Climate change marks dawn of man
Complex variation of the East African climate may have played a key role in the development of our human ancestors.
Scientists have identified extensive lake systems which formed and disappeared in East Africa between one and three million years ago.
The lakes could be evidence that global climate changes occured throughout this pivotal period in human evolution.
The findings, reported in the journal Science, suggest that humans evolved in response to a variable climate.
Past droughts geographically widespread in the West, according to tree-ring data
When it's dry, it's dry all over, according to a new analysis of more than 400 years of annual streamflow in the Upper Colorado and Salt and Verde river basins.
By using data from tree rings, University of Arizona researchers conclude that water supply for those western rivers fluctuated in synchrony during periods of severe drought. The study goes back almost 800 years in the Salt-Verde basin and covers waterways from the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
The project's overall conclusion is that severe droughts and low-flow conditions in one basin are unlikely to be offset by abundant streamflow in the other basin.
Updates follow
Obituary corner Archaeologist sought Troy
Dr. Manfred Korfmann, a German archaeologist whose excavations revived research and debate about ancient Troy, the besieged Bronze Age city that Homer immortalized in "The Iliad,' died Aug. 11 at his home near Tuebingen, Germany. He was 63.
His death was reported by the University of Tuebingen, where he was a professor of pre-history and archaeology and the director of an international team that since 1988 has explored ruins in Turkey widely regarded as the site of Troy. He had been ill for several months, but the cause of death was not given.
State panel decision may stall civic center; review committee delays approval of excavation permit
The city of Santa Fe ran into a major stumbling block Friday with its plans to build a new civic center after a state review committee tabled a decision granting a permit to excavate human remains at the site.
Without the permit, work on the $54 million project will stall.
Tesuque Pueblo leaders, who are opposed to building the center — which replaces Sweeney Convention Center and would be built at the same location — say remains at the site belong to their ancestors and should not be disturbed.
Archaeopolitics continued Secrets Of The Stones
For those who hate Israel, one of the most dangerous things a Jew can do in Jerusalem is to start digging. Because the more you dig there, the worse it gets for those who would like to pretend that Israelis are alien colonists imposing their rule on the so-called indigenous people of the region.
That’s why an interest in archaeology has always been a key factor in the century-long struggle to recreate and then maintain Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel.
You might think arguments claiming that the Jews were alien to the place are limited to the nonsensical propaganda that emanates from the less enlightened portions of the Islamic world. Claims from the Muslim Wakf which administers the Temple Mount in Jerusalem that the place has been a mosque since the days of Adam and Eve are, we hope, laughed off by those who read the mainstream press.
We have no real opinion on this, in case anyone's wondering.
Fight! Fight! (literally) Cal archaeologist's Greek stadium dig sows seeds of farmers' social change
One summer afternoon in 1980, as UC Berkeley Professor Stephen G. Miller sat with the window open in his office in Ancient Nemea in Greece, international relations took on new meaning for him.
"I heard what sounded like a screaming mosquito going past the back of my head," Miller said. "I jumped to the floor, and two more shots came. There was a long silence, and I was finally able to get hold of the police in the next village. They came and found two of the bullets lodged in the wall."
Miller, who retired this summer from his chair in UC's department of classics, went to Nemea in 1973 to learn about the ruins of the Temple of Zeus, which was built between 330 and 320 B.C. on the foundations of an even earlier temple.
Meat of the article: When Miller came, he hired these poor workers, and suddenly, instead of begging for work on a daily basis, they had regular jobs for four or five months each year.
"There were guys who were living in mud brick hovels who now have two- story modern houses with all the appliances and conveniences you could ask for, " he said. "A large part of that came from the resources they got working here at the excavation.
"The wealthy people resented it because I had usurped their labor force," Miller said.
This is a problem in Egypt, and probably every underdeveloped place we work. One has to be very careful in one's relationships with the locals and one always has to remember that while we can leave, they're still stuck there. You don't want to go in and start throwing money around, which can upset the local balance, but then one also doesn't want to look like a stingy imperialist either. Most of the archaeologists in Egypt at least stick to a general pay scale for different laborers and don't stray too far from the median. Sometimes it's difficult to go along with local social norms, and sometimes you have to take some sort of ethical stand, but it's very often a fine line.
Homo erectus update Georgians Claim to Unearth Ancient Skull
Archaeologists in the former Soviet republic of Georgia have unearthed a skull they say is 1.8 million years old _ part of a find that holds the oldest traces of humankind's closest ancestors ever found in Europe.
The skull from an early member of the genus Homo was found Aug. 6 and unearthed Sunday in Dmanisi, an area about 60 miles southeast of the capital, Tbilisi, said David Lortkipanidze, director of the Georgian National Museum, who took part in the dig.
In total, five bones or fragments believed to be about the same age have been found in the area, including a jawbone discovered in 1991, Lortkipanidze said by telephone. The skull, however, was in the best condition of the five, and was sent to the museum for further study.
Study uncovering Brownsville's history
In some places, people spend years trying to uncover a city's past.
But just the opposite happened in this border city when a graveyard dating back to 1848 and believed to be the city's first was covered with asphalt nearly four decades ago and then all but forgotten.
That is until Cameron County workers laboring last year on a multimillion-dollar renovation to restore a 1912 County Courthouse discovered human bones as they dug a utility trench for it.
This week, the director of archaeology from the Texas Historical Commission is expected to conclude a study to determine the number of graves in the area that's slated to be the courthouse parking lot.