to talk about the other question I get as soon as people find out I'm an archaeologist: "Have you found any cool stuff?" The answer is yes, but not exactly the kinds of cool stuff most people imagine.

While Indiana Jones is beloved by archaeologists everywhere, most of us don't come across lost arks. The real world of archaeology is about uncovering pieces of the past and analyzing how they fit back together. In reconstructing this story of the past, we can learn more from a pile of potsherds than from a piece of gold, because the puzzle is about putting together the whole picture from as many different angles as we can." (more)

Via Got Caliche?, Brian comments further:

"Everyone carries with them embedded knowledge, a tacit understanding of how to do the tasks they perform every day. People may not even be aware of what they are doing, and can't describe the activity when asked. The only way to understand work is to see it. Learning to interview like an anthropologist leads to better customer data and better designs. Looking at work artifacts like an archeologist reveals important work practices, and an understanding of how people interact with the artifacts of their daily lives. Their interactions with computers, web sites, and applications are an extension of interactions with any other kind of artifact."

Neutron Tomography

Wed, 29 May 2002 02:54:21 GMT

Reactor Reveals Hidden Life Of Rocks.

"Researcher Martin Wilding, geology assistant professor Dawn Sumner and Lesher have already used the method, called neutron tomography, to find bacteria living inside rocks collected in the Mars-like environment of Antarctica's dry valleys and Israel's Negev desert. They're also using it to study the structure of volcanic rocks and glasses, and of "black smoker" chimneys collected from the deep ocean floor.

Neutron tomography could also be used for biology experiments, such as filming water movement inside plants, Wilding said.

"We're just scratching the surface of what we can do," he said." [Science Daily]

I think I saw a Nova where this technology was used on the fossilized skull of Sue, the Tyrannosaurus that Horner dug in the 1990s that ended up in the ownership dispute. This is amazing technology for seeing inside things that you ordinarily can't or don't want to destroy in the process. Like, say, mummies. Daddies too.

Satellite Imagery of Prehistoric Human Footpaths Bring Archaeologists Back To Costa Rica after 20 Years.

Fri, 24 May 2002 01:59:40 GMT

"Images of the footpaths, some dating to 2,500 years ago, were first made in 1984 by a NASA aircraft equipped with a suite of instruments that can "see" in the electromagnetic spectrum invisible to humans, said CU-Boulder anthropology Professor Payson Sheets. Sheets and NASA archaeologist Tom Sever, a CU-Boulder graduate, used the data to pinpoint the footpaths in the Arenal region of central Costa Rica.

The researchers have been able to date the ancient paths using stratigraphy gleaned from the Arenal volcano, which has erupted 10 times in the last 4,000 years. Excavations of the footpaths, covered by as much as six feet of volcanic ash, sediment and vegetation, turned up floors of ancient houses, as well as stone tools and pottery.

"Remote sensing has been used to detect ancient Roman roads, large prehistoric roads around Chaco Canyon in New Mexico and Incan roads," said Sheets. "But we had no idea it would be possible to image these little erosional footpaths. It is an exciting find with potential archaeological applications to other areas of the world." [Science Daily]

Origin Of Bipedalism Seems Most Closely Tied To Environmental Changes.

Thu, 09 May 2002 16:33:34 GMT

"In response to periods of cooling and drying, which thinned out dense forests and produced "mosaics" of forests, woodlands and grasslands, it seems likely that "some apes maintained a forest-oriented adaptation, while others may have begun to exploit forest margins and grassy woodlands," said paleoanthropologist Brian Richmond, lead author in the new study. The process of increasing commitment to bipediality probably involved "an extended and complex opening of habitats, rather than a single, abrupt transition from dense forest to open savanna," he said.

Richmond, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with paleoanthropologists David Begun from the University of Toronto and David Strait from the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine, describe their findings, which involved a comprehensive review and analysis of the five leading hypotheses on the origin of bipedalism, in a recent issue of the Yearbook of Physical Anthropology. Other hypotheses that remain viable, according to the team: "freeing" the hands for carrying or for some kind of tool use, and an increased emphasis on foraging from branches of small fruit trees, which is the context in which modern chimpanzees spend the most time on two legs.

For their study, the researchers combined data from biomechanics -- movement, posture and stesses in bones and joints -- and from bone growth and development. They found that our prehuman ancestors had terrestrial features in the hands and feet, climbing features throughout the skeleton, and knuckle-walking features in the wrist and hand; that finger bone curvature is responsive to changes in arboreal activity during growth, lending support to the hypothesis that many early hominid species, although bipedal, still climbed trees. Evidence from the wrist joint "suggests that the earliest humans evolved bipedalism from an ancestor adapted for knuckle-walking on the ground and climbing in trees."

The YPA article, according to Richmond, is "the first attempt in decades to bring together all of the available evidence for the argument that the earliest human biped evolved from ancestors that both knuckle-walked and climbed trees, rather than from ancestors living exclusively in trees and 'coming down from the trees,' or walking on the ground in ways similar to modern baboons."" [Science Daily]

Conflict and Care among the Neandertals

Wed, 24 Apr 2002 08:03:12 GMT

"In recent years, much evidence has surfaced in support of a more sophisticated Neandertal. Most scholars now agree that these archaic humans were skilled hunters who conquered the frigid Ice Age winters, made beautiful tools and by some accounts even had symbolic culture. Reports of their brutishness, it seemed, had been greatly exaggerated. But savvy though the Neandertals were, new research affirms that they did not live in total harmony. According to a report published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analysis of a skull belonging to a young adult Neandertal shows that the individual suffered a nasty slash from a sharp weapon most likely wielded by a disgruntled group member. The finding also speaks to the softer side of these hominids, however: visible bone healing indicates that the victim survived the blow--probably as a result of having been cared for by other Neandertals." [Scientific American]

Sat, 20 Apr 2002 08:18:22 GMT

New Report Explains Ice-Age Mystery.

"University of California researchers have solved a longstanding mystery for scientists trying to understand how Earth's climate can quickly shift between cold and warm modes.

The mystery revolves around the source of a rapid change in the geochemistry of oceanic carbon that occurred just as the last ice age ended, between 16,000 and 20,000 years ago.

Based on analyses of carbon stored in tiny fossil seashells, the UC geologists suggest that the chemical change occurred because of dramatic shifts in ocean circulation. They have developed a timeline of events that can be linked to previously described changes recorded in the ocean, in Antarctic ice cores and on the continents.

Climate-change experts say these changes reflect the types of events that could occur because of global warming related to human activities." [Science Daily]

Two from Science Daily

Tue, 16 Apr 2002 02:54:09 GMT

Medieval Black Death Was Probably Not Bubonic Plague.

"Although on the surface, seem to have been similar, we are not convinced that the epidemic in the 14th century and the present day bubonic plague are the same," says Dr. James Wood, professor of anthropology and demography at Penn State. "Old descriptions of disease symptoms are usually too non-specific to be a reliable basis for diagnosis." (...)

"It is possible that the Black Death was caused by any of a number of infectious organisms, but we are not ready to pinpoint the causative agent," says Wood. "The Black Death was too quickly identified with bubonic plague in the past. Indeed, historians took what was known about the bubonic plague and used it erroneously to fill in the many gaps in our picture of the Black Death. We do not want to make the same mistake by identifying some other possible cause prematurely."

The researchers do not rule out the possibility that the Black Death might have been caused by an ancestor of the modern plague bacillus, which might later have mutated into the insect-borne disease of rodents that we now call bubonic plague. The fact is that we can only trace modern bubonic plague reliably back to the late 18th century or early 19th century, according to Wood. Who knows when it first emerged?

"We too often make the assumption that while a lot of things change in the interaction of infectious diseases and human hosts, the microbe itself stays more or less the same," says Wood. "This is wrong. If anything is likely to change, it is a microbe that goes through millions of generations and an equal number of chances to mutate over a few centuries. We see no reason to think that the Black Death pathogen still exists in anything like its original form."
These findings are very similar to other pathogens of old, such as leprosy in the Middle East 2,000 years ago.

Men Regain Evolutionary Driver's Seat -- Mutation Study Confirms Strong Male-Driven Evolution Among Humans And Apes.
"The study also suggests mutations are "replication-driven" – caused mainly by cell divisions and not environmental factors. Since cell divisions are continuous during a man's life, his sperm stem cells constantly accumulate errors – or mutations. In contrast, there are only 24 cell divisions that occur in the egg cells of a woman, most of which take place before she is born.quot;
I'm also curious if the rate of mutation in males is also affected by 'things' not being so protected by body tissue.

Spirit Cave Man back in the news

Fri, 12 Apr 2002 06:29:18 GMT

Via Got Caliche?

NEVADA

http://www.rgj.com/news/specials/
Spirit Cave Man

http://www.indianz.com/SmokeSignals/Headlines/showfull.asp?ID=edu02/04112002-1
Spirit Cave Man's bones are at the center of a dispute between the BLM and the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe. Last fall, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Review Committee recommended the man and objects found with him be given to the tribe. A Federal Register notice published yesterday marked the panel's findings, which charge that BLM officials in Nevada handled the case improperly.

Pyramid 'was a water filter'

Thu, 11 Apr 2002 06:54:55 GMT

"A Canadian construction worker claims the Great Pyramid of Giza was built as a giant water filter to cope with an event on the scale of the Bible's Great Flood.

He told the Canoe website: "I'm in construction and read blueprints all the time. It caught me by surprise and I started to explore its potential. I was looking for evidence that would refute the theory, but instead I found evidence to support it.

"I decided to build a stainless steel replica scale model of the interior chambers of the Great Pyramid. What happens is in the subterranean chamber, if you introduce water and a heating element, you create vapour and have a perfect working water distillation system."

Mr Dupont, who is writing a book on his research, added: "Nobody, in my research, has looked into the Great Pyramid as a machine. It is a machine. I can get you a plumbing engineer, a steam engineer and a refrigeration engineer that will say this works." [Ananova: News]

OK then. I guess that settles it. </snide>

The Strange Case of the Iron Sun

Fri, 15 Mar 2002 05:55:01 GMT

"The tale of these ancient hominids revolves around one huge question: Were they our direct ancestors, or were they an evolutionary dead end brushed aside by another, more advanced species?" [Discover Magazine]

There is a term for the propensity to view new, additional data in an ongoing investigation (such as human evolution) as part of the existing continuium or indicative of a new grouping. I need to drag out my Philosophy of Science textbooks... it's not "open minded" and "close minded"

Vellum beats Silicon

Thu, 14 Mar 2002 04:37:50 GMT

"There's a sick irony in that cuneiform and manuscripts are more durable than digital media. But digital decay and technical obsolescence are real problems, problems we've known about for years." [Digital Medievalist]

Sun, 10 Mar 2002 07:02:23 GMT

I could have sworn he was writing about Archaeologists...
Ernie the Attorney mentions some of his assumptions about Attorneys:

The practice of law is basically "information processing"
Computers facilitate the processing of information
Information in digital form is easier to process (i.e. transmit, store, access etc.)
Lawyers are generally not comfortable with technology

Thanks to Dave who pointed to to Ernie's site for something completely unrelated.

Sat, 09 Mar 2002 16:39:39 GMT

Humans Emerged "Out Of Africa" Again And Again. [Science Daily]

"Analyses of recently derived human genetic trees by Alan R. Templeton, Ph.D, of Washington University in St Louis, show that there were at least two major waves of human migration out of Africa. DNA evidence suggests also that these wanderers bred with the people they encountered, rather than replaced them, in a "make- love-not-war,"scenario.(...)

Templeton analyzed human genetic trees for maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA, paternally inherited Y-chromosomal DNA, and eight other DNA regions, including two on the X chromosome, to reach his conclusions. He used a computer program called GEODIS, which he created in 1995 and later modified with the help of David Posada, Ph.D., and Keith Crandall, Ph.D. at Brigham Young University, to determine genetic relationships among and within populations based on an examination of specific haplotypes, clusters of genes that are inherited as a unit. Templeton's study is based on 10 DNA regions, while most other genetic analyses focus on just one, mitochondrial DNA, for instance. It also differs from most approaches because it uses a statistical approach with a priori inference criteria but requires no prior model of human evolution. Most others have a model in mind, and then see if the data are compatible with it.(...)

"Humans expanded again and again out of Africa," Templeton concludes, "but these expansions resulted in interbreeding, not replacement, and thereby strengthened the genetic ties between human populations throughout the world."(...)

Templeton's contributions to the controversy of recent human evolution include dashing the popular 'Eve Theory' because of flaws he detected in researchers' 1987 computer analyses. In 1998, he published a paper in American Anthropologist that explained humans as one race, instead of a species with subdivisions, or races. His study showed that, among people now categorized by race, everyone shares about 85 percent of the same genes. The 15 percent of variation is not enough difference to separate people biologically."

Sat, 09 Mar 2002 03:38:39 GMT

Military palmtop to cut collateral damage. The super-palmtop is called JEDI and combines laser rangefinding, GPS satellite positioning, a satellite phone and text messaging. [New Scientist] If it can do the GIS mapping and xyz plotting of artifacts, I'll write two into next year's budget!

Fri, 08 Mar 2002 02:09:58 GMT

Genetic Analysis Reveals Complexity of Modern Human Origins. [Scientific American] I'm looking forward to reading this. I'll try to follow up.

Fri, 01 Mar 2002 02:43:45 GMT

Eric Hoffer. "A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past." [Motivational Quotes of the Day] Hoffer wasn't talking about Archaeologists or Historians, but he could have been.

Sat, 23 Feb 2002 02:54:09 GMT

Virtual museum showcase reconstructs exhibits. A newly developed computer system will allow visitors to see battered or broken relics in all their original glory [New Scientist] This could be very interesting...

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 09:03:23 GMT

often a category on old site catalog sheets...
detritus [Dictionary.com Word of the Day]

Sat, 26 Jan 2002 07:47:24 GMT

Two interesting things from NASA: Climate Change Following Collapse Of The Maya Empire. "Researchers from the University of Amsterdam have demonstrated that the climate in South Mexico changed following the collapse of the Maya empire." (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research release) [NASA's Earth Observatory]

Wed, 23 Jan 2002 05:28:29 GMT

[PBS - NOVA] Neanderthals On Trial was excellent. Seemed to be a fairly even-handed presentation of the evidence, the personalities, and how archaeology (in this case, paleo-anthropology and human origins research) is done.