Ardipithecus ramidus skull recreation: a composite image of Ardi's skull recreated with imaging technology
Courtesy TmkeeseyMove over Lucy, there is a new hominid in town. Her name is Ardi. One could say Ardipithecus ramidus to be formal. She is a 4.4 million year old ancestor of ours and nearly a million years older than Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis). She is by far the most complete of all the older hominids. Researchers have recovered feet, a leg and pelvis, hands and lower arm, along with the majority of a skull and its teeth. As an added bonus, parts of nearly three dozen more specimens were recovered during the work in the Western Afar Rift of northeastern Ethiopia. This is the same region that gave us Lucy and some early Homo species.
map of Ethiopia: the Middle Awash rift area runs northeast from Addis Ababa
Courtesy Yodod
Ardi and her kin walked upright, although their gait was debatably awkward. She retained an opposable toe which could still be used to grasp tree branches, but the remainder of the foot was built for the ground. Like later hominids, the teeth reveal a modern structure and lack enlarged canines. Her pelvis is a mosaic between chimps and Lucy. The Ilium developed short and broad more like a human, while the lower pelvis remains similar to a chimp. Ardi’s skull shows that her brain was still the size of a chimp, being smaller than Lucy’s. Its shape, however was more hominid and had begun evolve more advanced functions.
Unlike Lucy in her savannah habitat, Ardi roamed lush but temperate woodlands. More than 150,000 plant and animal fossils were recovered from the sites. Included are 20 new species of small mammals along with monkeys, antelope, elephants, and multitudes of birds. This was a much different environment than that of the savannah. Theories of the development of bipedalism on the open grasslands will be challenged now because of Ardi and her habitat.
This isn’t a recent find. The original excavations of the search teams started in 1992. But years of field work followed by more than a decade of lab time have really unearthed a mass of data about this time and place in history. 47 diverse researchers from all over the world have included excerpts of their findings about Ardi and her environment. The October 2009 special issue of the publication Science details the discovery and ongoing analysis of this latest find in the continuing quest to uncover the origins of man. With debate well underway, I’m positive we’ll all continue to learn more about our past.
more on Hominid evolution
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Wadena county, Minnesota
Courtesy wikipedia imageDuring the summer of 2009, I had the opportunity to spend four weeks in the field doing actual scientific investigation. From mid-June until mid-July, I was a participant in the University of Minnesota's archeology summer field school run by Professor Kat Hayes. The mission of the field school was to attempt to confirm the presence of a European footprint in this remote part of what would become a young Minnesota territory.
The site of Little Round Hill is located in Wadena County, Minnesota, part way between the towns of Staples and Wadena. Currently, it is part of a county park system. Located at the confluence of the Crow Wing River and the Partridge River, Little Round Hill is believed to be a historical site from the early French fur trading days.
The story goes something like this. In the mid- 1800's, William Warren wrote an account of Ojibwe life in a growing Minnesota territory. In his work, Warren interviewed an elderly Ojibwe man. This elderly man recounted days spent at a fur trading encampment while he was just a young boy. The encampment centered around the dwelling of a French fur trader and his handful or so of Coureur-des-bois . Staying with this trader were around ten Ojibwe hunters and their families. According to the account, Little Round Hill became the focus of contention between rival bands of Ojibwe and Lakota hunters. By oral recollection, there was an incident of more than 200 Lakota warriors approaching and attacking the outpost. The Frenchmen and Ojibwe held the attackers at bay with guns while barricading themselves into the main encampment. The attackers, with only a few guns and armed mainly with bow and arrow for projectiles, were unable to overcome the defenses and eventually retreated.
The site itself had been recognized for its historical implications for quite some time. For years, local residents have pondered that possible remains may lie buried at the Little Round Hill location. In 1992, Douglas Birk conducted an initial survey of the site. While artifact remains spanning several centuries were recovered in his explorations, they didn’t produce evidence of any of the structures described in the oral account.
The summer of 2009 excavations started out with a whimper. Rain and uncooperative weather hampered our beginning efforts. As the clouds passed, the field crew opened a handful of excavation pits and began searching for artifacts. The results were productive and encouraging. Items of distinct European influence started to appear in most of the test areas including musket balls, cut pieces of finished copper, small trade beads, a couple pieces of worked metal (still of undetermined nature), a few pottery shards and even a small ring (possibly silver).
musket ball: the first such item found and it came from my pit!
Courtesy K.Kmitch
Additional materials such as a stone arrowhead, lithic debris, and animal bones both broken and charred were recovered. After a month of work and close to a dozen open explorations, much more habitation evidence was revealed. While no sign was uncovered of the fortifications mentioned in the oral account, at least three of the excavation points did expose strong support for likely hearth locations. These may have been centered near the possible dwellings of the occupants.
Alas, the season of excavation is a short one in Minnesota. After a month of work, the crew retreated home with bags of evidence in hand. During the 2009-2010 academic year, the materials are being analyzed and cataloged at the University of Minnesota. A full report on the findings is expected this coming spring. While the preliminary data does not show conclusive evidence of the mentioned encampment, enough material was recovered to warrant further investigation. Plans are to return to the site next summer to resume excavations and expand exploration of the area. I, for one, can not wait and hope to have my hand in the dirt once again come summer 2010.
Pompeii update
Pompeii: The Pompeia at Saratoga Springs is a restored version of the House of Pansa, which was destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. This photo is from 1889!
Courtesy Cornell University Library My wife often relates to friends that the Pompeii exhibit at the Science Museum Of Minnesota was her favorite. Buried in A.D. 79 by a volcano's eruption, the secrets of Pompeii remained under 20 ft of ash until discovered in 1748. Since then about two-thirds of the city has been exposed.
What many people think about when you ask them about Pompeii, is a city frozen in time when it was suddenly buried.
Cambridge University's Mary Beard, author of The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found says that,
"The ground trembled for weeks beforehand. Only the infirm, the stupid and the optimists stayed."
Rather than a city frozen in time, as scholars have described Pompeii, it was an emptied disaster scene, goods removed and doors locked, when Vesuvius covered the town with ash.
Pompeii preserved the best of the best
What impressed me about the the Pompeii exhibit was the architecture, the interior designs, and the art objects. Pompeii was where the richest, most powerful Roman elite set up summer homes which became like stage creations, re-creating Greek art and Macedonian palaces to show off their status among their peers.
What remains to be uncovered?
What might be found under the remaining yet uncovered ruins. According to architectural historian Thomas Howe of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas:
Still buried under Vesuvius' cooled lava are parts of both Pompeii and Herculaneum; Oplontis, a villa that might have belonged to the emperor Nero's wife; and Stabiae, a site that Howe says is "the largest concentration of excellently preserved enormous Roman villas in the entire Mediterranean world."
We are lucky that some artifacts are still buried
I think it fortunate that maybe some of the best might be uncovered last. Once exposed, the "ruins quickly become ruined". Weather, weeds, tourists, and looters take a drastic tole upon the beautiful artifacts. The Italian government last year declared a state of emergency to speed preservation efforts at the 109-acre ruin. Rather than starting new excavations at Pompeii and nearby sites, Pompeii superintendent, Pietro Giovanni Guzzo, has concentrated on conservation.
Read "Blogging Pompeii"
Thanks to Google translate, you can keep up with what is going on. The web site Blogging Pompeii is:
... for all those who work on Pompeii and the other archaeological sites of the Bay of Naples. Here we share news and information about Pompeii and the other sites, and we discuss current research. Here we share news and information about Pompeii and the other sites, and we discuss current research.
Learn more about Pompeii
- Digging deeper: Archaeologists race to show Pompeii daily life USA Today
- Pompeii exhibit at the Getty Museum
- Pompeii and the Roman Villa Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Abandoned McDonald's serves restored lunar photos
Courtesy jervetson
Historic NASA photos recovered from 40 year old data tapes
When NASA archivist, Nancy Evans, was asked what to do with a 10x20x6 ft pile of data tapes weighing 24 tons she was told that they normally would be destroyed.
"Do not destroy those tapes," Evans commanded.
Only copy of moon photo data nearly scrapped
The 70mm tapes held irreplaceable, extremely high-resolution images of the moon taken during the 1960s by NASA's Lunar Orbiters. Altogether, nearly 2,000 frames were photographed by the five missions. An on-board darkroom developed the lunar images and prepared them for transmission back to Earth. The tapes which can only be read by a $330,000 FR-900 Ampex magnetic tape reader, ended up being stored in an abandoned McDonalds.
Team of volunteers does what NASA wouldn't
A team consisted of Nancy Evans, Dennis Wingo, Keith Cowing of NASA Watch and Ken Zim who had experience of repairing video equipment began a task that NASA said would cost 6 million dollars.
Only one person alive knew how to retrieve the data
Twenty years earlier, Nancy Evans had scrounged the only 4 remaining FR-900 tape drives, each 7 feet tall and weighing nearly a ton, and stored them in her garage. None of them worked. Ken Zim was only one person on Earth who could still refurbish these tape units.
They did it in two years
Now, two years later the team is proudly releasing the first of 2000 photos which have twice the resolution and four times the dynamic range of any previously seen. Click on this link to see the famous "Earth rise seen from the Moon".
Learn more about how technological archeology was used to recover historic moon photos from the 60s
The full details of this sage can be found in the links below. I think you will enjoy reading more. I sure did.
- Lunar Orbiter Tapes Found The Living Moon
- NASA's early lunar images, in a new light LA Times
- Abandoned McDonald's Serves Restored NASA Moon Pictures National Geographic
- Newly Restored "Picture of the Century": Lunar Orbiter 2's View of Copernicus Moon Views
- Volunteers Recover Lunar Orbiter 1 Photographs Slashdot
Dig here for treasure: The former site of two outhouses in Ventura, Calif., is proving to be a hot spot for finding historical artifacts. But it's not the most desireable place to be digging.
Photo courtesy Dave Bullock (eecue)It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.
Archeologists in Ventura, Calif., digging on the spot where a couple of outhouses were stationed some 130 years ago, are making some amazing discoveries…as long as they can tolerate the smell.
Here’s a quick rundown of what they’ve found: a pistol, bowie knife, whiskey flasks, a set of false teeth, two dog skulls and a blade for shearing sheep.
You might be able to label this case as CSI: Outhouse.
"It might be an early crime scene," project archaeologist John Foster is quoted in USA Today. "It looks like the two dogs were decapitated. Then whoever did it dumped the skulls and the blade, thinking the women probably wouldn't be looking too hard into the bottom of the privy."
Archeologists were called in to checkout the scene before the site was to be prepared for a condo development. The property has had a host of previous uses, including a school bus barn and Ventura County’s first courthouse/jail/hospital.
While the finds have been exciting, the project has had its drawbacks, archeologists report.
"The further you go down, the stronger the smell," archaeologist Marisa Solorzano says. "But it's not that bad. These privies are archaeological gold mines."
One person’s gold mine is another person’s pile of, oh well, you get what I mean.
Or to put it another way for you Trekkies: these archeaologists are boldly going where many have gone before!
The former site of two outhouses in Ventura, Calif., is proving to be a hot spot for finding historical artifacts. But it's not the most desireable place to be digging.
Photo courtesy Dave Bullock (eecue).
Please contact us if you have questions about the rights on this image.
Does everyone remember Otzi the Iceman? The little frozen mummy they found in the Alps, back in the early Nineties? Of course you do. How could you forget something like that?
Otzi, at about 5300 years old, bears the distinction of being one of the oldest natural mummies in the world. Also, a five feet, five inches, and eighty-four pounds, he is one of the smallest people I am afraid of. And not just because he’s dead.
And the award for "most hardcore death" goes to...: That's right, to Otzi the Iceman for dying high on a mountain, covered in tattoos and the blood of his enemies, and shot though the shoulder with an arrow. We envy you, but only slightly.
New research has finally put to rest (as it were) the question of Otzi’a death. It turns out that Otzi died as he lived: on a mountain, and totally hardcore. I will now list the evidence for this conclusion, in order of increasing bad-assness.
1) Otzi dressed all in leather. His cloak was made of woven grass, but his belt, vest, leggings, loincloth, and shoes were all leather. We know that’s what tough people wear.
2) Otzi wore a bearskin hat. I would never mess with anyone in a bearskin hat. Bears don’t give up their skin easily.
3) Otzi carried around a prehistoric medicine kit. Maybe this isn’t that hardcore, but it seems like a good idea. He had a string of two kinds of polypore mushrooms, which have antibacterial properties. Way to think ahead, Otzi!
4) Otzi had 57 tattoos. No elaboration needed.
5) Otzi carried an axe, a knife, a quiver of bone-tipped arrows, and a longbow. For comparison, I usually carry around my house keys, and sometimes a pen. John Rambo and Otzi probably shopped at the same stores, come to think of it.
5) The blood of four non-Otzi people was found on Otzi’s cloak. Whoa! After DNA analysis revealed this, some people began to speculate that Otzi may have been part of a raiding party. After baby showers, these are the roughest, toughest kind of parties around.
6) A recently constructed 3D model of Otzi’s body shows that he died of blood loss after getting shot with an arrow under his left collar bone. Previous examinations had revealed a wound beneath a matching tear in Otzi’s (leather) vest, inside of which was lodged an arrowhead, but the new CT scans clearly show that the arrow had torn an artery, which would have caused severe bleeding, shock, and eventually death by heart attack. A large haematoma, or a collection of blood from internal bleeding, was also revealed, which might suggest that the arrow was pulled out of the wound, shortly before death. The chances of surviving this sort of wound, even today, would be around 40%.
Wow. My hat goes off to you, little iceman.
There have been some cool shows about the iceman, but even wikipedia’s article is pretty interesting.
And here’s an article about the recent research on Otzi’s body.
The ancient rain god Tlaloc: The Toltecs and Aztecs appear to have sacrificed children to him in hopes he would send them rain.Construction workers north of Mexico City have uncovered the one thousand year-old remains of two dozen children, the apparent victims of sacrifice to an ancient rain god.
Archeological estimations have dated the bones from 950 AD to 1150 AD, a time during the reign of the Toltec, a civilization that preceded the Aztec. The 24 skeletons were found in a single grave, laid out in the same east-facing position, with a figurine of the rain god Tlaloc. They appear to have been decapitated in a ritualistic way.
“You can see evidence of incisions which make us think they possibly used sharp-edged instruments to decapitate them”, said Luis Gamboa, an archaeologist with Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History .
"To try and explain why there are 24 bodies grouped in the same place, well, the only way is to think that there was a human sacrifice," he said.
The Toltec were a war-like civilization that dominated a region ranging from the Southwestern United States to the Gulf of Mexico and into Central America until about the late 12th century. They are known for sacrificing adult humans, usually prisoners captured from other parts of Mexico. But this seems to be the first evidence in the Toltec culture of the sacrifice of children.
The grisly site was discovered in the Toltec’s ancient capital Tula, about 80 kilometers north of present day Mexico City.
LINKS and Further Info
MSNBC story
Sci-Tech Today story
Yahoo News story
Child sacrifice in pre-Columbian culutures
This artifact was the first of the about 50 found near Walker, Minnesota.: Photo courtesy Leech Lake Heritage Sites Program.During a routine survey of a road construction site near Walker, Minnesota in 2005, archeologists discovered a flake of stone that appeared to have been intentionally chipped from a larger rock. Over the next couple of months digging continued at the site, and some 50 artifacts, thought to possibly be crude stone tools used for chopping, cutting, or scraping, were found.
Initial studies on the stones indicate they are between 13,000 and 15,000 years old. This is potentially significant, as humans are not thought to have populated the Americas until 9,000 years ago.
(Listen to an MPR story on the discovery from January.)
Could humans have lived in Minnesota 13,000 years ago?
If the artifacts are 13,000 year old stone tools, it would be the first indication that humans lived in North America during the Pleistocene – from 1.8 million years ago to 11,500 years ago. Some researchers have suggested that the part of Minnesota where these artifacts were found may have been an "oasis" at the time—an area free of ice cover, with an access route to the southeast making human habitation possible.
Features of this stone might suggest that it could have been a crude knife.: Photo courtesy Leech Lake Heritage Sites Program.Not everyone agrees
Not everyone who has had a chance to study the artifacts agrees that they are ancient stone tools. Several Minnesota state archeologists argue the stones are the result of natural causes such as glacial movement and flowing water. They argue that Minnesota 13,000 years would have been extremely cold and covered by glaciers and therefore too inhospitable a location for humans to live, and that insufficient time has been spent accurately dating the artifacts.
This has not changed the minds of the archaeologists who originally made the finds. They argue that the analysis of the artifacts is still in too early of a stage to make a definitive decision on their authenticity. They plan further excavation at the site this summer and hope to uncover more artifacts to further solidify their claim.
(Listen to an MPR story from February on whether the artifacts are in fact stone tools.)
Archaeologist have discovered the remains of an ancient marketplace in southern Athens. The ruins date from 300 to 500 BC.
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