The 150-year-old chart that predicts the stock market

Charlotte Gifford
Sat, April 1, 2023 

Stock Market Chart - Alamy

After the worst year for stocks since the financial crisis and fears of a fresh global banking crisis, investors are looking for ways to navigate choppy markets.

Now a dusty old chart from the 1800s may give them the means to do just that.

In the late nineteenth century, an American farmer from Ohio called Samuel Benner created a chart forecasting the rise and fall in the average price of hogs, corn and pig-iron. Since then, it has been weirdly accurate at predicting ups and downs of global stock markets – seeming foreseeing the Wall Street Crash, the Second World War, and the dot-com bubble.

The 150-year-old chart – which tells investors when to sell and when to buy – earned Benner national renown as an economic prophet. Newspapers of the time reprinted his “surprisingly accurate” forecasts, which are still being referred to today by retail investors sharing the so-called Benner Cycle on social media.

His original cycle only went as far as 1891. It is thought another nineteenth century forecaster, George Tritch, extended the cycle all the way up to 2059 and published the chart, annotating it with instructions of when to buy and sell stocks.


The chart tells investors to sell in 2007, just before the financial crash. It also says that 2023 will be a year of “low prices” when investors should buy and hold – which, given last year's share price falls, complies with the logic of “selling high and buying low”.

Benner wrote Benner's Prophecies of Future Ups and Downs in Prices after seeing his assets wiped out in the Panic of 1873. He identified an 11-year cycle in corn and hog prices, as well as a 27-year cycle in the price of pig iron.

There are a few reasons why the chart has been strangely accurate so far. It is based on the theory that solar cycles impact crop yields, affecting agricultural supply and causing ups and downs in commodity prices.

Rob Burgeman of wealth manager RBC Brewin Dolphin says the chart also highlights the cyclical nature of stock markets, which he says are “ruled by the primitive emotions of fear and greed and how these sentiments contribute in the short term and the long term to the volatility of markets”.

However, investors should demonstrate caution before they buy or sell their holdings based on the instructions of the nineteenth century hog farmer, as not all of Benner’s prophecies have come true.

Jason Hollands of investment firm Bestinvest says: “While there is seemingly some uncanny correlation to trends in wider financial markets, it did not predict the 2008 global financial crisis and was a year early in respect of the pandemic.”

The chart has possibly become less accurate over time as the driving forces of the global economy have shifted. In his book, Benner called pig-iron the “monarch of business”.

A lot has changed since then, Hollands says. “I would argue that since countries moved to fiat currencies in the late 20th century, the single biggest driver of financial markets have been the ebbs and flows in the supply of money driven by central banks. We are seeing this play out at the moment as the world has rapidly exited an era of ultra-low rates and money printing.”

Investors should also probably avoid using a theory based on the solar cycle to try and predict stock markets. But there are other patterns that investors use when deciding whether to buy or sell, and some of them are fairly reliable.

“These include the notion that you should avoid the markets in the summer ('sell in May, go away, come again on St. Leger’s day') and the often strong performance of markets in December (a phenomena known as the Santa Rally),” Hollands says.

In the case of ‘sell in May’, while returns have historically been more muted over the summer months, long term average returns are still positive during these months, so not sufficiently convincing a pattern to dogmatically sell up each year. The Santa Rally is more convincing. Over the last 50 years the MSCI World Index has delivered a positive return 76pc of the time in the month of December which is far higher than any other month.

For Burgeman, there is a modern day oracle whose advice investors should follow instead of Benner’s.

“As so often, perhaps we should listen a little more to the sage of Omaha, Warren Buffet, whose mantra is ‘be greedy when others are fearful, but fearful when they are greedy'," he says.

1,000-year-old brick tomb discovered in China is decorated with lions, sea anemones and 'guardian spirits'

Tom Metcalfe
Fri, March 31, 2023 
The inner chamber of the ornate tomb is made of bricks shaped to look like carved wood.

A stunning brick tomb thought to be more than 800 years old has been discovered in northern China by workers renovating stormwater drains.

The tomb contained three bodies — two adults and one child — as well as several pottery items. One of these, a "land coupon" inscribed with writing, indicates that the tomb was built between A.D. 1190 and 1196, when the region was ruled by the Jurchen Jin or "Great Jin" state.

According to the Shanxi Institute of Archaeology, the tomb was unearthed by the workers in mid-2019 near the village of Dongfengshan, in Yuanqu County, about 400 miles (650 kilometers) southwest of Beijing.


Archaeologists from the institute then carried out an excavation to document the tomb, and a full report on the work was released in February, according to a press release from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS.) The south-facing tomb has similarities to others found in the region from the time, such as a ceremonial "gatehouse" on its northern wall, but it is relatively simple, according to the report.

Related: Bronze Age ice skates with bone blades discovered in China

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Archaeologists say the tomb is similar to others in the area from the same time, but is relatively simple.

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The entire structure of the tomb includes a buried

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The square inner chamber of the tomb is capped by an octagonal spire made of stepped bricks.

The buried structure consists of a "tomb road" to a staircase that leads down to a door in the inner chamber, which is a square about 6.5 feet (2 meters) long on each side, beneath an elaborate octagonal spire made of stepped bricks.

The entire chamber is faced with bricks shaped to look like carved wood, which the archaeologists say were not painted. The tomb also features ornate decorations on the walls, including lions, sea anemones, flowers and two figures that are thought to represent guardian spirits.

Archaeologists from the Shanxi Institute say the three bodies found there were those of two adults aged between 50 and 60 years old, and one child aged between 6 and 8 years old.

The tomb held the remains of three individuals – two adults, aged between 50 and 60 years, and one child, aged between six and eight years.
Jurchen Jin

"Great Jin" was the second Chinese state of that name and it is often referred to as the Jurchen Jin state to distinguish it, said Julia Schneider, a professor of Chinese history at University College Cork in Ireland who was not involved in the tomb's discovery.

Jurchen Jin emerged in about A.D. 1115 amid rebellions against the region's earlier Liao Dynasty, and fell to the invading Mongols in 1234. But for the intervening century it was one of the major powers in China.

Although many of its subjects were ethnically Han Chinese, Jurchen Jin was ruled by an imperial family that was ethnically Jurchen, a semi-nomadic people from northeast China related to the Manchu people, Schneider told Live Science. (The Manchu were an ethnic group native to China's northeast and surrounding regions — called Manchuria — who conquered China and Mongolia in the 17th century and ruled for about 250 years.)

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The decorated panels portray figures thought to be guardian spirits, lions, and flowers.

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Two figures portrayed on the panels are thought to be guardian spirits; one of the figures is thought to be male and the other is thought to be female.

A census in 1207 gave the population of the Jurchen Jin state as 53 million people, but "probably less than 10% were Jurchen," Schneider said.

"What makes the Jurchen Jin so interesting was that this was a multi-ethnic empire," she said.

While many of its subjects were oriented toward Confucianism and other ideologies it considered "Chinese," the Jurchen Jin state developed a distinctive script for the Jurchen languages and established dual administrations to oversee its Chinese and Jurchen subjects, she said.
Chinese tomb

A pottery

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In the case of the tomb at Dongfengshan: "I'm not an archaeologist, but my idea is that this is a Chinese tomb, based on its location in the very south of the Jurchen state," Schneider said.

That region was mostly populated by Han Chinese, rather than ethnic Jurchen. It was possible that Jurchen dead had been entombed there in the Chinese style, but "I don't see anything particularly Jurchen," she said.

The statement from CASS said the land coupon meant the structure could be firmly dated, which would provide a basis for dating other Jurchen Jin structures and artifacts found in the region.

Alaska Native Scouts feted 67 years after rescuing Navy crew

 

This March 28, 2023, photo shows townspeople in Gambell, Alaska, waiting in a snowstorm on four-wheelers to transport Alaska National Guard personnel from the air strip to the school for a ceremony. Sixteen Alaska National Guard members were honored for helping rescue the 11 crew members of a Navy plane that was shot down in 1955 by Soviet jet fighters and crash-landed about 8 miles from Gambell, on St. Lawrence Island, and 15 medals were presented posthumously. 
 

 This March 28, 2023, photo shows Bruce Boolowon, left, posing with his eldest daughter, Rhona Pani Apassingok, at an Alaska National Guard ceremony in Gambell, Alaska. Maj. Gen. Torrence Saxe, the adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, presented Alaska Heroism Medals to Boolowon, the last surviving guardsman of 16 who helped rescue 11 Navy crewmen after they crash landed on St. Lawrence Island on June 22, 1955, and to the family members of 15 other guardsman who are now deceased. (
 

This March 28, 2023, photo shows an Alaska Heroism Medal prior to a ceremony in Gambell, Alaska, to honor 16 Alaska National Guard members. The guardsman rescued 11 Navy crewman who were injured when they crash landed on St. Lawrence Island after being shot down by Soviet MiG-15 jet fighters on June 22, 1955.

 

This March 28, 2023, photo shows Alaska National Guard patches on a camouflage jacket hanging on an HC-130J Combat King II for a flight to Gambell, Alaska, for a medal ceremony. Sixteen Alaska National Guard members were honored for helping rescue the 11 crewmembers of a Navy plane that was shot down in 1955 by Soviet jet fighters and crash-landed about 8 miles from Gambell, on St. Lawrence Island, and 15 medals were presented posthumously. 
 

This March 28, 2023, photo shows snow-covered mountains in Alaska from an Alaska National Guard flight en route to Gambell, Alaska, for a medal ceremony in an HC-130J Combat King. Sixteen Alaska National Guard members were honored for helping rescue the 11 crew members of a Navy plane that was shot down in 1955 by Soviet jet fighters and crash-landed about 8 miles from Gambell, on St. Lawrence Island, and 15 medals were presented posthumously. 
  

This March 28, 2023, photo shows Alaska National Guard personnel loading on to an HC-130J Combat King II at Joint Base Elemendorf-Richardson, Alaska, for a flight to Gambell, Alaska, for a medal ceremony. Sixteen Alaska National Guard members were honored for helping rescue the 11 crewmembers of a Navy plane that was shot down in 1955 by Soviet jet fighters and crash-landed about 8 miles from Gambell, on St. Lawrence Island, and 15 medals were presented posthumously.
  

This March 28, 2023, photo shows Maj. Gen. Torrence Saxe, the adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, addressing the crowd in Gambell, Alaska, while honoring 16 Alaska National Guard members. The guardsman rescued 11 Navy crewman who were injured when they crash landed on St. Lawrence Island after being shot down by Soviet MiG-15 jet fighters on June 22, 1955.

 

This March 28, 2023, photo shows JoAnn Kulukhon posing with two Alaska Heroism Medals presented posthumously to her uncles, Pvts. Luke and Leroy Kulukhon, during a ceremony in Gambell, Alaska. Sixteen Alaska National Guard members were honored for helping rescue the 11 crewmembers of a Navy plane that was shot down in 1955 by Soviet jet fighters and crash-landed about 8 miles from Gambell, on St. Lawrence Island, and 15 medals were presented posthumously.
 

This March 28, 2023, photo shows 16 Alaska Heroism Medals prior to a ceremony in Gambell, Alaska, to honor 16 Alaska National Guard members. The guardsman rescued 11 Navy crewman who were injured when they crash landed on St. Lawrence Island after being shot down by Soviet MiG-15 jet fighters on June 22, 1955.
  

 

This March 28, 2023, photo shows a qughsatkut, or a legendary king polar bear, and the mascot for the sports teams in Gambell, Alaska, prior to a ceremony to honor 16 Alaska National Guard members at the school gym. The guardsman rescued 11 Navy crewman who were injured when they crash landed on St. Lawrence Island after being shot down by Soviet MiG-15 jet fighters on June 22, 1955. 

AP Photos/Mark Thiessen

MARK THIESSEN
Sat, April 1, 2023 

GAMBELL, Alaska (AP) — Bruce Boolowon, then a lean 20-year-old, and a group of friends were hunting for murre eggs in a walrus skin boat on a remote Alaska island in the Bering Strait when they saw a crippled airplane flying low.

“Something was wrong,” Boolowon, now 87, recalled of that day in 1955. “They came in and one engine was smoking.”

Long before drones or weather balloons became military targets, a U.S. Navy P2V-5 Neptune maritime patrol aircraft had been attacked at about 8,000 feet (2,438 meters) by two Soviet MiG-15 fighters roaring out of nearby Siberia. The plane's right engine was destroyed and the pilot was making a controlled crash landing.

Its 11 crewmen had injuries in varying degrees of severity, caused either by the bullets sprayed by the two jet fighters, shrapnel or the fireball that erupted when the Neptune landed wheels up on the tundra of St. Lawrence Island and fuel tanks stored in the plane’s belly exploded.

“And as the plane decelerated, the fireball didn’t. And it rolled forward. It burned everybody,” the navigator on the flight, David Assard, told the Anchorage Daily News in 2015. Several of the men had severe burns.

The men took refuge in a ditch on St. Lawrence Island — just 40 miles (64 kilometers) from Siberia and 715 miles (1,151 kilometers) west of Anchorage — to avoid the exploding ammunition and waited, but for what they weren’t sure. When the armed Siberian Yupik Eskimo egg hunters showed up, the Navy men didn’t know if they were about to be captured or rescued.

“Well, they were glad to see us and that we were Americans,” Boolowon told The Associated Press.

They were not only friendly faces but members of the First Scouts unit of the Alaska National Guard who lived on the island and whose job it was to monitor the Soviet Union given their proximity. The 16 guardsmen and an unknown Air Force member helped the crew get medical attention and alerted military authorities the men were safe.

On Tuesday, the guardsmen were honored with Alaska Heroism Medals, giving the Alaska Native men the recognition that wasn’t available 67 years ago. Boolowon, then a corporal, is the sole survivor, and family members of the other 15 received the medals on their behalf.

Maj. Gen. Torrence Saxe, the adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, not only approved the medals for the men, he personally handed them out at the ceremony held with a driving snow outside. Residents filled the gym at John Apangalook School in Gambell, home to the King Polar Bears — or Qughsatkut in Siberian Yupik— sports teams. Family members receiving medals sat in honored seats on the gym floor, and Saxe posed for photos with each after presenting the medals and a certificate. A community luncheon followed.

“I’m glad we’re going to get recognized a little bit for saving the crewmembers,” Boolowon said.

Shortly after the June 22, 1955, rescue, two of the guardsmen, MSgt. Willis Walunga and SSgt. Clifford Iknokinok, received honorific letters and certificates from the Navy and National Guard. They were taken to Washington, D.C., and presented “Wings of Gold” with the Honorary Naval Aviator Program designation. They were only the second and third persons so honored after the program started in 1949.

The other 14 only received letters. “I don’t know why they didn’t include us,” Boolowon said of the Navy designation.

There were no other medals available to the men for their deeds because it wasn’t a combat mission, and the rescue was considered a peacetime affair.

“The families felt like that the members should have received a better award than a letter of appreciation,” said Verdie Bowen, the director of the state Office of Veterans Affairs. “The best one that we could find that fit this feat of valor was the state of Alaska’s Heroism Award,” he said. It honors Alaska National Guard members who distinguish themselves by heroism, meritorious achievement or going beyond the call of duty.

Boolowon was with Iknokinok, Walunga and others in the first boat to arrive at the crash site, where they found the men.

He said they weren’t scared it was a Soviet aircraft because they were familiar with the U.S. plane from its frequent maritime patrols out of Naval Air Station Kodiak. On this mission, the plane was looking for icebergs and navigational aids in the Bering Strait. The wreckage of the plane still sits 8 miles (12.9 kilometers) from the village.

Boolowon and two other men from the first boat went to Gambell to get medical supplies, stretchers and more help. Another boat arrived, and the guardsmen eventually took the men to the village for treatment by a local nurse at a clinic and a church until a transport plane arrived about 12 hours later to take them to Anchorage. Seven of the injured were later flown to California to recuperate.

The June 22, 1955, attack was labeled a possible “mistake” by embarrassed Soviet leaders and came at a problematic time for the Soviet Union. A summit to de-escalate Cold War tensions was planned the following month in Geneva with President Dwight Eisenhower, Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin and the prime ministers of Great Britain and France.

After learning the plane was shot down, Eisenhower directed Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to meet with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav M. Molotov during the 10th anniversary meeting of the United Nations in San Francisco.

Molotov was unaware of the incident but promised an investigation. The Kremlin wired Molotov his instructions, which included presenting Dulles “with a conciliatory note that admitted the incident could have been ‘due to a mistake,’” David Winkler, the historian at the Naval Historical Foundation, wrote in his 2017 book ”Incidents at Sea: American Confrontation and Cooperation with Russia and China, 1945-2016.”

It was the first time the Soviets both ever expressed regret and paid reparations, Winkler told the AP last summer, and the summit went on as planned. The Soviets agreed to compensate the U.S. for the plane, sending just over $35,000 (about $400,000 today) in reparations. The money was split among the crewmen.

In the early 1990s, Assard travelled to Gambell to thank them and presented the village with a bronze plaque.

“We were very fortunate in landing on an American island and being found by American Eskimos,” Assard, the flight navigator who is now deceased, told the Anchorage newspaper in 2015. “They couldn’t have been more gracious.”

The other 13 guardsmen posthumously awarded medals were Pfcs. Holden Apatiki, Lane Iyakitan, Woodrow Malewotkuk, Roger Slwooko, Vernon Slwooko and Donald Ungott; Sfc. Herbert Apassingok; Sgt. Ralph Apatiki Sr.; Cpls. Victor Campbell, Ned Koozaata and Joseph Slwooko, and Pvts. Luke Kulukhon and Leroy Kulukhon.

JoAnn Kulukhon accepted medals on behalf of her two uncles and plans to prominently display them in her home. “I'm so proud of them," she said. “I know they're happy.”

As for receiving his own medal, Boolowon said the recognition is simply for work well done.

“I’m glad we did our duty as a guardsman,” he said.

The Largest Holder of Native American Human Remains is Preparing to Return Thousands of Indigenous Ancestors


Jenna Kunze
Sat, April 1, 2023 

Some 14,000 Native American ancestors were unearthed during dam-construction projects across the Tennessee valley beginning in the 1930s. (Photo: TVA)

The single-largest holder of Native American human remains—a federally-owned power company in Tennessee—is taking steps to complete the decades-long repatriation of more than 14,000 Native American ancestors who were unearthed in dam construction projects across the Tennessee valley from the 1930s through the 1970s.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federal agency created by Congress in 1930 to deliver electricity to Tennessee and 10 surrounding states. Nearly a century ago, in preparation for its construction of large dams to prevent the valley from flooding, TVA partnered with archeologists from local universities to conduct salvage archeology and “remove everything of cultural nature,” Meg Cook, an archeologist and NAGPRA specialist for TVA, told Native News Online.

In 1990, Congress passed legislation—the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)—that directs federal agencies and museums with possession or control over holdings or collections of Native American human remains and funerary objects to inventory them, identify their geographic and cultural affiliation, and notify the affected Indian tribes or Native Hawaiian organization.

But TVA—along with other institutions across the country—took 21 years to culturally affiliate ancestors and begin returning them to their present-day tribal nations. The TVA didn’t return any ancestors until 2011, after they were specifically called out in a Government Accountability Office report that noted that “almost 20 years after NAGPRA, key federal agencies still have not fully complied with the act for their historical collections acquired on or before NAGPRA’s enactment.”

“There was a lot of contemplation and time spent in the past on cultural affiliation, and picking the exact correctness of the affiliation,” Cook said. “We're just… broadening it, because tribes are able to make those determinations on their own.”

Since 2011, TVA has published a total of 67 notices of inventory completion and returned a total of 9,277 human remains and 119,630 associated funerary objects to their respective tribal nations, according to federal documents.

But this week, TVA abandoned its piecemeal approach to publishing notices of inventory completion by rolling the remaining 4,871 ancestors in their possession—from different states, and held by different museums—into a single notice.

“They could have piecemealed this out, like they had been doing in the past,” said Melanie O’Brien, the National NAGPRA Program manager. “But TVA made the decision to change their approach and to just complete the work— the administrative regulatory process for all of these ancestors—by publishing this one notice.”

In its notice, TVA broadly affiliated the ancestors and their belongings with dozens of tribal nations with ancestral homelands in Alabama, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

“We have broadly culturally affiliated, and now we want to rely on more consultations [for tribes] to tell us who is taking the lead, and how we can best meet [their] needs when it comes to preparing for reinterment,” Cook told Native News Online.

The broad cultural affiliation allows tribes to officially move forward with a request for repatriation. "Requests for repatriation may be submitted by (1) any one or more of the Indian Tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations identified in this notice [or] (2) any lineal descendant, Indian Tribe, or Native Hawaiian organization not identified in this notice who shows, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the requestor is a lineal descendant or a culturally affiliated Indian Tribe or Native Hawaiian organization," the notice reads.

TVA’s wholesale approach to cultural affiliation can serve as an example for other Federal agencies and museums, which still hold the more than 100,000 Native American ancestors reported under NAGPRA, said O’Brien.

“The TVA notice demonstrates that the process for repatriation can be completed effectively and efficiently under the existing regulatory framework,” O’Brien told Native News Online.

“This notice also reflects the Department of the Interior's stated goals in proposing regulatory changes last fall. The proposed regulations would remove the burden on Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations to initiate the repatriation process and add a requirement for museums and Federal agencies to complete the regulatory process within a set timeframe. With this notice, TVA has completed the regulatory process for more than 14,000 individuals, the largest collection of Native American human remains reported under NAGPRA.”

Although they’ve officially completed their paperwork for NAGPRA, TVA staff told Native News Online that their work is not done.

“We're not saying that we're done just because we may have completed the paperwork for NAGPRA,” Marianne Shuler, an archeologist and tribal liaison at TVA told Native News Online. “We’re probably still going to be working for a number of years to work out all the details with the tribes on how they want these individuals prepared and treated until [they] can rebury them.”

About the Author: "Jenna Kunze is a staff reporter covering Indian health, the environment and breaking news for Native News Online. She is also the publication's lead reporter on stories related to Indian boarding schools and repatriation. Her bylines have appeared in The Arctic Sounder, High Country News, Indian Country Today, Tribal Business News, Smithsonian Magazine, Elle and Anchorage Daily News. Kunze is based in New York."

Contact: jkunze@indiancountrymedia.com

The ancient discovery made on the Miami River is so significant it could derail development


Andres Viglucci
Sat, April 1, 2023

The site of a major prehistoric archaeological discovery in Miami’s Brickell district is extensive and significant enough to merit protection from development under local laws, according to a new analysis jointly drawn up by independent experts and the city’s historic preservation office.

The analysis, to be presented to the city’s historic preservation board in a public hearing on Tuesday, could significantly up the ante in a growing effort by archaeologists, preservationists, Brickell residents and Native American activists to spare at least some of the ancient indigenous site, on the south bank of the Miami River, from planned high-rise development by prominent real estate developer Related Group.

A presentation slide deck prepared for the hearing concludes the site meets several of the legal criteria for designation as a protected historic and archaeological landmark, not least because of its antiquity.

The site was part of an extensive town believed to have been built some 2,500 years ago by the Tequesta tribe, which disappeared with the end of the first Spanish occupation of Florida in 1763.

Experts contend the Brickell discoveries may constitute the most significant in a series of archaeological finds made at the mouth of the Miami River in the past 25 years that include the Miami Circle National Historic Landmark, thought to be around 2,000 years old.

The independent archaeologists, including experts from the University of Miami, say a cluster of stone spear points that are among the thousands of artifacts and animal and human remains found at the site show indigenous occupation on the riverbank probably dates back as far as 7,000 years ago. (Fragmentary human remains have been removed for reburial elsewhere under supervision of the Seminole Tribe of Florida.)

Ongoing excavation of roughly half the site has so far uncovered some 350 postholes carved into the limestone bedrock that likely mark the foundation of prehistoric structures, according to the presentation.

The presentation notes that the posthole patterns include one circle, and possibly a second, reminiscent of the Miami Circle, the ancient Tequesta foundation of a ceremonial structure that’s been preserved as a state park across Brickell Avenue.

A bronze statue of a Tequesta hunter, woman and child stands on the Brickell Bridge in downtown Miami as a tribute to the indigenous tribe that occupied the mouth of the Miami River 2,000 years ago. A new archaeological excavation by the bridge has unearthed evidence that indigenous occupation of the site dates back 7,000 years ago. MATIAS J. OCNER/mocner@miamiherald.comMore

The presentation notes that the Miami Circle site and the development property were once contiguous, but were split by the construction of buildings and Brickell Avenue over decades.

The site and the trove of artifacts recovered from it represent thousands of years of previously undocumented history of indigenous settlement in Miami before modern times, and does so in an unusually rich and well-preserved fashion, the presentation concludes.

“Without seeing it for yourself, it will be difficult to imagine the enormous yield of information as material culture that has been found here,” the presentation says.
City could stop construction

If the city historic preservation board embraces the presentation’s conclusions, it could vote to launch a formal designation review that would freeze permitting and construction on most of the property until it can make a final determination on the merits, a process that can take weeks if not months.

That move could pitch a monkey wrench into longstanding plans by Related Group to build three residential skyscrapers on the site, which sits just west of the Brickell Avenue Bridge. Related, which paid $104 million for the property in 2013, has taken out a $164 million construction loan for the first phase, an apartment tower, and has begun ground preparation work for its foundations after archaeologists finished digging on that portion of the property. Related is already advertising the second planned tower, the Baccarat Residences luxury condos.

If the preservation board ultimately approves designation, it could require Related to preserve all or a portion of the site, to provide exhibition space and public access for artifacts in any project it builds, or take other measures to protect or highlight its archaeological and historical importance.

Related, founded by developer Jorge Perez and now run day-to-day by his son John Paul Perez, is expected to object to designation. The company has been largely silent on the findings and the massive excavation that’s been in progress for about a year and a half, and has consistently declined requests from Miami Herald reporters for comment or interviews. On Friday, a spokesman emailed a statement from John Paul Perez, the Related president, after declining the latest request for an interview or to respond to questions from the Herald.

In the statement, Perez said he will ask the city preservation board to delay consideration of designation until after the excavation project is completed, calling any action now “premature” and “redundant.” He did not provide a timeline.

He said the company is working on a “preservation action plan,” but provided no details. That plan would not be presented to the public until excavation is finished, a Related spokesman said.

“Related Group’s vision for the 444 Brickell site is to create a timeless and inspirational project — an investment that we knew would take time, commitment, money, and creativity,” according to the statement from Perez. “We remain committed to delivering a property worthy of its unique location on the Miami River at the gateway to Brickell Avenue. A project that enriches the area providing public access to the waterfront and duly honoring the site’s history.

“We invested tens of millions of dollars over the last two years to ensure the archaeological integrity of the project. We contracted (and paid for) world-renowned archaeologists to painstakingly excavate and preserve all the significant findings with the utmost respect and care. And these expenses have yet to include the cost of implementing the activities laid out by our forthcoming preservation action plan.

“And we are not finished. The archaeological team continues to work on the site to ensure all findings are properly excavated, documented, and cataloged. Taking any step toward additional designations and restrictions at the upcoming HEP Board meeting is premature. The site is already protected by the strict regulations of being located within a designated archeological area, and an overlapping designation that imposes the same procedural rules is redundant.”

Members of an archeological team sift through soil excavated from the site of a planned Related Group residential tower complex in Brickell. The team has unearthed extensive evidence of occupation by prehistoric indigenous people and artifacts dating back 7,000 years. MATIAS J. OCNER/mocner@miamiherald.com

Developer questioned antiquity

In an op-ed article published in the Miami Herald on March 16, Jorge Perez cast doubt on claims of the site’s antiquity, complained of “misleading information” by critics and argued none of it is worth preserving beyond the recovered artifacts. Perez promised in the article published on the Herald’s opinion pages, without details, that Related would store and preserve the finds and make materials available for public exhibition.

But supporters of preservation say a promise from Related is not enough. They note that developers of the Met Square project on the river’s north bank failed to fully live up to promises made in a mediation accord to preserve and exhibit another portion of the Tequesta town.

The Related site is too important to leave it up to the developers to decide what to do about it, said Abby Apé, managing director of the Brickell Homeowners Association, which supports designation. She expects several members to testify at Tuesday’s hearing in favor of requiring Related to preserve all or part of the site.

“We need the city’s leadership on this,” Apé said. “They’ve been giving the developer free reign. The city has a code. They should enforce it. Shouldn’t we have a plan in place? A lot of the neighbors are saying, do not build over it.”

Robert Rosa, a representative of the American Indian Movement and the United Confederation of Taino People who has been rallying support for preservation among Native American groups, said many tribal elders think indigenous burial sites should not be disturbed.

“We want everything returned,” Rosa said. “We want some equitable agreement. We prefer it all be preserved. We understand there is $164 million on the line. We understand that is not small chump change, but it is chump change to a billionaire. We want the desecration to stop.”

Teams of archaeologists have been quietly and painstakingly digging for at least 16 months on one of two parcels where Related plans to build. Excavation so far has taken place on the site of the demolished former U.S. Customs headquarters. A second building that houses the Capital Grille restaurant, at 444 Brickell, is still standing but would eventually be demolished and that site excavated as well.

Because the parcels sit in a city-designated archaeological zone where indigenous occupation was known to have occurred, Related was required by city ordinances to undertake and pay for archaeological exploration and excavation of the properties, being carried out under the direction of veteran South Florida archaeologist Robert Carr.

In his reports, Carr has noted the site is important enough to potentially merit inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. He also suggests that intact sections of midden — ancient refuse heaps where many of the artifacts, bones and shells are found — could be “preserved as part of the development.”

An archaeological team works at the site of a planned Related Group residential tower complex on the Miami River in Brickell. A 16-month excavation has unearthed a remarkable trove of prehistoric indigenous finds, including artifacts dating back to the dawn of human civilization 7,000 years ago. MATIAS J. OCNER/mocner@miamiherald.com

Independent archaeologists and Miami preservation officials stress Related does appear to have met all legal requirements, including the submission to the city of reports detailing the discoveries, and preservation of artifacts and organic remnants like animal bones and shells.
Critics say city slow to act

But critics say the city did little to publicize the findings or move to consider preservation until a group of archaeologists began turning up at preservation board hearings early this year to ask that something be done. In early February, on the same day the Herald published an in-depth story describing the findings, the board voted 8-0 to order the city preservation office to begin collaborating with archaeologists from UM and the Florida Public Archaeology Network, based at the University of West Florida in Pensacola, on a fuller analysis.

The resulting presentation contains more than enough evidence to justify full consideration for designation, said one of the archaeologists, William Pestle, chairman of UM’s anthropology department.

“I would hope that the board sees fit to follow the process laid out in the city code, and not preemptively derail this before the site is given due consideration,” Pestle said.

Under that legal process, the preservation board would instruct preservation officer Anna Pernas to prepare an in-depth report and recommend whether to designate the site as historic. If designation does occur, any plans for construction or permits at the site that have not yet been approved by the city will be subject to approval by the preservation board. The preservation board would have authority to require Related to set aside open space or incorporate exhibitions and public access in its project.

Related could appeal designation to the Miami city commission, which has in the past shown itself willing to overturn historic preservation board decisions. Further appeals would go to Miami-Dade circuit court.

Archaeologists excavating the site of a planned Related Group residential tower complex on the Miami River in Brickell have uncovered extensive evidence of prehistoric indigenous settlements dating back to the dawn of human civilization 7,000 years ago. The discoveries indicate that the capital of the Tequesta tribe, believed responsible for the 2,000-year-old Miami Circle, visible at top, was significantly more extensive than once believed. MATIAS J. OCNER/mocner@miamiherald.com

Site occupied for thousands of years

The new evidence, Pestle and other independent archaeologists say, suggests that the Related site was occupied by a succession of indigenous people starting in what’s known as the Archaic period, some 5,000 years before the date of the Miami Circle. Although that degree of antiquity would have to be confirmed by further analysis, Pestle and others note there is precedent for artifacts dating back that far in South Miami-Dade at the Deering Estate and elsewhere in Florida as well.

The finds also demonstrate that the Tequesta village on the river, the tribe’s principal settlement, was bigger than previously believed, they say. Spanish accounts put the settlement only on the river’s north bank. But the finds at the Related site, just steps from the Miami Circle, indicate that at its peak hundreds of years ago the Tequesta town spread along both banks of the river.

Among the most abundant finds at the Related site are postholes cut into the bedrock to support buildings and boardwalks, as well as animal bones and shells, seeds and wood, pottery shards, and stone tools used to make wooden structures and canoes. The new animal finds are likely evidence of ancient feasts and ceremonies at the site, Pestle said,

The materials, including thousands of pounds of shells and animal bones, have been carted away to storage in over 2000 bankers boxes, Pestle said, and he expects hundreds more will be filled by the time excavation is completed.

Some critics say they think the developers and the city have attempted to downplay the discoveries to avoid the kind of public uproar and litigation that led to the preservation of the Miami Circle from condo development in 1999, as well as another Tequesta circle and other antiquities across the river at the Met Square development in 2014.

The Dogs of Chernobyl Are Experiencing Rapid Evolution, Study Suggests

1.3k
Darren Orf
Sat, April 1, 2023 

Are Chernobyl Dogs Experiencing Rapid Evolution?Sean Gallup - Getty Images

For decades, scientists have studied animals living in or near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant to see how increased levels of radiation affect their health, growth, and evolution.

A new study analyzed the DNA of 302 feral dogs living near the power plant, compared the animals to others living 10 miles away, and found remarkable differences.

While the study doesn’t prove that radiation is the cause of these differences, the data provides an important first step in analyzing these irradiated populations, and understanding how they compare to dogs living elsewhere.

On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor in northern Ukraine—then part of the Soviet Union—exploded, sending a massive plume of radiation into the sky. Nearly four decades later, the Chernobyl Power Plant and many parts of the surrounding area remain uninhabited—by humans, at least.

Animals of all kinds have thrived in humanity’s absence. Living among radiation-resistant fauna are thousands of feral dogs, many of whom are descendants of pets left behind in the speedy evacuation of the area so many years ago. As the world’s greatest nuclear disaster approaches its 40th anniversary, biologists are now taking a closer look at the animals located inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ), which is about the size of Yosemite National Park, and investigating how decades of radiation exposure may have altered animals’ genomes—and even, possibly, sped up evolution.

Scientists from the University of South Carolina and the National Human Genome Research Institute have begun examining the DNA of 302 feral dogs found in or around the CEZ to better understand how radiation may have altered their genomes. Their results were published in the journal Science Advances earlier this month.

“Do they have mutations that they’ve acquired that allow them to live and breed successfully in this region?” co-author Elaine Ostrander, a dog genomics expert at the National Human Genome Research Institute, told The New York Times. “What challenges do they face and how have they coped genetically?”

The idea of radiation speeding up natural evolution isn’t a new one. The practice of purposefully irradiating seeds in outer space to induce advantageous mutations, for example, is now a well-worn method for developing crops well-suited for a warming world.

Scientists have been analyzing certain animals living within the CEZ for years, including bacteria, rodents, and even birds. One study back in 2016 found that Eastern tree frogs (Hyla orientalis), which are usually a green color, were more commonly black within the CEZ. The biologists theorize that the frogs experienced a beneficial mutation in melanin—pigments responsible for skin color—that helped ionize the surrounding radiation.

This made scientists ponder: could something similar be happening to Chernobyl’s wild dogs?

This new study uncovered that the feral dogs living near the Chernobyl Power Plant showed distinct genetic differences from dogs living only some 10 miles away in nearby Chernobyl City. While this may seem to heavily imply that these dogs have undergone some type of rapid mutation or evolution due to radiation exposure, this study is only a first step in proving that hypothesis. One environmental scientist, speaking with Science News, says that these studies can be tricky business, largely due to the fact that sussing out radiation-induced mutations from other effects, like inbreeding, is incredibly difficult.

However, this study provides a template for further investigation into the effects of radiation on larger mammals, as the DNA of dogs roaming the Chernobyl Power Plant and nearby Chernobyl City can be compared to dogs living in non-irradiated areas. Despite a current lack of firm conclusions, the study has shown once again that an area that—by all rights—should be a wasteland has become an unparalleled scientific opportunity to understand radiation and its impact on natural evolution.

A wild iguana in Costa Rica bit a little girl as it tried to steal her piece of cake. Now, doctors say she has developed a rare bacterial infection.

Sarah Al-Arshani
Sat, April 1, 2023 

An iguana is seen as the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission continues its efforts to try and control the invasive species on March 13, 2018 in Miami, Florida.

Getty Images/Joe Raedle

In a rare attack, an iguana bit a child for her cake in Costa Rica.

Five months later, a strange cyst began to grow on the site the girl was bitten.

Scientists found that the girl was infected with a rare bacteria, possibly the first from an iguana bite.

A girl's rare infection could have been linked to an encounter with an iguana that had a craving for cake, scientists suspect.

CNN reported that a scientific presentation on the unidentified 3-year-old girl's case will be given at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases this month.

Last March, the unnamed girl was on vacation with her parents in Costa Rica. Her parents gave her a cake as she hung out by the water. A wild iguana ran up to her, bit her finger and stole her cake.

"It was trying to mark its territory or something like that," Dr Jordan Kit Mah, a medical microbiologist at Stanford University told the Guardian.

Iguanas are typically harmless and herbivores, but this one appears to have developed a liking for sweets, CNN reported.

Her parents noticed that the bite was superficial but still took her to a local clinic, which disinfected the wound and gave her antibiotics. The wound healed, but five months later, they noticed a bump in the same spot.

While the girl said the bump did not hurt, it had grown to the size of a coin, and was a reddish-bluish color, the Guardian reported. The family took the child to the doctor.

At first, the parents hadn't thought the iguana bite had anything to do with it. Doctors suspected it might be a cyst but as it continued to grow, the parents realized the bump was in the same spot as the iguana bite, CNN reported.

The bump continued to grow and began causing mild pain, which sent the girl to an orthopedist. She has a biopsy which revealed a rare infection.

The little girl had developed Mycobacterium marinum, which typically causes tuberculosis-like illness in fish but rarely infects humans. Humans usually get this infection if they have open wounds and come into contact with contaminated water. Mah told CNN that he believes this is the first time a human has gotten this infection from an iguana bite.

"There is we know a lot about animal bites and bacteria, infections, following, let's say, dogs or cats, but there really isn't much for lizards, let alone iguana," he said. "I don't think people should be afraid, but doctors should be aware of the possibility."

He told the Guardian that he's not surprised it took this long for the girl to develop symptoms since the bacteria is very slow to grow and has a long incubation period.

The infection doesn't respond well to typical antibiotics but the little girl was put on rifampin, an antimicrobial, and clarithromycin, an antibiotic and according to Mah, is improving.

"Typically, with these infections, because they take a very long time to grow and they're a little bit more fastidious, you need to treat them for a longer period of time, sometimes several months," Mah told CNN. "So she's doing better. I wouldn't say 100%, but she's doing a lot better than she was initially."

A fungus known for killing trees has infected a human for the first time, causing a pus-filled abscess to grow in his throat


Andrea Michelson
Fri, March 31, 2023 

Silver leaf tree fungus, or Chondrostereum purpureum,HHelene/Getty Images

A man in India visited a doctor for a sore throat that affected his ability to eat and swallow.

Doctors found an abscess in his throat, and it was full of a fungus usually only found on trees.

These infections may grow more common in humans as fungi adapt to warmer temperatures.

It seems like a scene out of "The Last of Us" — a fungus never before seen in humans has just been discovered growing in a person for the first time.

A plant researcher in India saw a doctor for a sore throat and learned he had a fungal infection growing in his throat, causing an abscess that had to be drained of pus.

Fortunately for him, this fungus was nothing like the Cordecyps seen in the hit HBO TV show. It's known to gardeners as silver leaf, a progressive disease that turns a tree's leaves silver before killing the infected branch.

The patient, a 61-year-old man, told doctors that he had a long history of working with decaying plant materials for research, according to a report published in the journal Medical Mycology Case Reports. He sought medical attention after three months of hoarseness, trouble swallowing, loss of appetite, cough, and fatigue.

Silver leaf is a common blight on stone fruit trees and some flowering shrubs, but this is the first time it has infected a human, according to the report. When the doctors analyzed the man's pus, they found it grew a "creamy pasty" fungal colony in a petri dish.

Their tests for fungi known to infect humans came back negative, so the doctors sent a sample to a local World Health Organization laboratory. DNA sequencing revealed that the fungus was Chondrostereum purpureum, the culprit behind silver leaf.

Climate change may help fungi adapt to infect humans

After doctors drained the man's abscess, they sent him on his way with a broad-spectrum antifungal drug. He took two pills a day for 60 days and made a complete recovery, according to the report.

While it's relatively rare for a healthy person to be infected with a fungus that usually preys on plants, it has happened before with other types of fungus. According to the case study authors, these infections may become more common as the world's temperatures rise.

"The worsening of global warming and other civilization activities opens Pandora's Box for newer fungal diseases," they wrote.

Michelle Momany, a professor of plant biology who studies fungi at the University of Georgia, told Insider that a fungus would have to evolve to live in warmer temperatures for it to really spread between humans. "The infection was in the throat, not deep in the lungs where the body temperature is higher," she said. Momany was not affiliated with the case report.

Even if it's unlikely that silver leaf will become a major threat to humans anytime soon, people who work with fungal spores should take caution with a high-quality mask to avoid inhaling a potential pathogen, she said.

Contamination Prevention Is Key as NASA Preps for Incoming Asteroid Samples

Passant Rabie

March 28, 2023 

An artist's depiction of the asteroid samples being dropped off to Earth. (Illustration: NASA)

In October 2020, engineers landed a spacecraft on an asteroid 200 million miles (320 million km) from Earth and collected a rocky sample from its surface. But that wasn’t even the hardest part. Now the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is on its way back to Earth to drop off that sample, with NASA rehearsing the smoothest way to catch it without ruining the whole mission.

The spacecraft has spent seven years in space and is now gearing up for its final, yet most challenging, task. OSIRIS-REx is on schedule to drop off a sample from asteroid Bennu on September 24 during a flyby of Earth, when it will eject a capsule containing the asteroid sample. The capsule will parachute its way down to Earth and land at the Air Force’s Utah Test and Training Range in the Great Salt Lake Desert.

“Once the sample capsule touches down, our team will be racing against the clock to recover it and get it to the safety of a temporary clean room,” Mike Moreau, deputy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre, said in a statement. The sense of urgency here stems from fear that the sample will get spoiled by Earthly contaminants, thereby foiling the entire mission.

The capsule has to land within a 60 km by 14 km ellipse about 13 minutes after it is released by the spacecraft. Teams from NASA Goddard, KinetX, Lockheed Martin, and NASA’s Langley Research Centre will be monitoring weather, solar activity, and space debris to make sure the capsule lands safely.

This summer, recovery teams in Utah and Colorado will be practicing all the steps required to recover the sample, rehearsing how to unpack and process the sample inside glove boxes before transporting it to the lab in Houston via helicopter, according to NASA. The recovery crews will also collect soil and air samples around the capsule’s landing area to help identify if any contaminants came in contact with the asteroid sample.

A different team of scientists is preparing the investigations that will be conducted on the sample once it’s delivered to the lab. Once the sample is received, scientists will unpack it and allocate up to a quarter of it to the mission’s science team in different parts of the world while the rest will be distributed among other scientists who are not part of the mission.

Members of the mission team practicing with a mock glove box. (Photo: NASA Johnson/Bill Stafford)

“There are two things pervasive on Earth: water and biology,” Jason Dworkin, OSIRIS-REx project scientist at NASA Goddard, said in the statement. “Both can severely alter meteorites when they land on the ground and muddle the story told by the sample’s chemistry and mineralogy. A pristine sample could provide insights into the development of solar system.”

This is NASA’s first attempt at retrieving a sample from an asteroid. The Japanese space agency (JAXA)’s Hayabusa2 grabbed a small sample of dust, pebbles, and gas from the Ryugu asteroid in 2019 and delivered the asteroid sample to Earth in 2020. A recent study of the asteroid sample revealed the presence of two organic molecules, supporting the hypothesis that the building blocks of life itself travelled to Earth by hitchhiking on asteroids that crashed on our planet billions of years ago.

Analysing the Bennu sample will provide scientists with more evidence as to how life may have originated on Earth. “We will do a direct comparison of the samples from Ryugu and the sample from asteroid Bennu when NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returns it to Earth,” Dworkin said in a February press release.

As OSIRIS-REx prepares for its big drop-off, recovery teams on Earth are perfecting their plan to catch the asteroid sample and make sure it stays pristine.

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Microplastic found in Antarctic krill and salps

by British Antarctic Survey

Antarctic krill, small crustaceans, are filter feeders eating phytoplankton and other 

microscopic organisms. Credit: Pete Lens (BAS)

A new study led by researchers at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) discovered microplastics in krill (Euphausia superba), a small shrimp-like crustacean, and salps (Salpa thompsoni), a gelatinous marine invertebrate. The results are published today (March 29) in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

While Antarctic krill have been observed ingesting microplastics in laboratory settings, the team's findings provide important evidence that these animals, as well as other zooplankton, ingest plastic in their natural environment.

Microplastics are present in the Southern Ocean from the sea surface to seabed. Due to the small size of these particles (<5 mm), Antarctic zooplankton are likely to mistake the plastics for their natural food source. The team focused on two of the most abundant species of Southern Ocean zooplankton: Antarctic krill, and salps. These two species are critical to the diet of much of the Southern Ocean's marine wildlife. Krill is the main food source for whales, penguins, and seals while salps are eaten by some fish and larger marine birds.

Krill and salp samples were collected onboard the research ship RRS James Clark Ross on two research missions off the Northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula in 2016 and near the island of South Georgia in 2018. Microplastics were extracted from both species with plastic microfibers most common. One of the largest sources of these fibers is shedding from clothing during washing and drying. Around 60% of the krill and salps contained nylon, a microplastic with significant commercial applications in clothing, fishing gear, ropes, and reinforcing car tires.

Credit: British Antarctic Survey

Lead author Laura Wilkie Johnston, a marine biologist at BAS says, "Evidence of microplastic consumption in two very high abundance species of the Southern Ocean is concerning. Both of these species are an integral part of the Southern Ocean ecosystem, and we don't yet fully understand the impact microplastics will have in this environment."

Co-author Dr. Emily Rowlands, a marine biologist at BAS, says, "We have already seen the harmful effects that plastic ingestion can have on Antarctic zooplankton in the lab. In this study we show how these animals are vulnerable to plastic in their natural habitat. The research is particularly important as it supports laboratory experiments and provides new insights into the amounts and types of plastics krill and salps are exposed to in the Southern Ocean."

The findings underline how sensitive the Antarctic marine ecosystem is to plastic pollution. Due to the short food chains in the Antarctic, transfer of these microplastics from the krill to larger predators such as whales, penguins, and seals is highly likely. Plastic in krill and salps could also negatively impact the Southern Ocean as one of the planets largest carbon sinks.

Co-author Dr. Clara Manno, a pelagic marine ecologist at BAS, and lead scientist on the CUPIDO project, says, "In addition to being important food sources in the Antarctic marine ecosystem, krill and salps play an important role in slowing down climate change. The Southern Ocean is a hugely important carbon sink and these animals play an integral part transferring atmospheric CO2 into the deep oceans. Interactions with microplastics have the potential to interfere with the amount of carbon these organisms can take down and trap in the deep ocean."

More information: Laura Wilkie Johnston et al, Organic or junk food? Microplastic contamination in Antarctic krill and salps, Royal Society Open Science (2023). DOI: 10.1098/rsos.221421

Journal information: Royal Society Open Science 

Provided by British Antarctic Survey Microplastics affect global nutrient cycle and oxygen levels in the ocean