Swedish archaeologists celebrate ancient find

People lived in the Torne River Valley on the border with Sweden and Finland some 11,000 years ago, an important new archaeological find has shown.

The settlement, found near Pajala in the far north of Sweden, are the oldest known find in the county of Norrbotten, according to the archaeologist Olof Östlund.

The find was uncovered when archaeologists were searching for ancient remains in the area around Kaunisvaar near Pajala where a new mine is set to open, according to a report in local newspaper Norrländska Socialdemokraten.

“Now the pages in the National Encyclopaedia regarding inland ice can be torn out and burned,” Östlund told the newspaper.

The archaeologists located the settlements in the beginning of September and they have now been dated with the help of radiocarbon dating.

“I had been expecting old dates. But when I saw that the first numbers were very high I felt immediately that this was bingo. When the second number was five figures – I felt faint,” Östlund explained to news agency TT.

He was surprised that the find was so old and compared it to another settlement located nearby in Kangofors five years ago. That settlement had been used 10,000 years ago.

The survey was conducted on commission from a company prospecting for mines in the vicinity of Pajala and will shed light on the first inhabitants of Norrbotten.

“So this is important. Especially as in archaological circles, in southern Sweden, the accepted theory is that there was no ancient age up here in northern Sweden it is thus important to raise the issue.”

Östlund compared the new discovery to the find in Voullerim in the middle of the 1980s of 6,000 year-old stone age shelters. Then the assumptions regarding the history of the pre-history of Norrland were revalued to take into account that people had actually lived there.

Archaeologists were also then given new types of remains to look for – and several finds were then later uncovered.

http://www.thelocal.se/23546/20091129/

Babylon’s Ancient Wonder, Lying in Ruins

*Got this from whatreallyhappened. Think about it. If you do not want mankind to know its roots, what are you going to do?? I weep for these antiquities, for this is what I was most interested in. My heart breaks.*

One of the great crimes committed against the people of Iraq was the looting of the Baghdad Museum and the destruction of many important ancient sites inside Iraq.

I think that destruction of ancient sites is deliberate policy.

Egypt is literally littered with the ruins of the ancient temples and palaces of her rulers. As much as has been found, it is estimated that only 1/3 of Egypt’s archeological wonders have been uncovered. A newly discovered temple was uncovered while digging a sewer line, and a cache of finely preserved mummies was literally stumbled over by a cow in a pasture.

Iraq’s ancient heritage was enshrined in its ancient sites and museum. As a result of the war, many of those sites have been damaged or destroyed. Part of the ancient city or Ur now lies underneath a US air base runway. Nebuchadnezzar’s palace now lies underneath a US-built parking lot. The treasures of the museum have only partly been recovered. The treasures from the looted archaeological sites have been scattered to the world.

All of this wealth of archaeological treasures must of course annoy Israel. We are raised from birth with Old Testament tales of the greatness of the ancient Israelites, of the powerful kingdoms of Solomon and David and the first temple. Yet Israel, while rich in antiquities, is almost totally devoid of artifacts from this supposedly glorious time in her history. The existence of the fabled First Temple was supported with just two artifacts, a carved staff ornament in the shape of a pomegranate and the Jehoash tablet. Both of these artifacts have been exposed as frauds. We are told that once there was a magnificent temple on that hill, but it “all went away.”

The wonders emerging from the soil of Egypt, Iraq, and Iran serve as a constant reminder that ancient buildings of such a scale as we are told the First Temple was simply do not vanish without a trace.
There is considerable reason to suspect that the tales told in the Old Testament are just that; tales. The Bible is not science, it is the collected stories of a primitive tribal people telling each other how important they are. And like fishermen talking about the one that got away, or Ramses with his temple carvings of the did-not-really-happen victory over the Hittites at Kadesh, the writers of the ancient testaments assumed that the people they were telling stories to had no way to verify the claims for themselves. So “embellishment” was a low-risk activity.

We do know from the available archaeological evidence that the Exodus probably actually happened to the Hyksos, not the Israelites. We know that the story of Moses is suspect because no Egyptian princess would hide a Hebrew child inside Pharaoh’s household, then give the kid a Hebrew name (“Moses” is actually an Egyptian title meaning “Prince” and is included in the names of many Pharaoh’s names such as Tut-Moses, Ah-Moses, Ra-Moses (Ramses) etc.)
Likewise, the story of Masada may be less than accurate. The remains found on the mountain were buried with pig bones, something no proper Jewish funeral would tolerate, which suggests that the bodies found and venerated as heroes of ancient Judea were actually those of dead Romans, for whom burial often involved animals as gifts to the spirit of the dead.

But a good story is a good story and the writers of the ancient texts were probably not thinking much further into the future than the guys who pen the “Celebrity dates space alien” stories you see at supermarket checkout lines. The fact that the celebrity is a real person does not prove the space alien exists. It’s just a story.
Given enough time, even a simple story written in jest can take on a life of its own. Scientology began as a bet between two science fiction writers; look how wide spread that has become in just a short time.

But, over time, entire religions with attendant wealth and power structures have been built on the premise that these old testament stories really happened exactly as written. And today, here in the 21st century world, science has started to catch up with these ancient legends and call many of them into doubt.

So, for a nation that justifies its existence on the writings of the Torah, the plethora of sites and artifacts confirming the ancient histories of Egypt, Iraq, Iran, etc. etc. etc. must seem a dire political threat for a nation whose own ancient history seems to have left little if any traces at all.

In that context, the strange behavior of the US military which posted guards around the Iraq oil ministry while bulldozing Iraq’s archaeological sites starts to make sense, if the supporters of a very insecure nation decide that leveling the archaeological playing field is preferable to allowing the obvious disparity in artifacts to remain visible to the world.

http://whatreallyhappened.com/

Vikings in Nunavut?

One of Canada’s top Arctic archeologists says the remnants of a stone-and-sod wall unearthed on southern Baffin Island may be traces of a shelter built more than 700 years ago by Norse seafarers – a stunning find that would be just the second location in the New World with evidence of a Viking-built structure.

The tantalizing signs of a possible medieval Norse presence in Nunavut were found at the previously examined Nanook archeological site, about 200 km southwest of Iqaluit, where people of the now-extinct Dorset culture once occupied a stretch of Hudson Strait shoreline.

A UNESCO World Heritage site at northern Newfoundland’s L’Anse aux Meadows – about 1,500 km southeast of the Nanook dig – is the only confirmed location of a Viking settlement in North America. There, about 1,000 years ago, it’s believed a party of Norse voyagers from Greenland led by Leif Eiriksson built several sod-and-wood dwellings before abandoning their colonization attempt under threat from hostile natives they called “Skraelings.”

But over the past 10 years, research teams led by the Canadian Museum of Civilization’s chief of Arctic archeology, Pat Sutherland, have compiled evidence from field studies and archived collections that strongly suggests the Norse presence in northern Canada didn’t end with Eiriksson’s retreat from Newfoundland.

At three sites on Baffin Island, which the Norse called “Helluland” or “land of stone slabs”, and at another in northern Labrador, the researchers have documented dozens of suspected Norse artifacts such as Scandinavian-style spun yarn, distinctively notched and decorated wood objects and whetstones for sharpening knives and axes.

A single human tooth from one of the sites was tested a few years ago for possible European DNA, but the results were inconclusive.

Among the new artifacts found near the sod-and-stone features at Nanook is a whalebone spade – consistent with tools found at Norse sites in Greenland, and which might have been used to cut sections of turf for the shelter.

There is also evidence at Nanook of what appears to be a rock-lined drainage system comparable to ones found at proven Viking sites.

The apparent “architectural elements” found at the site “still have to be confirmed,” Sutherland told Canwest News Service. “They’re definitely anomalous for Dorset culture. And when you see these things in connection with Norse artifacts, it suggests that there may have been some kind of a shore station.”

Sutherland’s theory is that Norse sailors continued to travel between Greenland and Arctic Canada for generations after the failed colonization bid in Newfoundland. She believes they encountered and possibly traded with the Dorset, ancient aboriginals who were later overrun – probably before 1400 A.D. – by the eastward-migrating Thule ancestors of modern Inuit.

The theory is a controversial one.

University of Waterloo archeologist Robert Park recently challenged the dating of artifacts and Sutherland’s interpretations of evidence in a paper published by the journal Antiquity.

Park argues that the “most plausible explanation” for Norse-like traces at Nanook and other sites is that “none of these traits come from Dorset-European contact.”

He suggests such items may have been developed without any Norse influence by the ancient indigenous inhabitants of northern Canada.

“Despite the difficulty of proving a negative – i.e. establishing that Dorset did not come into contact with the Norse – on the basis of these data there appears to be no convincing archeological evidence that contact occurred,” Park concludes.

Sutherland insists that while proof of Norse-Dorset interaction isn’t overwhelming, there are now “several lines of evidence” pointing to sustained contact. And she notes that the kind of “boulders and turf” structural feature observed at Nanook is “atypical for Dorset” and consistent with Norse culture.

“I think in any scientific field, when something new comes along that hasn’t been given much consideration in the past, it generates debate,” she said.

Sutherland, whose research is also featured in the current issue of Canadian Geographic, said a scientific paper summarizing a decade’s worth of work on the national museum’s Helluland project is due to be published in August.

Further field work at a Dorset site in northern Labrador is scheduled for 2010, she added.

http://www.dose.ca/news/story.html?id=1632232

Oldest human footprints found in Kenya

*I am currently writing an essay on human origins. This fits well with my original theories.*

Two sets of prints left by Homo ergaster, an early ancestor of modern humans. were found in separate rock layers near Ileret.

Laser scanning revealed that feet have stayed much the same over 1.5 million years and the creature walked the same way as people do today.

The prints bore all the hallmarks of a modern human stride, including an arched foot, short toes, and a big toe that was parallel to the other toes.

As in modern humans, weight was transferred from the heel to the ball of the foot and then to the big toe with each step.

The find is the first of its kind since the famous discovery 30 years ago of footprints dating back 3.75 million years at Laetoli, Tanzania.

These older prints are thought to have been left by the more primitive and apelike Australopithecus.

Although this creature also appears to have walked upright, it had a shallow arch and a splayed big toe characteristic of apes.

The Ileret prints, pressed into solidified layers of ancient mud, consisted of an upper and lower set five metres apart.

The top layer contained three trails – two of two prints each, one of seven prints, and a number of isolated prints.

The deeper layer preserved one trail of two prints and a single isolated smaller print that may have been left by a child.

Scientists led by Dr Matthew Bennett, from the University of Bournemouth in Poole, scanned the prints and compared them with those of modern humans and the Laetoli prints.

They wrote in the journal Science: “The Ileret prints show that by 1.5 million years, hominids had evolved an essentially modern human foot function and style of bipedal locomotion.”

Homo ergaster, often known as early Homo erectus, was the first “human” to have long legs and short arms like modern Homo sapiens.

Various remains of H. ergaster/erectus have been found in Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa, where human beings first evolved.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/kenya/4860752/Oldest-Human-footprints-found-in-Kenya.html

Prehistoric child is discovered buried with ‘toy hedgehog’ at Stonehenge

This toy hedgehog, found in a child’s grave at Stonehenge, is proof of what we have always known – children have always loved to play.

The chalk figurine was probably a favourite possession of the three year old, and placed next to the child when they died in the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age, around 3,000 years ago.

Archaeologists who discovered the grave, where the child was laying on his or her side, believe the toy – perhaps placed there by a doting father – is the earliest known depiction of a hedgehog in British history.

The diggers were working to the west of Stonehenge in what is known as the Palisade Ditch when they made the remarkable discovery last month in the top of the pit in which the child was buried.

Archaeologist Dennis Price said: ‘It is not difficult to envisage the raw emotion and harrowing grief that would have accompanied the death of this child.

‘Amid the aura of gloom that surrounds Stonehenge, it comes as a beam of light to find a child’s toy lovingly placed with the tiny corpse to keep him or her company through eternity.

‘I’m not aware of hedgehogs having any significance in pagan tradition so the discovery must rank as yet another unique and baffling aspect of one of the most famous and instantly recognisable prehistoric monuments on Earth. To my mind, the hedgehog possesses a real charm and an innocent beauty. ‘

Dr Joshua Pollard, of the Stonehenge Riverside Project, said: ‘Representational art from this period is very rare and so far as I’m aware, if the identification is correct, it’s the only known prehistoric depiction of a hedgehog from Britain.’

Fay Vass, of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, said: ‘We are very excited to hear about this find. It shows humans have taken hedgehogs to their hearts for a very long time.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1073210/Prehistoric-child-discovered-buried-toy-hedgehog-Stonehenge.html