Tuesday, October 30, 2007

More on Alien Fires

The Mirror

IT was just little things at first...a TV would smoulder, a mobile phone would catch fire.


But then it got worse - a whole lot worse.


Over three weeks fridges, washing machines, cookers and furniture all began bursting into flames for no reason. Twelve houses were badly damaged by blazes in the quiet village.


Now, with panic-stricken locals blaming evil spirits and calling for an exorcism, the mayor has ordered a full-scale evacuation.


Last night Italian TV showed people fleeing in tears while fireman rushed to fight yet another spontaneous blaze.


Engineers called to Canneto di Caronia, near Messina, Sicily, were baffled because the fires continued even when the power was cut off.


Mayor Pedro Spinnato said: "This all began three weeks ago and we can discover no explanation. We cannot risk a tragedy through these fires so I have no other option to evacuate.


"We have had engineers in to examine cables and wires but they can find nothing wrong. Twelve houses have been severely damaged after various domestic appliances burst into flames.


"But it is not just electrical items. Furniture is also catching fire for no reason.


"For the time being we have asked families to leave and stay with friends and relatives so a through examination can take place.


"People are blaming evil spirits and I am being asked to get the priest to perform an exorcism."


Civil protection chief Tullio Martella said: "What is going on here is like a scene from some paranormal film.


"The fires continued even when we cut power to the village to see if that was a possible cause."


"For the time being there is no scientific explanation and I have never heard of anything like this before."


Last night more than 100 engineers were in the village and geologists were also due to carry out underground surveys.


Click here to comment on this article


Italian villagers call for exorcist to end 'demon' fires JEREMY CHARLES IN ROME


AN ITALIAN village was evacuated yesterday as investigators attempted to explain an outbreak of spontaneous household appliance combustions, which have left locals fearing for their safety.


Fridges, cookers, televisions, washing machines, mobile telephones and furniture have burst into flame for no apparent reason at a dozen houses in the Sicilian village of Canneto di Caronia near Messina.


Authorities initially suspected the fires were caused by overhead cables on a nearby railway line, but the outbreaks continued even after the village's electricity supply was cut off, leading some locals to blame supernatural forces.


Pedro Spinnato, the village mayor, has ordered the evacuation so further investigations can be carried out.


"This has been going on for three weeks now and there is no explanation for it. We cannot risk a tragedy through these fires, so I have no other option but to evacuate the village," said Mr Spinnato.


"We have had electrical engineers in to examine cables and wires but they can find no explanation. It is not just electrical items, furniture is also catching fire for no reason.


"Already people are blaming the events on evil spirits and I am being asked to get the local priest to perform an exorcism."


The civil protection chief, Tullio Martella, said: "For the time being there is no scientific explanation for it and I have never heard of anything like this happening before in Italy. The fires continued even when we cut power to the village to see if that was a possible cause."


Last night more than 100 engineers were in the village and geologists were also due to carry out underground surveys.


Nino Pezzino, 42, one of 39 villagers evacuated yesterday, said: "Twelve of our houses are uninhabitable. Fortunately, for the time being, the only damage has been to houses and no-one has been hurt, but you can sense the growing fear.


"How can anyone live in a house where any minute something can catch fire for no apparent reason?"


Father Gabriel Amorth, the Vatican's chief expert on exorcisms, said: "With cases of demon behaviour it is normal for domestic appliances to be involved and for demons make their presence known via electricity." Comment: We want to see your data Father Gabriel!


If he, a spokesmen for the Catholic church, can talk about "demons", then surely we can discuss our own theories. We don't have enough data yet for a sound working hypothesis, but surely we can come up with something better than demons.
Share/Bookmark

Alien Arsonists in Italy!!

By Nick Pisa in Rome
Last Updated: 1:05am GMT 29/10/2007


Aliens were responsible for a series of unexplained fires in fridges, TV¹s and mobile phones in an Italian village, according to an Italian government report.


Canneto di Caronia, in northern Sicily, drew attention three years ago after residents reported everyday household objects bursting into flames.


TV news footage at the time showed electrical appliances as well as cookers, a pile of wedding presents and furniture smouldering. advertisement


Dozens of experts including scientists, electrical engineers and military boffins, arrived in the village 60 miles east of Palermo to investigate the phenomenon.


Arson was quickly ruled out and at one stage an amazed scientist was interviewed after he described how he saw an unplugged electrical cable burst into flames.


Locals were quick to blame supernatural forces and at the time the Vatican¹s chief exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth backed up their fears and said: "I¹ve seen things like this before. Demons occupy a house and appear in electrical goods. Let¹s not forget that Satan and his followers have immense powers."


Now in an interim leaked report published by several Italian newspapers it has emerged that the Civil Protection Department has concluded the most likely cause was "aliens".


The report was ordered by the Italian government and brought together dozens of experts including a NASA scientist. Their two year investigation has cost an estimated £1 million.


According to the report the fires were "caused by a high power electro magnetic emissions which were not man made and reached a power of between 12 and 15 gigawatts."


The report also detailed a possible UFO landing close to the village, citing "burnt imprints which have not been explained were found in a field."


Francesco Mantegna Venerando, Sicily¹s Civil Protection chief who coordinated the report, said: "This is not the final report. We are still working on our conclusions and this has been leaked.


"We are not saying that little green men from Mars started the fires but that unnatural forces capable of creating a large amount of electromagnetic energy were responsible.


"This is just one possibility we are also looking at another one which involves the testing of top secret weapons by an unknown power which are also capable of producing an enormous amount of energy."
Share/Bookmark

Friday, October 26, 2007

Red Headed Neanderthal Step Child


Thu Oct 25, 4:42 PM ET



CHICAGO (AFP) - Some of our cave-dwelling Neanderthal relatives probably had red hair and fair complexions, much like modern-day humans of Celtic origin, according to a study released Thursday.

ADVERTISEMENT


The finding comes from the first such analysis of DNA evidence taken from Neanderthal fossils recovered from El Sidron in northern Spain and Monti Lessini, Italy.

An analysis of the DNA revealed the ancient hominids carried a mutation in the MC1R gene that codes for a protein involved in the production of melanin -- a substance that gives skin its color and also protects it against ultraviolet light.

In modern humans, primarily of European descent, mutations in the MC1R gene are thought to be responsible for red hair and pale skin by dampening the activity of the protein.

The mutation observed in the Neanderthal genes was different from the one documented in humans, but when scientists inserted the Neanderthal gene into cells in a test tube, it seemed to have the same effect on melatonin production as the modern human genes, according to the study published in Science.

The genetic analysis doesn't seal the deal, but since the fossil record of Neanderthals does not include any samples of skin or hair, it is the best guide available, said Michael Hofreiter, a paleogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Leipzig, Germany.

Hofreiter said the number of red-headed Neanderthals was probably pretty small, possibly just one percent of the population and might have popped up in any part of Europe or Asia that the ancient hominids had settled.

The news did not come as a surprise to one leading scholar of Neanderthal evolution and biology.

"The stereotype of primitive peoples is that they are dark skinned, but some paleontologists have been speculating for 20 years that some Neanderthals must have been pale skinned because they lived in northern Europe," said Erik Trinkaus, a professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

"Light skin is adaptive at higher altitudes because it allows more UVB radiation to penetrate the skin and that promotes Vitamin D synthesis."

Neanderthals, whose ancestors diverged from that of modern humans about 300,000 years ago, colonized Europe and parts of Asia, dominating Europe until about 30,000 years ago.

The study suggests that the genes that confer pale skin and red hair evolved separately in humans and our closest extinct relatives.


Red Headed Neanderthal on Yahoo News
Share/Bookmark

Thursday, October 25, 2007

The Amazon Shorts Forum


Share/Bookmark

Amazon Shorts



As a new author in the Amazon Shorts program, I wanted to spread the word!


Share/Bookmark

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

11,000 Year Old Uber Artefacts

Wall paintings using solely geometric, and only figurative. system of
cross-hatched lines, alternating between black, white and red. 11,000
year old statue of a man, carved stone tools, flints, seed-grinding
implements and brick-grinding stones were unearthed. Picture of man at
cite.

2007-10-23
Archaeologist uncovers 11,000-year-old artefacts in Syria
Latest discoveries in Syria date back to start of Neolithic era in
Epipalaeolithic period.
By Talal el-Atrache - DAMASCUS Deep in the heart of northern Syria,
close to the banks of the Euphrates River, archaeologists have
uncovered a series of startling 11,000-year-old wall paintings and
artefacts.


"The wall paintings date back to the 9th millennium BC. They were
discovered last month on the wall of a house standing two metres (6.6
feet) high at Dja'de," said Frenchman Eric Coqueugniot, who has been
leading the excavations on the west bank of the river at Dja'de, in an
area famous for its rich tradition of prehistoric treasures.


The etchings are "polychrome paintings in black, white and red. The
designs are solely geometric, and only figurative. The composition is
made up of a system cross-hatched lines, alternating between the three
colours," Coqueugniot said.


They were found in a circular building, around 7.5 metres (25 feet) in
diameter. The excavated house features three solid blocks where the
paintings were located.


The main pillar has been completely excavated and stands almost two
metres high displaying the new murals, said Coqueugniot, a researcher
for the Paris-based National Centre for Scientific Research.


The remains of the building, much larger than the small and
rectangular domestic dwellings of the period, "must have been used as
a meeting place for the whole village or for a clan," he added.


Apart from the organic artefacts, which have decomposed over time, the
site has provided many well-preserved treasures.


Carved stone tools, flints, seed-grinding implements and brick-
grinding stones have been recovered. Many bone objects were also found
-- both remnants of the animals that made up part of the daily diet
and intricately fashioned tools.


The dig also uncovered several figurines made of gypsum, chalk, bone
and clay. The most recent discovery, an 11,000-year-old statue of a
man is "particularly important and well preserved," Coqueugniot said.


This item will allow comparisons with other similar sculptures found
on sites in the Urfa region of southern Turkey, added the French
scientist, who has overseen archaeological projects at Dja'de for 15
years.


"The figures could have had religious significance. The female
statuettes could also have been fertility symbols. But they could have
had entirely different ritual meanings," Coqueugniot said


"We can only offer hypotheses," he added. "It is still very difficult
to say what was the significance of this 11,000-year-old statue of the
woman."


The latest discoveries date back to the start of the Neolithic era, in
a period known as the Epipalaeolithic.


Many artefacts from this period have been discovered in northern
Syria, in particular at Jerf al-Ahmar, a site destroyed by the Tishrin
dam, Coqueugniot said. It was one of several built over the past three
decades that have flooded a number of archaeological sites.


For example, the dam at Tabqa flooded an area of around 650 square
kilometres (250 square miles) after it was erected in 1976. Prior to
that, the government approved testing of 56 sites, 20 of which were
spared when the dam was built.
Read the Full Article Here
Share/Bookmark

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Clovis-Solutrean Connection?

Columbus Day this past Monday, Frank opens the show with his now-famous "Hail Columbus!" speech. Frank then goes on to explain who were really the first humans to walk on the American continents: The Solutreans, a Caucasian race of people who traveled from Europe tens of thousands of years before even the so-called "Indians" traveled into North America via the Bering Straits, and whose remains, including the highly-disputed Kennewick Man and Clovis Point, have been found in recent decades.

Plus, revisionist history... Bill Clinton calls in to discuss AlGore's winning the Nobel Peace Prize... your phone calls at 718-761-9996 and much more.

Listen to it here:

The Right Perspective Blog
Share/Bookmark
Neandertals, humans share key changes to 'language gene'


A new study published online on October 18th in Current Biology reveals that adaptive changes in a human gene involved in speech and language were shared by our closestextinct relatives, the Neandertals. The finding reveals that the human form of the gene arose much earlier than scientists had estimated previously. It also raises the possibility that Neandertals possessed some of the prerequisites for language.


The gene, which is called FOXP2, is the only one known to date to play a role in speech and language, according to the researchers. People who carry an abnormal copy of the FOXP2 gene have speech and language problems.


"From the point of view of this gene, there is no reason to think that Neandertals would not have had the ability for language," said Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. He noted, however, that many as-yet-unknown genes might underlie the capacity for language. Once found, those would have to be examined in Neandertals as well.


Previous analyses indicated that a very recent rise in the human FOXP2 variant had occurred as a result of strong selection, less than 200,000 years ago, added Svante Pääbo, also of the Max Planck Institute. "Because we know that Neandertal and modern human populations diverged more than 300,000 years ago, we would have guessed that these changes in FOXP2 would have happened after we separated from Neandertals," Pääbo said, noting that the human version of FOXP2 differs from that of chimps in two places.


The researchers extracted DNA from Neandertal fossils collected in a cave in northern Spain. They exhumed the bones under sterile conditions and froze them before transporting them to the laboratory. They then extracted DNA and sequenced the Neandertal FOXP2 gene, revealing that it was identical to the version found in modern humans. To ensure that the Neandertal DNA samples hadn't been contaminated with human DNA, they also sequenced parts of their Y chromosome, which was found to be distinct from that of men today.


In addition to its potential implications for the acquisition of language, the study also marks the first time a specific nuclear gene has been retrieved from Neandertals-opening the door to other breakthroughs in scientists' understanding of human and Neandertal evolution, the researchers said.


"The current results show that the Neandertals carried a FOXP2 protein that was identical to that of present-day humans in the only two positions that differ between human and chimpanzee," the researchers concluded. "Leaving out the unlikely scenario of gene flow [between the two lineages], this establishes that these changes were present in the common ancestor of modern humans and Neandertals. The date of the emergence of these genetic changes therefore must be older than that estimated with only extant human diversity data, thus demonstrating the utility of direct evidence from Neandertal DNA sequences for understanding recent modern human evolution."


Source: Cell Press
http://www.physorg.com/news111933235.html
Share/Bookmark

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Wetter Climate Fueled Human Migrations

PNAS 104:16416-21
East African megadroughts between 135 and 75 thousand years ago and bearing
on early-modern human origins
CA Scholz cs.2007

The environmental backdrop to the evolution and spread of early Homo sapiens in East Africa is known mainly from isolated outcrops and distant marine sediment cores. Here we present results from new scientific drill cores from Lake Malawi, the first long and continuous, high-fidelity records of tropical climate change from the continent itself. Our record shows periods of severe aridity between 135 and 75 ka, when the lake's water volume was reduced by at least 95 %. Surprisingly, these intervals of pronounced tropical African aridity in the early late-Pleistocene were much more severe than the Last Glacial Maximum, the period previously recognized asone of the most arid of the Quaternary.
From these cores and from records from Lakes Tanganyika (East Africa) and Bosumtwi (West Africa), we document a major rise in water levels and a shift to more humid conditions over much of tropical Africa after c.70 ka. This transition to wetter, more stable conditions coincides with diminished orbital eccentricity, and a reduction in precession-dominated climatic extremes. The observed climate mode switch to decreased environmental variability is consistent with terrestrial and marine records from in and around tropical Africa, but our records provide evidence for dramatically wetter conditions after 70 ka. Such climate change may have stimulated the expansion and migrations of early modern human populations.
Share/Bookmark

Sunday, October 14, 2007

An Adventure in Yore for Bedtime Reading



Have you searched the web for the perfect online story so that you can download it for your child’s bedtime TONIGHT? Well, if you are reading the words on this page then you have come to best place on the internet to do just that!
“An Adventure in Yore for Bedtime Reading” is not only the prequel to the bestselling children’s fantasy tale “The Other Side of Yore,” but it is also a bedtime story scientifically engineered to fascinate children, settle them down, and get YORE kids dreaming in no time flat!
Starring those adventurous amphibians Frawg Findig III and Dr. Croaks, this magical animal story takes you back to the ancient Territorial Wars, where the duo first met while defending the land of Terramore from an invading army of malicious rats!
But not only is this sorry filled with majestic creatures, delightful songs and poems, and the incredible artwork of Kenny Jones to absolutely intrigue you like “The Other Side of Yore,” but it is also formulated with sleep therapy in mind to bring peace and relaxation to YORE child’s bedtime. Weaving the latest NLP, Ayur Vedic, and visualization techniques into the eloquent but simple prose, author J. Lyon Layden has penned an invaluable aid for parents on school nights.
Just download the story from Amazon Shorts for just 49 cents and YORE child will be sleeping peacefully after just a few minutes of gentle bedside reading. Read the story the first night until he or she falls asleep (usually after 7 to 10 pages once the verbal cues of kicked in). The next night your children will be eager for their bedtime story, so just pick back up where you left off and rest assured that the child will be lulled to peaceful sleep by the end of the tale. What’s more, kids tend to ask for this story again and again, and each time it produces a similar result!

As if that weren’t enough, YORE stories always contain a valuable message for growing children and are paramount in introducing them to a life-long love of reading! Lovers of fantasy, science fiction, animal stories, action adventure, and good old fashioned whimsy will all delight in this whimsical tale! Having been favorable compared to The Hobbit, The Wind in the Willows, Harry Potter, and The Chronicles of Narnia, the Yore Series is undoubtedly a world that any young boy or girl will find welcoming to their budding imaginations!
All this for the nearly FREE price of 49 cents, download YORE’s for storytime tonight, exclusively on Amazon Shorts!
Share/Bookmark

Thursday, October 11, 2007

A Tribute to Dragons and Unicorns - Dreams of the Past


Share/Bookmark

short faced bear, irkuikem, criptozoology

What a monster!


Share/Bookmark

megalania prisca,criptozoology


Share/Bookmark

Tribute to megalania prisca

A tribute to the largest dragon that ever lived!


Share/Bookmark

Into Asia

davina.quarter...@oxon.blackwellpublishing.com
Environmental setting of human migrations in the circum-Pacific Region

A new study by Kevin Pope of Geo Eco Arc Research and John Terrell of The Field Museum adds insight into the migration of anatomically modern humans out of Africa and into Asia less than 100,000 years before present (BP). The comprehensive review of human genetic, environmental, and archaeological data from the circum-Pacific region supports the hypothesis, originally based largely on genetic evidence,
that modern humans migrated into eastern Asia via a southern coastal route. The expansion of modern human populations into the circum-Pacific region occurred in at least four pulses, in part controlled by climate and sea level changes in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene epochs. The initial "out of Africa" migration was thwarted by dramatic changes in both sea level and climate and extreme drought in the coastal zone. A period of stable climate and sea level 45,000-40,000 years BP gave rise to the first major pulse of migration, when modern humans spread from India, throughout much of coastal southeast Asia, Australia, and Melanesia, extending northward to eastern Russia and Japan by 37,000 years BP.


The northward push of modern humans along the eastern coast of Asia stalled north of 43°N latitude, probably due to the inability of the populations to adjust to cold waters and tundra/steppe vegetation. The ensuing cold and dry Last Glacial period, ~33,000-16,000 year BP, once again brought dramatic changes in sea level and climate, which caused abandonment of many coastal sites. After 16,000 years BP, climates began to warm, but sea level was still 100 m below modern levels, creating conditions amenable for a second pulse of human migration into North America across an ice-free coastal plain now covered by the Bering Sea.


The stabilization of climate and sea level in the early Holocene (8,000-6,000 years BP) supported the expansion of coastal wetlands, lagoons, and coral reefs, which in turn gave rise to a third pulse of coastal settlement, filling in most of the circum-Pacific region. A slight drop in sea level in the western Pacific in the mid-Holocene (~6,000-4,000 year BP), caused a reduction in productive coastal habitats, leading to a brief disruption in human subsistence along the then densely settled coast. This disruption may have helped initiate the last major pulse of human migration in the circum-Pacific region, that of the migration to Oceania, which began about 3,500 years BP and culminated in the settlement of Hawaii and EasterIsland by 2000-1000 years BP.
Share/Bookmark

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Clergy Endorses Evolution


These brave holy men have done much to reconcile Christianity with scientific fact, and much to keep a new generation from turning away from the light:
Evolution and Christianity
Share/Bookmark

Upright Apes 20+ MILLION Years Ago!!


Early Apes Walked Upright 15 Million Years Earlier Than Previously Thought, Evolutionary Biologist Argues

Filler AG 2007
Homeotic Evolution in the Mammalia: Diversification of Therian Axial Seriation and the Morphogenetic Basis of Human Origins PLoS One 2(10): e1019. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001019

An extraordinary advance in human origins research reveals evidence of the emergenceof the upright human body plan over 15 million years earlier than most experts have believed. More dramatically, the study confirms preliminaryevidence that many early hominoid apes were most likely upright bipedal walkers sharing the basic body form of modern humans.


Research from Harvard University¹s Museum of Comparative Zoology and from the Cedars Sinai Institute for Spinal Disorders connects several recent fossil discoveries to older fossils finds that have eluded adequate explanation in the past. The report deals with the "homeotic" genetic mechanisms that encode anatomical assembly in the embryo, and their relevance to a series of discoveries of hominoid fossil vertebrae.


It concludes that a specific gene change ­ in the Pax system -- that generated the upright bipedal human body form -- may soon be identified. The various upright "hominiform" hominoids appear to share this morphogenetic innovation with modern humans. Homeotics concerns the embryological assembly program for midline repeating structures such as the human vertebral column and the insect body segments.


The report analyses changes in homeotic embryological assembly of the spine in more than 200 mammalian species across a 250 million year time scale. It identifies a series of modular changes in genetic assembly program that have
taken place at the origin point of several major groups of mammals including the newly designated 'hominiform' hominoids that share the modern human body plan.


The critical event involves a dramatic embryological change unique to the human lineage that was not previously understood because the unusual human condition was viewed as "normal."


"From an embryological point of view, what took place is literally breathtaking," says Dr.Aaron Filler, a Harvard trained evolutionary biologist and a medical director at Cedars Sinai Medical Center's Institute for Spinal Disorders.


In most vertebrates (including most mammals), he explains, the dividing plane between the front (ventral) part of the body and the back (dorsal) part is a "horizontal septum" that runs in front of the spinal canal. This is a fundamental aspect of animal architecture. A bizarre birth defect in what may have been the first direct human ancestor led to the "transposition" of the septum to a position behind the spinal cord in the lumbar region. Oddly enough, this configuration is more typical of invertebrates.


The mechanical effect of the transposition was to make horizontal or quadrupedal stance inefficient. "Any mammal with this set of changes would only be comfortable standing upright. I would envision this malformed young hominiform -- the first true ancestral human -- as standing upright from a young age while its siblings walked around on all fours."


The earliest example of the transformed hominiform type of lumbar spine is found in Morotopithecus bishopi an extinct hominoid species that lived in Uganda more than 21 million years ago. "From a number of points of view," Filler says, "humanity can be redefined as having its origin with Morotopithecus. This greatly demotes the importance of the bipedalism of Australopithecus species such as Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) since we now know of four upright bipedal species that precede her, found from various time periods on out to Morotopithecus in the Early Miocene."
Early Apes Walked Upright
Share/Bookmark

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

More Evidence For Cataclysms 12,900 YBP

"Communicated by Steven M. Stanley, University of Hawaii at Manoa,
Honolulu, HI, July 26, 2007 (received for review March 13, 2007)


A carbon-rich black layer, dating to {approx}12.9 ka, has been
previously identified at {approx}50 Clovis-age sites across North
America and appears contemporaneous with the abrupt onset of
Younger Dryas (YD) cooling. The in situ bones of extinct Pleistocene
megafauna, along with Clovis tool assemblages, occur below this
black layer but not within or above it. Causes for the extinctions,
YD cooling, and termination of Clovis culture have long been
controversial. In this paper, we provide evidence for an
extraterrestrial (ET) impact event at {cong}12.9 ka, which we
hypothesize caused abrupt environmental changes that contributed to
YD cooling, major ecological reorganization, broad-scale
extinctions, and rapid human behavioral shifts at the end of the
Clovis Period. Clovis-age sites in North American are overlain by a
thin, discrete layer with varying peak abundances of (i) magnetic
grains with iridium, (ii) magnetic microspherules, (iii) charcoal,
(iv) soot, (v) carbon spherules, (vi) glass-like carbon containing
nanodiamonds, and (vii) fullerenes with ET helium, all of which are
evidence for an ET impact and associated biomass burning at
{approx}12.9 ka. This layer also extends throughout at least 15
Carolina Bays, which are unique, elliptical depressions, oriented to
the northwest across the Atlantic Coastal Plain. We propose that one
or more large, low-density ET objects exploded over northern North
America, partially destabilizing the Laurentide Ice Sheet and
triggering YD cooling. The shock wave, thermal pulse, and
event-related environmental effects (e.g., extensive biomass burning
and food limitations) contributed to end-Pleistocene megafaunal
extinctions and adaptive shifts among PaleoAmericans in North
America.
Full PDF Report Here
Share/Bookmark

'The Jesuit and the Skull' by Amir D. Aczel

'The Jesuit and the Skull' by Amir D. Aczel

The story of the Jesuit holy man who found Peking Man and sought to resolve Evolution with Christianity, and was named heretical by the Roman Catholic Church.
Click below for more information on the man and his works:
The Jesuit and the Skull
Share/Bookmark

Hobbit Mastery of Stone Tool Useage!

The "Hobbits" seem to have reached a pretty high level of tool use and manufacture long before humans arrived in Flores! Check it out!
Tool Use of Hobbits
Share/Bookmark

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Basket and Rope Manufacture Pushed Back to 27,000 YBP!!

Textile impressions on pottery is pushed back farther into antiquity than anyone ever imagined! Here's the link:

The New York Times on Textile Tech
Share/Bookmark

Friday, October 5, 2007

The Ultimate Sahul and Sundaland Map!

See the continent that WAS, 12,000 years ago...when cro-magnon and "the hobbit" walked the world and savage monsters roamed the landscape!
This is the best interactive map on Sundaland and Sahul I've seen before, and you can set it to whatever time period you want to in the last million years and get an accurate coastline!
So take a gander and let the Atlantis and Lemuria theories pour forth!

The Ultimate Sahul and Sundaland Map
Share/Bookmark

Did Art and Music Begin in Germany?


Controversial evidence is suggesting that art and music were both born at the foot of the Alps in Germany 35,000 years ago or more.
Here's the link:
Prehistoric Art
Share/Bookmark

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Pushing Back the Bronze Age into Antiquity

7,500 year old foundation for "workshop" provides tentative date for
"one of the first places in which metal weapons and tools were made in
prehistory".

Archaeologists stumble on sensational find
4 October 2007 | 14:17 | Source: Beta
Prokuplje -- Serbian archaeologists found evidence of the what could be the oldest metal workshop in all of Europe.




According to National Museum archaeologist Dušan Šljivar, experts found a “copper chisel and stone ax at a location near Prokuplje in which the foundation has proven to be 7,500 years old, leading us to believe that it was one of the first places in which metal weapons and tools were made in prehistory.”


Archaeologists hope that this find in southern Serbia will prove the theory that the metal age began a lot earlier than it was believed to have, Šljivar told Beta news agency. He leads the team of archaeologists that have been investigating the site over the past decade.


Šljivar said that this finding, along with 40 similarly valuable ones
before it, among which there were more parts of metal tools and weapons, as well as a smelter and furnace, prove that man on this territory began working with metal more than 5,000 years before the new era.


Prokuplje Museum archaeologist Julka Kuzmanović-Cvetković said that the site “shows that the people living on our territory started a civilization that presented the basics of the technological revolution.”


“We want to prove that the site was a metal works centre in the central part of the Balkans,” she said.


The Ministry of Culture has set aside some EUR 12,500 for this year's excavation at the site near Prokuplje, called Pločnik.


Šljivar said that these funds have enabled experts to investigate with more detail the 25 square meters and find new specimens.


Pločnik was uncovered accidentally in 1927 while the Niš-Priština railway was being built and has been actively investigated with great interest since 1996 by Serbian and international experts.
Share/Bookmark

The Early Occupation of America

Haplogroup X and the New World
By David Tatosian on (Jul 12, 06)


I'm sure this has happened to all of us at one time or another: you're in a convenience store or deli somewhere, grabbing yourself a bite to eat and a little something to wash it down with. You pay the nice man behind the counter the appropriate amount, exit the establishment and stop so quickly the man walking behind slams right into you, unleashing a torrent of Spanish at your back.


You've walked right into one of those anti-illegal alien rallies that are cropping up all over America.


On the sidewalk to your right are a number of well behaved-but angry American citizens carrying signs and waving the national ensign.


On the sidewalk to your left is a diverse group of students and liberals, masked desperados waving Mexican, anarchist and Palestinian flags and a couple of Hispanic activists shrieking incoherently into bullhorns.


As you walk through the buffer zone, provided by a polite but no nonsense police force, you happen to glance at the raucous, obscenity shouting, finger flipping crowd to your left and notice "The Sign".


The illegal alien crowd always displays "The Sign", and its message is always the same: "We (meaning the Indian/Mestizo/Mexican illegal alien) were here first Gringo, you're (meaning us European types) the illegal aliens. Go back to Europe."


As you pull away, happily gnawing at your mystery meat burrito, you wonder just how much truth there is in that "We were here first Gringo" business.


In that, you're not alone.


There have been a number of archaeologists who have wondered the same thing since the discovery of the Clovis People (Paleo-Indians) in Clovis, New Mexico 70 years ago.


Among them is University of South Carolina archaeologist Dr. Albert Goodyear. Dr Goodyear's activities at the Topper Site in South Carolina have yielded startling results: ".Radiocarbon tests of carbonized plant remains where artifacts were unearthed last May along the Savannah River in Allendale County.indicate that the sediments containing these artifacts are at least 50,000 years old, meaning that humans inhabited North America long before the last ice age."


And long before Clovis.


Nor is the Topper site alone in yielding evidence of much older settlements;
sites in Meadowcroft, Pennsylvania, Cactus Hill Virginia, and Monte Verde, Chile all indicate settlements thousands of years older than Clovis.


This is not just unwelcome news for Indians or Hispanic illegal aliens. It also throws a little bit of a kink into the Africa as cradle to the world theory too. If, as the theory goes, mankind left Africa 60,000 to 80,000 years ago, how does evidence of mankind show up in the western hemisphere 50,000 years ago?


And if America's first inhabitants scampered across a temporary land bridge and eventually spread over the hemisphere from the west, why are the sites
along the eastern seaboard so much older?


Smithsonian Institution archaeologist Dennis Stanford states, ".The old idea
on New world origins are based on informed speculation and not supported by evidence.through time and repetition-and in the absence of clear alternatives- the theory became dogma and ultimate ideology."


With that in mind, Mr. Stanford and lithics (stone tools/crafts) expert Bruce Bradley set out to discover the predecessors to Clovis.


Their conclusion, based on biface technology, flintknapping techniques and other processes? ".There is very little in Clovis - in fact nothing - that is not found in Solutrean technology." stated Mr. Stanford.


Archaeologist Kenneth Tankersley of Kent State University goes further, stating, ".There are only two places in the world and two times that this technology appears - Solutrean and Clovis."


Apparently the Solutreans, hunters and craftsmen from France and Spain arrived before the Clovis People.


Europeans.


How did they get here?


Stanford points out that boats made of hides and other materials have been with us for tens of thousands of years, and further states, ".that Solutreans were at least in part shore dwellers. At the time of maximum glaciation the sea level was down approximately 425 ft.." lower than what it is today. (In 1992, Le Cosquer cave was discovered near Marseilles. Today the cave mouth lies 100 ft below the surface of the water. In Solutrean times, it would have been on a hillside 300 ft high and several miles inland from the Mediterranean.)


Stanford claims, ".the permanent ice that bridged the Atlantic, and the sea ice that extended further south in the winter, would have provided limitless opportunities to haul out their boats and hunt ice-age game."


Mr. Stanford suggests it would be only a matter of time before the Solutreans would have traversed the 1,200 to 1,500 miles to the Grand Banks, the northeastern most extension of North America which, because of the low sea levels, would have afforded them safe harbor, and fish and game beyond their wildest imaginings.


And there is the work of geneticists from Emory University and the Universities of Rome and Hamburg: ".Mitrochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is inherited exclusively from the mother, normally contains four markers, called haplogroups, labeled A, B, C and D. These four are shared by 95% of Native Americans. Recently however, the genetics team identified a fifth haplogroup, called X, which is present in about 20,000 Native Americans and has also been found in several pre-Columbian populations. A most interesting fact is that haplogroup X is also present in European populations, but absent from Asians. The geneticists research suggests the marker may have existed in the Americas 12,000 to 34,000 years ago, which means it must have been introduced before Clovis. By whom? Stanford and Bradley's prime candidates are Salutreans."


This is good stuff.


Certainly there is no reason to believe the Indians will give any credence to these discoveries and theories. As Russell Means stated at the Millions More March last year, and I paraphrase here, "the White man's archaeologists are grave robbers."


As for the illegals and their friends, beyond dressing up in feathers and beating some drums in honor of imagined Mayan or Aztec gods, history begins and ends with Guadalupe Hidalgo.


The Solutrean-Clovis connection opens up a whole new world of possibilities for Americans though.


Particularly those who find themselves in the same position as the individual at the beginning of this piece.


Maybe we can make up some signs like "The Sign" ourselves.


Maybe this new information will bring the American citizens and the millions of illegal aliens together. Sort of like long lost brothers.


Maybe not.


In the meantime, I'd like to submit my application for part ownership in that casino down the road apiece.


Why not? We were here first.


Sources


(1) http://allendale-expedition.net/pressreleases/1117pr.html


(2) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1013315/posts


(3) Western-star


(4) http://www.centerfirstamericans.com/mt.php?a=46
Share/Bookmark

Summit of Alternative History

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Some of the leading pyramid and megalith researchers and authors of ancient history will be gathering at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) in La Jolla, California, this weekend at the 4th annual "Conference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge" (CPAK), the largest meeting of "alternative historians" in the world. Many of the scheduled presenters offer unusual theories about history, such as the belief that history may be cyclical with alternating Dark and Golden Ages, a cycle Plato called: The Great Year.


Speakers this year include Dr. Robert Schoch, the Boston University Geologist famed for re-dating the Sphinx (likely much older than heretofore believed), Graham Hancock, Explorer and Author of Fingerprints of the Gods, and other books that suggest our ancient ancestors were more intelligent than most anthropologists infer, John Anthony West, Rebel Egyptologist who suspects ancient Egypt might have its roots in an earlier culture (possibly Atlantis), Walter Cruttenden, an Archeoastronomer that suggests the motion of the solar system through space might play a role in the rise and fall of civilization, Robert Bauval, Engineer and Giza specialist, John Burke, a subtle energy scientist, that has discovered polarity alignments at Avebury... These are just a few of the provocative scientists, authors and independent investigators that will be presenting new information on humanity's ancient history.
According to Geoff Patino, a UCSD alumni and one of the conference organizers, "The mission of CPAK 2007 is to investigate the myth, folklore, archaeology and astronomy of ancient cultures with the goal of better understanding our true history. Research shows many ancient societies lived much closer to nature than we do and they had a deep understanding of geometry, astronomy and reverence for the heavens. New evidence indicates that celestially aligned megalithic structures may have a profound agricultural purpose. We should try to understand all we can about these nature based cultures as it appears there might be lost knowledge important to civilization today."
In addition to the private roundtable and academic meeting, the Conference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge offers two days of presentations to the general public. They will take place at Peterson Hall on the UCSD campus this October 6-7. Tickets and additional information are available at www.CPAKonline.com, or call Jami Brucher at 949-399-0306, or email Geoff Patino: geoffp@mac.com.
Share/Bookmark

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Real Temple of Set? 70,000 year old Ritual Chamber with Life-like Snake Sculpture!


Forskningsmagasin fra Universitetet i Oslo


Forskningsartikkel


World's oldest ritual discovered. Worshipped the python 70,000 years ago


SACRIFIED TO THE PYTHON:


The world's oldest ritual ceremonies are twice as old as previously thought. More than 70,000 years ago in a small cave in Botswana, humans sacrificed spearheads to the python. Photo: Sheila Coulson


A new archaeological find in Botswana shows that our ancestors in Africa engaged in ritual practice 70,000 years ago X 30,000 years earlier than the oldest finds in Europe. This sensational discovery strengthens AfricaXs
position as the cradle of modern man.


Tekst: Yngve Vogt. Translated by Alan Louis Belardinelli


A startling archaeological discovery this summer changes our understanding of human history. While, up until now, scholars have largely held that manXs first rituals were carried out over 40, 000 years ago in Europe, it now appears that they were wrong about both the time and place.


Associate Professor Sheila Coulson, from the University of Oslo, can now show that modern humans, Homo sapiens, have performed advanced rituals in Africa for 70,000 years. She has, in other words, discovered mankindXs oldest known ritual.


The archaeologist from the Department of Archaeology, Conservation, and
Historical Studies, made the surprising discovery while she was studying the origin of the Sanpeople in cooperation with the University of Tromsø,
Norway, and the University of Botswana. A group of the San live in the sparsely inhabited area of north-western Botswana known as Ngamiland.


Coulson made the discovery while searching for artifacts from the Middle
Stone Age in the only hills present for hundreds of kilometers in any direction. This group of small peaks within the Kalahari Desert is known as the Tsodilo Hills and is famous for having the largest concentration of rock paintings in the world. The more than 3,500 paintings, some more than 1,500
years old, constitute an important piece of our cultural heritage and are the reason that Tsodilo is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


RITUAL CEREMONIES: People from the area held the ritual in a little cave in
Tsodila Hills in Botswana. Foto: Sheila Coulson.


The Tsodilo Hills are still a sacred place for the San, who call them the XMountains of the GodsX and the XRock that WhispersX. San guides who lead archaeologists to the hills must first check with their deity to ascertain whether they are welcome there.


The python is one of the SanXs most important animals. According to their
creation myth, mankind descended from the python and the ancient, arid streambeds around the hills are said to have been created by the python as it circled the hills in its ceaseless search for water.


The python cave


Sheila CoulsonXs find shows that people from the area had a specific ritual
location associated with the python. The ritual was held in a little cave on the northern side of the Tsodilo Hills. The cave itself is so secluded and
access to it is so difficult that it was not even discovered by archaeologists until the 1990s. The first archaeologists at the site noticed two paintings on one side of the cave and a rock with a large number of
indentations in it on the other side.


When Coulson entered the cave this summer with her three masterXs students,
it struck them that the mysterious rock resembled the head of a huge python. On the six meter long by two meter tall rock, they found three-to-four hundred indentations that could only have been man-made.


XYou could see the mouth and eyes of the snake. It looked like a real
python. The play of sunlight over the indentations gave them the appearance
of snake skin. At night, the firelight gave one the feeling that the snake wasactually moving.X said Sheila Coulson to the University of OsloXs research magazine Apollon.


They found no evidence that work had recently been done on the rock. In fact, much of the rockXs surface was extensively eroded.


When they saw the many indentations in the rock, the archaeologists wondered about more than when the work had been done. They also began thinking about what the cave had been used for and how long people had been going there. With these questions in mind, they decided to dig a test pit directly in
front of the python stone.


At the bottom of the pit, they found many stones that had been used to make theindentations. Together with these tools, some of which were more than 70,000 years old, they found a piece of the wall that had fallen off during
the work.


RARE QUALITY: The spearheads were particularly beatiful and were brought from hundreds of kilometers away. Photo: Sheila Coulson.


Sacrificed Spearheads


In the course of their excavation, they found more than 13,000 artifacts.
All of the objects were spearheads and articles that could be connected with ritualuse, as well as tools used in carving the stone. They found nothing else.


As if that were not enough, the stones that the spearheads were made from are not from the Tsodilo region but must have been brought from hundreds of
kilometers away.


The spearheads are better crafted and more colourful than other spearheads from thesame time and area. Surprisingly enough, it was only the red
spearheads that had been burned.


XStone age people took these colourful spearheads, brought them to the cave, and finished carving them there. Only the red spearheads were burned. It was a ritual destruction of artifacts. There was no sign of normal habitation. No ordinary tools were found at the site. Our find means that humans were more organised and had the capacity for abstract thinking at a much earlier point in history than we have previously assumed. All of the indications suggest that Tsodilo has been known to mankind for almost 100,000 years as a
very special place in the pre-historic landscape.X says Sheila Coulson.


MAN-MADE: On this six meters long by two meter high stone, which resembles a python,researchers found 300-400 indentations that must have been made by humans. Photo: Sheila Coulson.


The Shaman's chamber


Sheila Coulson also noticed a secret chamber behind the python stone. Some areas ofthe entrance to this small chamber were worn smooth, indicating that many people had passed through it over the years.


XThe shaman, who is still a very important person in San culture, could have kept himself hidden in that secret chamber. He would have had a good view of the inside of the cave while remaining hidden himself. When he spoke from his hiding place, it could have seemed as if the voice came from the snake itself. The shaman would have been able to control everything. It was perfect.X The shaman could also have XdisappearedX from the chamber by crawling out onto the hillside through a small shaft.


While large cave and wall paintings are numerous throughout the Tsodilo Hills, there are only two small paintings in this cave: an elephant and a giraffe. These images were rendered, surprisingly, exactly where water runs down the wall.


Sheila Coulson thinks that an explanation for this might come from San mythology.


In one San story, the python falls into a body of water and cannot get out by itself. The python is pulled from the water by a giraffe. The elephant, with its long trunk, is often used as a metaphor for the python.


XIn the cave, we find only the San peopleXs three most important animals: the python, the elephant, and the giraffe. That is unusual. This would appear to be a very special place. They did not burn the spearheads by chance. They brought them from hundreds of kilometers away and intentionally burnedthem. So many pieces of the puzzle fit together here. It has to
represent a ritual.X concludes Sheila Coulson.


A PERFECT FIT: At the bottom of their excavation, Sheila Coulson found this tool that was used to scrape out some of the intentattions on the python stone. Photo: Sheila Coulson.


Dating the find


One is compelled to wonder why no one has made this discovery before. In fact, Sheila Coulson is one of the few archaeologists studying the Middle
Stone Age in Africa. The Middle Stone Age spans the period from 250,000 until 40,000 years ago, yet very few human traces have been found from that
period.


Archaeologists who are interested in Africa Xespecially East AfricaX have most often concentrated on the many extremely old finds that can tell us more about human history from the Early Stone Age, which lasted from about
two million until 250, 000 years ago.


Stone tools are a signature of the past. A way to differentiate between the two periods is to study how the tools were made.


It was a major archaeological find five years ago that made it possible for Sheila Coulson to date the finds in this little cave in Botswana. Up until the turn of the century, archaeologists believed that human civilisation developed in Europe after our ancestors migrated from Africa. This theory was crushed by Archaeologist Christopher Henshilwood when he published his find of traces from a Middle Stone Age dwelling in the Blombos Cave in
Southern Cape, South Africa.


XThat was the first solid archaeological evidence to demonstrate that early Homo sapiens were thinking abstractly and behaving like modern people long before it was thought to be possible. It became clear that Africa was not just the place that people became physically modern, but that many culturally modern practices were present in Africa long before they appeared
in Europe.X


Since the publication of the find at Blombos, archaeologists from other parts of the world have come forward with similar evidence to confirm the earlier development of culturally modern practices. XThe finds at Tsodilo fit this patternX, Sheila Coulson says.


But in contrast to the finds in Blombos and other areas of the world that show that people were already modern 70,000 years ago, the cave in Botswana has never been used as a dwelling. For over 70,000 years, people came to this cave for the sole purpose of performing rituals, and nothing else.


Of international importance


Torfinn Xrmen, a zoologist who lectures on human evolutionary history at the University of Oslo, says that this is the biggest archaeological discovery in a long time.

Sheila Coulson's discovery is going to garner attention the world over. This
is the oldest ritual site that we know of and it was in use before physically modern man left AfricaX, Xrmen points out. He explains that the San, who are also referred to as Bushmen, belong to the most ancient race of humans. The San, together with the Khoi (or Khoikhoi), separated from the rest of the worlds people about 70,000 years ago. Today they are commonly refered to as the Khoi-San people. The Khoi and the San are quite similar and were displaced by both the Europeans and the Bantu before and during colonization.


Some researchers believe that modern man descended from the San. What is certain is that the San are a very old people and that they have a very deep connection to this area of Botswana. The Tsodilo Hills are the San peopleXs most sacred place; theyhave had a connection to it for thousands and thousands of yearsX, says Torfinn Xrmen.


[Publisert 30.11.2006 ]
Sacrifice to the Python
Share/Bookmark

CHINA LAKE MONSTERS (Italian tv-news)

Chinese reporter Zhuo Yongsheng claims to have filmed sea monsters in a volcanic lake on the border of China and Korea.
Judge for yourself!
http://news.jongo.com/articles/07/0909/40108/NDAxMDgo7pLBUQb.html


Share/Bookmark

Monday, October 1, 2007

That Far Ranging Neanderthal Oni

By Marlowe Hood AFP - Sunday, September 30 06:19 pm



PARIS (AFP) - European Neanderthals, modern man's ill-fated cousins who died out mysteriously some 28,000 years ago, migrated much further east than previously thought, according to a study released Sunday.


Remains from the slope-browed hominid have previously been found over an area stretching from Spain to Uzbekistan, but the new study extends the eastern boundary of their wanderings another 2,000 kilometres (1,250 miles) deep into southern Siberia, just above the western tip of what is today China.


The fossils underpinning the study are not new, but the techniques used to analyse them are.


Geneticist Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and colleagues compared mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences from bones found from two sites -- one in Teshik Tash, Uzbekistan and the other from the Altai Mountains in Siberia -- with those of specimens from different European sites.


Scientists looking at the morphology of the remains from the central Asian sites have long disagreed as to whether they came from Neanderthals or Homo sapiens sapiens, the species name for modern man.


Paabo's results settle the debate.


The study, published in the British journal Nature, confirms that the adult fossils -- about 40,000 years old -- from Okladnikov Cave in Siberia genetically match the European Neanderthal.


"The fact that no deep mtDNA divergence is seen ... shows that they were not separated for a long time," supporting a theory that Neanderthals colonised most of the Russian plains during a warming period some 125,000 years ago, the researchers conclude.


Every human cell contains thousands of mitochondria, tiny structures that convert the energy from food into a form that cells can use. Although most DNA is packaged in chromosomes within the nucleus, mitochondria also have a small amount of their own.


Mitochondrial DNA is more abundant than nuclear DNA, and is thus more likely to be recovered.


In addition, mtDNA is transmitted only from the mother so that changes from generation to generation result from mutation alone rather than recombination of the mother and father's DNA.


The presence of Neanderthals in Siberia "raises the possibility that they man have been present even farther to the east, in Mongolia and China," the study notes.


Smaller and squatter than modern man, Neanderthals lived in parts of what are today Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East for around 170,000 years.


Sometime between 28,000 and 30,000 years ago, these poorly understood hominids disappeared, a vanishing act that has sparked fierce debate among palaeontologists.


Some say that the Neanderthals were wiped out by a sudden cold snap. More recent research, however, points to another culprit: us.


Even here, there are broadly two lines of thought. One is that Neanderthals, vying for food and habitat, were slaughtered by modern humans armed with superior stone tools and weapons.


Another is that the two species intermingled and interbred, with the weaker, less numerous Neanderthals simply petering out as a distinct group.
Read the Whole Story here!
Share/Bookmark