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 pbs.org website:
Host Michael Wood takes an epic journey, following in the path of the Queen of Sheba, searching for Shangri-La in Tibet, untangling the tales of King Arthur’s Celtic Brittan and tracing the trek of Jason who sought the Golden Fleece.
More info here.
from sci-news.com:
Oxford and Tübingen scientists have identified what they believe are the world’s oldest known musical instruments.
In their paper in the Journal of Human Evolution, the scientists report new results of radiocarbon dating for animal bones, excavated in the same archaeological layers as the musical instruments and early art, at Geißenklösterle Cave in the Swabian Jura of southern Germany.
The musical instruments take the form of flutes made from the bird bones and mammoth ivory. The animal bones bear cuts and marks from human hunting and eating. They were excavated at a key site, which is widely believed to have been occupied by some of first modern humans to arrive in Europe.
The researchers suggest that the Aurignacian, a culture linked with early modern humans and dating to the Upper Paleolithic period, began at the site between 42,000 and 43,000 years ago.
According to these findings, the artifacts from Geißenklösterle Cave are 2,000 to 3,000 years older than previously thought. So far these dates are the earliest for the Aurignacian and predate equivalent sites from Italy, France, England and other regions.
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.
Read the article here.
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.
Read the article here.
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.
