From the sci-news.com website:
A new study reported in the journal Nature Communications indicates that the Minoans, who 5,000 years ago established the first advanced Bronze Age civilization in present-day Crete, probably were descendents of the first Neolithic humans to reach the island around 7,000 BC and that they have the greatest genetic similarity with modern European populations.
http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/article01078-dna-minoan-civilization-crete.html
From the independent.co.uk website:
New archaeological evidence suggests that America was first discovered by Stone Age people from Europe – 10,000 years before the Siberian-originating ancestors of the American Indians set foot in the New World.
Read the article here.
The ruins are a ‘sensational discovery’ with a structure to rival the Colosseum in Rome, archaeologists say.
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From the http://www.khm.uio.no website:
A new stone with a Proto-Norse runic inscription was discovered on 26 September 2009 at Hogganvik in Mandal, Vest-Agder, Norway. The inscription with elder runes must date to the period of the Germanic tribal migrations, roughly 350-500 AD. With its sixty-two runes, one a bind-rune, the text is the second or third longest from this period of time, following well behind the Tune stone, and about equivalent to the Rö stone from Bohuslen (where several runes are entirely missing/unreadable).
See more here.
Thanks to Markku at Runes of Christ for providing notice about this story.
From the discovery.com article:
Beneath Rome’s Fiumicino airport lies a “mini-Colosseum” that may have played host to Roman emperors, according to British archaeologists.
The foundations of the amphitheater, which are oval-shaped like the much larger arena in the heart of Rome, have been unearthed at the site of Portus, a 2nd century A.D. harbor near Ostia’s port on the Tiber River.
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From the independent.co.uk article:
It has long been agreed that Africa was the sole cradle of human evolution. Then these bones were found in Georgia…
The conventional view of human evolution and how early man colonised the world has been thrown into doubt by a series of stunning palaeontological discoveries suggesting that Africa was not the sole cradle of humankind. Scientists have found a handful of ancient human skulls at an archaeological site two hours from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, that suggest a Eurasian chapter in the long evolutionary story of man.
The skulls, jawbones and fragments of limb bones suggest that our ancient human ancestors migrated out of Africa far earlier than previously thought and spent a long evolutionary interlude in Eurasia – before moving back into Africa to complete the story of man.
Experts believe fossilised bones unearthed at the medieval village of Dmanisi in the foothills of the Caucuses, and dated to about 1.8 million years ago, are the oldest indisputable remains of humans discovered outside of Africa.
Read the article here.
From the wired.com article:
A few thousand years ago, someone living in what is now Ireland made some butter, stuck it into an oak barrel, wandered out into a bog about 25 miles west of Dublin, and buried it.
Somehow, that someone lost track of it, which two lucky archaeologists discovered when they dug up the stashed loot earlier this year in the Gilltown bog, between the Irish towns of Timahoe and Staplestown.
But that wasn’t the first keg of butter that’s been preserved by the strange chemistry of the bog. Or the 10th. More than 270 kegs of bog butter have been retrieved from the wetlands, along with dozens of ancient bodies, swords, and ornaments. Here, we run down some of the strangest things that scientists and citizens have pulled from the peat.
Read the article here.
From the discovery.com article:
The summer villa of Roman Emperor Vespasian has been found in the Sabine hill country northeast of Rome, Italian archaeologists announced today.
Titus Flavius Vespasianus is known for rebuilding the Roman Empire following the tumultuous reign of Emporer Nero. Vespasian changed the face of Rome by launching a major public works program, which included the construction of the Colosseum, the structure that arguably defines the glory of ancient Rome.
Dating back to the first century A.D., the massive villa, adorned with mosaic floors, baths and marbled halls, has emerged following four years of digs near the town of Cittareale, in the province of Rieti.
The villa not only is located near the place of Vespasian’s birth at Falacrinae (Vicus Phalacrinae), but also may be the site where he is said to have died.
Read the article here.
From the discovery.com article:
Italian archaeologists have discovered lotion that is over 2000 years old, left almost intact in the cosmetic case of an aristocratic Etruscan woman.
The discovery, which occurred four years ago in a necropolis near the Tuscan town of Chiusi, has just been made public, following chemical analysis which identified the original compounds of the ancient ointment. The team reports their findings in the July issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.
Dating to the second half of the second century B.C., the intact tomb was found sealed by a large terracotta tile. The site featured a red-purple painted inscription with the name of the deceased: Thana Presnti Plecunia Umranalisa.
…
After analyzing the material, the researchers established that the contents of the vessel consisted of a mixture of substances of lipids and resins.
“The natural resins were the pine resin, exudated from Pinaceae, and the mastic resin, from Anacardiaceae trees. The lipid was a vegetable oil, most likely moringa oil, which was used by the Egyptians and Greeks to produce ointments and perfumes,” Ribechini said.
Also called myrobalan oil, moringa oil was mentioned by Roman scholar Pliny the Elder (23 A.D. – 79 A.D.) in his celebrated Natural History as one of the ingredients in the recipe of a “regal perfume” for the king of Parthes.
Read the article here.
