The Black Rat Cometh

The black rat seems to be part of the early spread of agriculture, at
least in Europe.

The Black Rat Cometh


By Cheryl Jones
ScienceNOW Daily News
6 February 2008
CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA--Potentially fatal rat-borne diseases, such as
typhus and leptospirosis, are likely to spread farther around the
world, according to research presented here this week at the
Archaeological Science Conference 2008.


The findings come from a genetic analysis of the black rat (Rattus
rattus), the rodent that spreads the bubonic plague. Researchers led
by mammalogist Ken Aplin of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and
Industrial Research Organisation compared DNA sequences from 170 urban
and wild black rats from around the world to create a family tree. The
data allowed the team to track the rat's prehistoric and modern
migrations and to investigate its impact on people. Black rats wreak
havoc on agriculture, especially in Asia, and remain a major source of
human disease.


The rodent is much more genetically diverse than previously thought,
Aplin reported. His team identified six lineages, each of which could
turn out to be a separate species. According to the genetic data, the
ancestral black rat group first appeared in Southeast Asia about a
million years ago.


Since then, the rodent has been on a global march. The study revealed
high genetic variation among Indian rats, suggesting that the pest
arrived there naturally, long before modern humans evolved. According
to Aplin's study, one group of Indian rats invaded the Middle East.
The black rat then colonized Europe, probably traveling with the first
farmers. Using Europe as a launch pad and sailing ships as transport,
the rodent spread to the Americas, Africa, Australia, and the islands
of the Indian Ocean and eastern Pacific.


Another two of the six lineages dispersed around Southeast Asia and
the western Pacific during prehistoric times and more recently made
landfall on other continents, the study showed. One of those lineages
lives as a rat ethnic minority, along with the dominant European
group, in California. That suggests a second wave of migration to the
Americas, perhaps during the gold rush.


The rats haven't stopped invading new territories. "We have evidence
that the lineages of black rats are increasingly on the move," Aplin
says. "They [continue to] cross oceans and borders in cargo, invading
countries."


That could lead to an increasing spread of the diseases that black
rats transmit, such as typhus and leptospirosis. The team's comparison
of known disease epidemiology and its own genetic results suggest that
each group of black rats carries its own disease variants. "Human
resistance to newly introduced disease variants may be low," Aplin
says. One such assault might have already occurred. Seoul virus, a rat-
borne disease well known in Asia, and which causes hemorrhaging,
turned up in California in the 1990s, killing several people and
taking medical authorities by surprise. "That's the sort of thing that
is going to happen increasingly as we see black rats move around the
world," Aplin says.


The study will provide the genetic data pest managers need to control
the spread of rats in rural areas, says Grant Singleton, a biologist
at the International Rice Research Institute in Manila, Philippines,
and an expert on rat ecology. The genetic groups are likely to breed
in response to differing seasonal cues--behavior that could be
exploited in the fight against them. "We now know that we cannot be
generic in our management," he says.

The Black Rat Cometh

Romulus and Remus For Real?

More on the supposed discovery of the Lupercal, a
shrine with which Romans in historical times commem-
orated their legendary past:


http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2008-02-06-romulus-r...


"Does a cave prove Romulus and Remus are no myth?"


By Andrea Pitzer, Special for USA TODAY


The discovery of an ancient Roman cave has unearthed
a debate about its historical purpose and delved into a
deeper question for scholars: Can archaeology prove
mythology? The cave was found when a camera was
lowered through a hole in Rome's Palatine Hill during
restorations of the palace of the Emperor Augustus,
who ruled from the late first century B.C. until his
death in A.D. 14. The Palatine Hill was a seat of power
in ancient Rome; today it is home to the fragile remains
of palaces and temples.


The discovery of the vaulted cavern, more than 50 feet
underground and covered in mosaics, was announced in
November. Some believe it is a shrine of the Lupercale,
the sacred cave where Romulus and Remus, the legend-
ary founders of Rome, are said to have been suckled by
a wolf --lupa in Latin.


According to Roman mythology, the twin sons of a
priestess and Mars, the god of war, were set adrift in
the Tiber River. Instead of drowning, the infants
washed ashore.


Francesco Rutelli, Italy's Minister of Culture, says the
cave is the Lupercale celebrated in Augustus' time, as
evidenced by references in 2,000-year-old texts.


Archaeologist Andrea Carandini of Rome's La Sapienza
University calls the finding "one of the greatest discov-
eries ever made" and says the chances are "minimal"
that the cave is not the site revered by the Romans as
the Lupercale.


Carandini and others point to discoveries such as the
cave and earlier findings of ancient structures as evi-
dence that myths about the city's founding reflect
history, and say that the founder of Rome may actual-
ly have been named Romulus.


Subject to interpretation


But linking artifacts to legends is risky business, say
historians and other archaeologists.


"Everyone always wants to think that archaeology has
proved the Bible is true, or that there really was a Tro-
jan War, or that King Arthur was a real character,"
says historian T.P. Wiseman of England's University
of Exeter. "Archaeology by its nature can't provide
such evidence."


He says that when archaeologists interpret an artifact,
their expert perspective is essentially a best guess, be-
cause there's no means of confirmation.


Historian Christopher Smith of Scotland's University of
St. Andrews notes that even if artifacts clearly reference
the Romulus and Remus story, all they will show is that
the cavern is a place where first-century Romans cele-
brated the legend -- not that the story is real.


"It is tempting to argue that the finds support historical
events," Smith says, "when in fact they merely support
ancient beliefs about events."


Wiseman says everything we believe we know about
the ancient world must be treated as a hypothesis, one
that may be disproved by future finds. The only concrete
relationship between an artifact and a myth is "what
people create with their own will to believe."


Earlier discoveries linked to Romulus and Remus, who
supposedly founded Rome in 753 B.C., have divided
experts.


In 1988, Carandini discovered a section of wall in Rome
dating from the eighth century B.C., which he linked to
a boundary found in the legend: Romulus killed Remus
when he mocked such a wall. Other archaeologists and
historians have recognized the validity of Carandini's
find as an archaeological discovery but don't see it
giving credence to mythology.


The Capitoline Wolf, a bronze statue of a wolf suckling a
pair of infant boys, has come under fire. Long believed
to be a fifth-century B.C. Etruscan statue, it may be much
younger than that. Last year, Anna Maria Carruba, who
was involved in its restoration, published a book claiming
the process showed that the wolf was made outside Italy
during the medieval period.


If so, Wiseman says, the statue is no longer proof that
fifth-century B.C. inhabitants knew the story of Romulus
and Remus, which had added weight to the argument
that the legend might have historical roots.


Archaeologist Adriano La Regina, also of La Sapienza,
who was in charge of the city's archaeological excava-
tions from 1976 to 2005, is among those who argue that
the newly discovered cave is not the Lupercale. Ancient
sources, from the writings of Dionysius to Cicero, indi-
cate otherwise, he says.


Historian Mario Torelli of Italy's University of Perugia
suggests the chamber is only a grotto of the Palatine
palace, included in the historical record since the 16th
century.


More to discover


Augustus saw himself as a new founder -- Romulus
and Remus combined, according to Stanford University
scholar Adrienne Mayor. And with written references
to an actual Lupercale site during Augustus' time, Mayor
believes it's fair game for scholars to try to find it.


Mayor says more study has to be done before drawing
conclusions about the underground chamber. Experts
ave been investigating the cave with endoscopes and
aser scanners, fearful that the grotto -- already partially
caved in -- would not survive an archaeological dig.


Still, Mayor is impressed that the ancient story of the
nurturing wolf has survived at least 2,000 years and has
meaning for people today. Trying to connect with the
past, "humans return again and again to archaeology to
confirm the reality of myth," she says. "It's a timeless
impulse."


Contributing: The Associated Press

Romulus and Remus For Real?

Mammoth Dig

Check out the cool mammoth dig in washington~!
Mammoth Dig

Mammoth Dig

Peruvian Head Lice 15000 years old!

Researchers report that mummified Peruvian mummies also had mummified
head lice and DNA has been extracted from those head lice. The DNA
shows the head lice goes all the way back to at least 15,000 years ago
in the Americas. The story will appear in the Journal of Infectious
Diseases. Further tests may help show the exact location of the origin
of the lice and the year the lice entered the Americas with people.
The International Herald Tribune has the story here
Mike Ruggeri's The Ancient Americas Breaking News
Mike Ruggeri's Ancient Andean World
Mike Ruggeri's Andean Archaeology News and Links
Andean and Amazonian Archaeology Discussion Group

Peruvian Head Lice 15000 years old!

The Bible Scores Again!

Archeologist revises read of ancient seal inscription
Etgar Lefkovits , THE JERUSALEM POST Feb. 4, 2008


A prominent Israeli archeologist said Monday that she has revised her
reading of an inscription on an ancient seal uncovered in an
archeological excavation in Jerusalem's City of David after various
scholars around the world critiqued her original interpretation of the
name on the seal.


The 2,500 year-old black stone seal was found last month amid
stratified layers of debris in the excavation under way just outside
the Old City walls near the Dung Gate, said archeologist Dr. Eilat
Mazar, who is leading the dig.


Mazar had originally read the name on the seal as "Temech," and
suggested that it belonged to the family of that name mentioned in the
Book of Nehemiah.


But after the find was first reported in The Jerusalem Post, various
epigraphers around the world said Mazar had erred by reading the
inscription on the seal straight on (from right to left) rather than
backwards (from left to right), as a result of the fact that a seal
creates a mirror image when used to inscribe a piece of clay.


The critics, including the European scholar Peter van der Veen, as
well as the epigrapher Ryan Byrne, co-director of the Tel Dan
excavations, suggested in Internet blogs that the correct reading of
the seal is actually "Shlomit," also a biblical name.


Mazar said Monday that she accepted the reading of "Shlomit" on the
ancient seal, and added that she appreciated the scholarly research on
the issue.


....More on the


The three-year-old east Jerusalem dig is being sponsored by the Shalem
Center, a Jerusalem research institute, where Mazar serves as a senior
fellow, and the City of David Foundation, which promotes Jewish
settlement throughout east Jerusalem.Source Site

The Bible Scores Again!

All Blue Eyed People Are Related

They've isolated the gene and tracked its lineage...Read About it Here

All Blue Eyed People Are Related

Origins of Ancient Greek god older than Archaeologists thought

Origins of Ancient Greek god older than Archaeologists thought
1/28/2008 5:18:00 PM - Dragana Kovacevic
Zeus's famed altar at Mt. Lykaion may not have always been his,
according to recent archaeological findings from Greece.


A team of Greek-American archaeologists working the famed Sanctuary of
Zeus have discovered pottery remains that indicate the site was a
place of worship long before the early Greeks began offering
sacrifices to their most celebrated god.


Instead, archaeologists now believe the site was used for ancient
dedication ceremonies as early as 5,000 years ago - at least 1,000
years before the known worship of Zeus began.


At Zeus's Altar


Situated at 4,500 feet above sea level on Mt. Lykaion, the site offers
one of the most famous Zeus shrines in ancient Greece. It features an
ancient hippodrome (an open-air stadium with an oval course for horse
and chariot races), and buildings related to the ancient athletic
festival that rivalled the neighbouring sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia.


The site provides a picturesque view of Arcadia, thought to be Zeus's
domain, and is known to have served as an important Pan Arcadian as
well as Pan Hellenic sanctuary that attracted pilgrims, athletes and
dignitaries from all over the Greek world between 700 to 200 BCE.


"Mt. Lykaion, Arcadia is known from ancient literature as one of the
mythological birthplaces of Zeus, the other being on Crete," says Dr
David Gilman Romano, a Senior Research Scientist at the University of
Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and a co-director
of the Mt. Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project.


"The fact that the ash altar to Zeus includes early material dating
back to 3000 BCE suggests that the tradition of devotion to some
divinity on that spot is very ancient. The altar is long standing and
may in fact pre-date the introduction of Zeus in the Greek world. We
don't yet know how the altar was first used, and whether it was used
in connection with natural phenomena such as wind, rain, light or
earthquakes, possibly to worship some kind of divinity male or female
or a personification representing forces of nature."


These finding creates a vastly different account of the history at the
Altar and the site.
Source Article

Origins of Ancient Greek god older than Archaeologists thought

Cool New Site

Ancient World Cities

Cool New Site

Ancient Wearing of Shoes

Shoe wearing date extended back to about 40,000 years ago, in China.
Did foot fetishism set off the development of modern man, and woman?
Pics of the toe bones in question at the cite.

Earliest Shoe-Wearers Revealed by Toe Bones
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News


Jan. 25, 2008 -- People started wearing shoes around 40,000 years ago,
according to a study on recently excavated small toe bones that
belonged to an individual from China who apparently loved shoes.


Most footwear erodes over time. The earliest known shoes, rope sandals
that attached to the feet with string, date to only around 10,000 B.C.
For the new study, the clues were in middle toe bones that change
during an individual's lifetime if the person wears shoes a lot.


"When you walk barefoot, your middle toes curl into the ground to give
you traction as you push off," explained co-author Erik Trinkaus, who
worked on the study with Hong Shang.


"If you regularly wear Nikes, moccasins or any other type of shoe, you
actually wind up pushing off with your big toe, with less force going
through the middle toes," added Trinkaus, a Washington University
anthropologist who is one of the world's leading experts on early
human evolution.


Small toe bones are rare in the archaeological record, so Trinkaus and
Hong jumped at the chance to study the 40,000-year-old skeleton, which
was found in Tianyuan Cave near Zhoukoudian, China.


They also analyzed a recently found 27,500-year-old Russian skeleton
with middle toe bones, as well as Neanderthal and modern Puebloan and
Inuit skeletons, also with such bones.


The findings have been accepted for publication in the Journal of
Archaeological Science.


The researchers determined that both the Chinese and Russian
individuals had more lightly built middle toe bones relative to their
body size. The Russian skeleton was also found with other individuals
who had an abundance of ivory beads around their ankles and feet,
suggesting these individuals likely wore some fairly flashy shoes.


To test the toe theory, the scientists conducted similar analysis on
the more modern samples. The habitually barefoot Native American
Puebloan possessed much more robust middle toe bones.


The shoe-wearing Inuit, who had a very active lifestyle, possessed
semi-sturdy middle toe bones, while the Neanderthal, with ultra hefty
middle toe bones, showed no signs of having worn shoes.


Trinkaus explained to Discovery News that the date of the first
footwear corresponds with an important time in human history.


"A cultural evolution was starting," he said of the Paleolithic
period. "We start to see all kinds of changes, such as more elaborate
toolkits and the beginnings of art. The findings about footwear are
another piece in the puzzle."


Trenton Holliday, an associate professor of anthropology at Tulane
University, told Discovery News that the toe bone comparison between
ancient and more modern groups "gives credence to Trinkaus' position
that one can determine whether prehistoric groups were shod, at least
with rigid-soled shoes, by examining the robusticity of the [bones] of
their lesser toes."


Holliday, however, doubts that Neanderthals were completely shoe-free.


"Considering that they lived in Europe primarily during glacial
periods, I find it highly improbable that they did not wear some type
of footwear, so what I think is most likely is that they wore some
type of soft wraps on their feet that did not alter their locomoter
biomechanics of their feet the way a stiff-soled shoe would," Holliday
said.


Trinkaus agrees with Holliday's Neanderthal theory, although he
suggested Neanderthals might have frequently gone barefoot too.


"Some individuals even today still don't wear shoes and live in very
cold environments, such as in the hills of Eastern Bulgaria and
Romania," he said.

Earliest Shoe

Ancient Wearing of Shoes

Noah's Ark flood spurred European farming

Randy Boswell
CanWest News Service


Monday, November 19, 2007


A British scientist has found evidence linking the catastrophic
collapse of a glacial ice dam in Canada more than 8,000 years ago and
the rapid spread of agriculture across Europe around the same time.


The dramatic discharge of freshwater from prehistoric Lake Agassiz -
which covered much of Central Canada at the end of the last ice age -
has long been blamed for altering global climate patterns and raising
sea levels around the world by at least a metre in a matter of months.


The deluged shorelines caused by the colossal Canadian gusher have
even been associated with the "great flood" myths common to many
ancient cultures - including the biblical story of Noah's Ark.


Now, University of Exeter geologist Chris Turney believes he has
traced the sudden proliferation of farming across neolithic Europe to
an exodus of coastal people moving inland to escape the results of the
Agassiz flood.


"It still blows my mind to think that a release of water from Canada
could set off a cascade of changes all the way across in Europe,"
Turney told CanWest News Service. "It just goes to show how people and
the environment are intimately linked."


The existence of a supersized Lake Agassiz, named for a leading 19th-
century geologist, has been known since the late 1800s. Formed some
12,000 years ago from the meltwater of retreating glaciers at the end
of the last full ice age, the lake was encircled by beaches still
visible today as sandy ridges throughout Central and Western Canada.


Initially centred around the present Ontario-Manitoba border, Lake
Agassiz formed, at its greatest extent, a 1.5-million-square-kilometre
freshwater basin - an area larger than the combined areas of
Saskatchewan and Manitoba.


University of Manitoba geologist Jim Teller's reconstruction of the
lake's dying throes has kick-started a worldwide wave of research into
what was undoubtedly one of the most awesome natural events in
Canadian prehistory.


With the lake at the greatest width and depth ever in its 4,000-year
lifespan, the glacier that had dammed Agassiz's northern shore broke
somewhere along ice-bound Hudson Bay. A huge torrent gushed into the
ocean, draining a volume of fresh water equal to about 15 Lake
Superiors in a few months.


Some of this country's earliest aboriginal occupants may have even
witnessed the epic occurrence since the peopling of Canada roughly
coincides with the retreat of the glaciers.


Teller has also theorized Agassiz's final, cataclysmic burst caused
such a surge of seawater around the world it might have given rise to
the Noah's Ark saga and other ancient accounts of massive floods.


Among the effects, scientists believe, was the breaching of an earthen
barrier between the Mediterranean and Black seas in southeast Europe
and extensive flooding of the Black Sea shoreline.


Turney, author of the newly published Bones, Rocks and Stars: The
Science of When Things Happened, specializes in reconstructing ancient
events from the archeological and geological record.


His study, published in the latest edition of Quaternary Science
Reviews, shows that up to 145,000 people from farming sites near the
Black Sea would have been forced out of their lands by the flooding
and into territory occupied by hunter-gatherer cultures of inland
Europe.


"The collapse of the Laurentide Ice Sheet and release of freshwater
8,740 to 8,160 years ago abruptly raised global sea levels by up to
1.4 metres," the study says. "Flooding of coastal areas led to the
sudden loss of land favoured by early farmers and initiated an abrupt
expansion of activity across Europe, driven by migrating Neolithic
peoples."


Turney tracked the sudden spread of European farming about 8,000 years
ago by mapping the locations and dates of the earliest known
agricultural settlements discovered by archeologists.
What the data shows, he says, is a clear sequence of flooding,
migration and resettlement of farmers across Europe after the Lake
Agassiz deluge.
Canadian Article

Wikipedia

Noah's Ark flood spurred European farming

Greatest discovery since Peking Man

Peking Man fossils, lost during WWII, dated to 250,000-400,000 years,
this guy 100,000.


China hails "greatest discovery since Peking Man"
Wed Jan 23, 2008 5:20am EST


BEIJING (Reuters) - An almost complete human skull fossil that could
date back 100,000 years has been unearthed in China, state media said
on Wednesday, hailing it as the greatest discovery since Peking Man.


Last month's find in Xuchang, in the central province of Henan, was
made after two years of excavation just as two archaeologists were
leaving for the Lunar New Year break, the China Daily said.


"We expect more discoveries of importance," Li Zhanyang, archaeologist
with the Henan Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute, was
quoted as saying.


The fossil consists of 16 pieces of the skull with protruding eyebrows
and a small forehead.


"More astonishing than the completeness of the skull is that it still
has a fossilized membrane on the inner side, so scientists can track
the nerves of the Paleolithic ancestors," Li was quoted as saying.


Besides the skull, more than 30,000 animal fossils, and stone and bone
artifacts were found.


"The pieces of the human skull showed up just when archaeologists were
going home for the Spring Festival," the newspaper said, referring to
the New Year holiday which officially begins next month.


Peking Man was discovered in the 1920s near Beijing and dates back
roughly to between 250,000 and 400,000 years.
Greatest Find

Greatest discovery since Peking Man

Life After People

What would the world look like 100 years after people disappeared? How about 1000 years? A Million?Life After People

Life After People