Friday, February 02, 2024

Did climate change trigger pandemics in antiquity?

Samples from the ocean floor provide the first high-resolution regional climate record and prove a link to pandemics

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MARUM - CENTER FOR MARINE ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF BREMEN

For their study in Science Advances, the researchers reconstructed temperatures and precipitation for the period from 200 BC to 600 AD, with a resolution of three years. This means that two data points cover a period of three years – an extremely high resolution for paleoclimate researchers. The period extends from the so-called Roman Climatic Optimum to the Late Antique Little Ice Age. This period also includes three major pandemics known from historians’ records: the Antonine Plague (around 165 to 180 AD), the Cyprian Plague (around 251 to 266) and the Justinian Plague (from around 540).

Each of these pandemics followed a change in climate: the Antonine Plague occurred during a cold spell that followed several decades of cooling and drought. The Cyprian plague coincided with a second phase of severe cooling. Finally, the Justinian Plague followed an extreme cooling in the 6th century. "There was always a parallel," explains first author Prof. Karin Zonneveld from MARUM and the Department of Geosciences at the University of Bremen. "A phase of climate change was followed by a pandemic outbreak."

Zonneveld and her colleagues used so-called dinoflagellates to reconstruct past temperature and precipitation patterns. These unicellular organisms live in the sunlit upper part of the ocean and form cysts that are deposited as fossils on the ocean floor. Dinoflagellates have different preferences for their environment, with some living only in colder waters and others only in warmer waters. Some prefer waters with lots of nutrients, while others can only live in very clean, nutrient-poor waters, explains Zonneveld. "If the conditions in the upper waters change, the composition of the cyst species that accumulate on the seabed also changes." This creates a very high-resolution archive that goes back further than, for example, tree rings in this region can.

Karin Zonneveld and her colleagues took the samples from a core originating from the Gulf of Taranto. Volcanoes regularly erupt in southern Italy – the most prominent example is the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, which destroyed Pompeii. The ash emitted rises into the atmosphere, trickles down onto the water and then sinks to the seabed. There it forms a thin layer of ash, known as a cryptotephra. "Volcanic ash contains many small glass particles that can easily be seen with a polarizing microscope," explains Karin Zonneveld. "The elemental composition of the glass particles in the ash of each volcano is unique and can even be different for individual eruptions of the same volcano. With the help of tiny needles, we were able to pick out individual pieces of glass and analyze their elemental composition in collaboration with the Bremen volcanologist Andreas Klügel." In this way, the deposits could be precisely linked to volcanic eruptions of the Vesuvius and volcanoes on the island of Lipari of which the times of the eruptions was known. This allowed an exact dating of the core sediments.

For the missing piece of the puzzle, a coincidence brought Zonneveld together with her co-author, historian Prof. Kyle Harper from the University of Oklahoma (USA). He, too, had long suspected a causal link between climate and pandemics. Together, they were able to precisely date and compare the climate data as well as glass particle analyses with historical events.

The researchers conclude that climate-related stress could trigger a pandemic outbreak or intensify disease outbreaks - for example, because food is scarce and people become more susceptible for diseases. Harper and Zonneveld agree that this could hold important information for the future: "It's true that we have a completely different society at the moment than in ancient times, mainly because of modern science and everything that goes with it - germ theory, antibiotics, vaccines, clean water. But there are also parallels. Much like in Roman times, climate is still an important factor affecting fundamental aspects that influence our wellbeing. These include agriculture, access to clean water, biodiversity, geographical distribution and migration of organisms. Studying the resilience of ancient societies to climate change and exploring how climate change and the incidence of infectious diseases are linked could give us a better insight into the climate change-related challenges we face today."

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Karin Zonneveld
Marine Palynology
MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences and the Department of Geosciences at the University of Bremen
Phone: + 49 421 218-65797
Email: kzonneveld@marum.de

MARUM produces fundamental scientific knowledge about the role of the ocean and the seafloor in the total Earth system. The dynamics of the oceans and the seabed significantly impact the entire Earth system through the interaction of geological, physical, biological and chemical processes. These influence both the climate and the global carbon cycle, resulting in the creation of unique biological systems. MARUM is committed to fundamental and unbiased research in the interests of society, the marine environment, and in accordance with the sustainability goals of the United Nations. It publishes its quality-assured scientific data to make it publicly available. MARUM informs the public about new discoveries in the marine environment and provides practical knowledge through its dialogue with society. MARUM cooperation with companies and industrial partners is carried out in accordance with its goal of protecting the marine environment.

JOURNAL

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.adk1033

METHOD OF RESEARCH

News article

ARTICLE TITLE

Climate change, society, and pandemic disease in Roman Italy between 200 BCE and 600 CE

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

26-Jan-2024

India aims to raise up to $2.4 billion selling stakes in state-run firms -official

Fri, February 2, 2024

A cashier checks Indian rupee notes inside a room at a fuel station in Ahmedabad

By Nikunj Ohri

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's government expects to raise between 180 billion and 200 billion rupees ($2.2 billion to $2.4 billion) through the sale of stakes in state-run firms in the fiscal year ending March 31, a top government official told Reuters on Friday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration moved from the usual practise of setting a stake sale target in its budget announced on Thursday. The government slashed the stake sale target of 510 billion rupees for the current year, and said it would now raise 300 billion rupees through both stake sales and asset monetisation in the fiscal year through March 2024.

Modi's ambition of privatising state-run firms has taken a back seat due to impending elections, but his government has delivered more stake sales than any previous administration.

His government has not set a target for the next fiscal year, ending in March 2025, in a break from usual practice.

Tuhin Kanta Pandey, the top bureaucrat at the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management said New Delhi would receive another 120 billion rupees through asset monetisation in the current fiscal year.

But the government will not "aggressively" launch minority stake sales just because state-run companies' shares are at new highs, he said in an interview.

Pandey said the government will continue to monitor Life Insurance Corp of India's (LIC) financial and share price performance before pursuing any further share sale.

"LIC shares have just reached its initial public offering (IPO) price and we want retail investors, who subscribed to the IPO, to gain," he said.

The insurer's share price has surged nearly 60% since November, raising expectation of another minority stake sale.

India has been unable to sell its Hindustan Zinc (HZL) shares for the last two years as decisions taken by the company's management have spooked both existing and potential investors, Pandey said.

HZL, in which the state owns a 29.54% stake, had decided to demerge its businesses and that proposal is being currently examined by the government, Pandey said.

The process of privatising state-run companies like Shipping Corp of India and BEML will continue, Pandey said, adding the government plans to list SCI's demerged land company in a month and that will pave the way for privatisation.

($1 = 82.8790 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Nikunj Ohri; Editing by Alexander Smith)

Opinion: Is Narendra Modi's India still a democracy?

Bob Drogin
Fri, February 2, 2024

One observer called India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi "the high priest of Hinduism," after he starred in the opening ceremonies for a grand new temple to the deity Ram where a Muslim mosque once stood. (Anadolu via Getty Images)

When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the consecration of a vast new Hindu temple atop the ruins of a demolished Muslim mosque in the town of Ayodhya in northern India last week, it showed how far he will go to secure his reelection this year.

Not that stoking religious strife is a new tactic for the 73-year-old Modi. He rode to power, and clings to it now, on the back of militant Hindu nationalism and the menace of anti-Muslim violence.

In 2005, Modi, then the top official in the Indian state of Gujarat, became the first and only person ever barred from entering the United States under a little known immigration law that makes foreign officials ineligible for visas if they are responsible for "particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”

U.S. officials had determined that Modi stood by during Hindu riots that killed more than 1,000 Muslims in Gujarat state in 2002. The visa ban was lifted only when he became prime minister in 2014.

Today Modi’s brand of militant Hindu supremacy has replaced political pluralism as India’s dominant ideology, threatening the nation’s status as a secular republic.

As a foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, I saw the beginnings of India's anti-democratic slide on a sunny day in December 1992, on contested ground in Ayodhya.

Thousands of Hindu pilgrims, white-bearded priests, dhoti-clad holy men and other devotees who had gathered for a political rally suddenly stormed the historic Babri mosque, built in the 16th century by Babur, the first Mughal emperor, on the site of the supposed birthplace of the Hindu deity Ram.

The Hindu mob tore the mosque apart, brick by brick, with pikes, pickaxes and their bare hands. They pulled down guard towers with grappling hooks and climbed barefoot over barbed wire barricades. Foreign journalists were chased and clubbed. I was whacked with bamboo and hit with a brick.

The destruction of the mosque set off some of its worst religious pogroms in India since independence in 1947. Entire Muslim neighborhoods were torched and families slaughtered. Anti-Hindu riots broke out in response in Pakistan and Bangladesh, India’s Muslim neighbors. A Newsweek cover famously warned of “Holy War” on the subcontinent; its rival Time deemed the communal violence an “Unholy War.”

Three-plus decades later, much of India came to a standstill Jan. 22 to watch as Modi consecrated Ram Mandir, a richly decorated $220-million temple built over the destroyed Babri mosque. In many Indian states, it was a public holiday. Stock markets and most schools and offices were closed. Government offices shut for half a day.

Nonstop TV coverage showed the prime minister placing a lotus flower by the jet-black Ram idol in the temple’s inner sanctum, prostrating himself before it and all but declaring Hinduism a state religion. An Indian air force helicopter dropped flower petals outside, priests blew conches and chanted, but Modi was the star.

"Ram is the faith of India, the foundation of India,” he told a rapt crowd in Hindi, according to the Times of India. "Ram is the thought of India, Ram is the law of India. … Ram is the policy [of India].”

Modi has become the “high priest of Hinduism,” the prime minister’s biographer, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, told the Indian website Rediff.com after the ceremony. “We are very close to becom[ing] a theocratic state."

Such a notion would be anathema to India’s once revered founding leaders, Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Government should embrace all religions, not impose one over the others, they argued. Those secular values are enshrined in the Indian constitution.

But secularism has waned as Modi’s right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party has steadily gained power by blurring the lines between Hinduism and the state. Muslims have their own countries, Modi’s supporters argue. Why shouldn’t we?

Here’s why: Although 80% of India’s 1.4 billion people identify as Hindu, 200 million Muslims and tens of millions of Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and others do not. Human rights groups say non-Hindus are increasingly treated like second-class citizens.

Modi’s "government has adopted laws and policies that discriminate against religious minorities, especially Muslims,” Human Rights Watch warns on its website. “This … has emboldened Hindu nationalist groups to target members of minority communities or civil society groups with impunity.”

In the days since Modi presided over the the temple rituals in Ayodhya, Hindu mobs rampaged in several cities and towns. News reports tallied the damage: Muslim-owned shops destroyed in Mumbai, Muslim students beaten in Pune, a Muslim graveyard burned in Bihar and so on.

Modi doesn’t need to inflame anti-Muslim prejudice to win reelection. He has a 76% approval rating in the latest polls and is on track to become the first Indian prime minister since Nehru to win three consecutive terms.

But the danger of more clashes is growing.

Hindu nationalists have filed lawsuits to remove hundreds of Mughal-era mosques that they claim were erected over other ancient Hindu temples. Their top targets include a mosque supposedly built over the birthplace of Krishna, the Hindu god of compassion, and a second in Varanasi, said to be the sacred abode of Shiva, Hindu god of destruction.

“People will always remember this date, this moment,” Modi said in Ayodhya last week, hailing the start of a "new era."

I fear he may be right.

Bob Drogin is a former reporter and editor for the Los Angeles Times.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HINDUISM IS FASCISM

ARCHAEOLOGY

Tomb hid under jungle floor for 1,700 years — until now. See ‘extraordinary’ contents

Moira Ritter
Fri, February 2, 2024

Hundreds of years ago, during the height of the Mayans’ rule in Guatemala, someone was buried in a huge tomb filled with “extraordinary” and “rare” offerings.

The burial barely survived an aggressive looting campaign, which included extensive underground tunnels that allowed robbers to unearth ancient artifacts left by the Mayans. It stayed hidden by the jungle for nearly 1,700 years.

That is until now, according to archaeologists from Tulane University in New Orleans.

Underground tunnels dug by looters barely stopped just feet from the burial, according to archaeologists.

The team of experts, led by Francisco Estrada-Belli, found the burial in 2022, the university said in a Jan. 29 news release. They used lidar technology — “which shoots laser beams from an airplane through dense jungle foliage to map what’s on the ground.”

“It’s like taking X-rays of the jungle floor,” Estrada-Belli said in the release.

The lidar scans revealed the looters’ underground tunnels. About 6 feet from where they had stopped digging, the archaeologists spotted something in the ground.

It was the tomb.

The only damage to the tomb was to its stone ceiling, the team said.

Because the looters stopped short of the actual burial, they only caused damage to the exterior of the stone tomb, according to Estrada-Belli.

“That was the first amazing thing about it,” he said. “It was very lucky.”

When researchers looked inside the tomb, they were even more shocked to find an assortment of “extraordinary funeral offerings, including a mosaic jade mask, rare mollusk shells and writings carved in human femur bones,” the university said.

The jade mask found in the Maya burial.

“A discovery like this is a bit like winning the lottery in terms of information,” Estrada-Belli said. “It opens a window into an obscure time we have very little texts about.”

Sixteen shells of “a rare spiny oyster” known as spondylus were fond in the burial, according to archaeologists. The shells were used by ancient royalty “as jewelry and currency as well as in religious and sacrificial offerings.”

One of the engraved femur bones depicts a profile believed to be an unknown king, experts said. He’s holding a jade mask similar to the one unearthed from the tomb. Hieroglyphics on the bone appear to identify the man’s father and grandfather, creating a link to other Maya states.

Engraved femur bones were also found within the tomb.

One of the engraved bones depicted the profile of a man holding a jade mask similar to the one found in the tomb, experts said.

The height of the Maya Classic Period was between 250 A.D. and 900 A.D., according to the university. Archaeologists know little about that time because most sites have been looted.

The relics date to about 350 A.D., experts said. They have connections to another Mayan settlement, Tikal, and the central Mexican site of Teotihuacan, “which influenced Maya rulers at the time.”

Archaeologists found the tomb at Chochkitam, a site in northeastern Guatemala, according to a 2022 study co-authored by Estrada-Belli. Chochkitam was “a center of average size,” but it had an important role as a royal city.

‘Ancient arcade’ — with a familiar game — found in Kenya, archaeologist says. See it

Aspen Pflughoeft
Fri, February 2, 2024

Near grazing rhinos and blowing grasses, a patch of rocks jutted out of the Kenyan landscape. The rocky area seemed easy to overlook. But, as an archaeologist recently discovered, it was actually home to some unique ancient creations.

Archaeologist Veronica Waweru visited Lewa Wildlife Conservancy last summer, according to a Feb. 1 news release from Yale University. Years before, she received a tip that tourists were looting the nature reserve’s prehistoric sites.

Waweru contacted the nature reserve and eventually visited herself, the university said.

During the visit, a staff member and amateur archaeologist took Waweru to see the reserve’s ancient burial mounds.

Near the burial site, Waweru noticed several “rows of shallow pits drilled into a rock ledge,” the university said. She identified the carvings as an ancient version of Mancala.

A burial mound in Lewa Wildlife Conservancy.

Mancala is “a two-player, strategy-based board game still played across the world today,” the university said. The game originated thousands of years ago, with ancient examples found in Egypt and other parts of Africa.

The site in Lewa Wildlife Conservancy had “about 20 ancient Mancala game boards” with varying levels of erosion, the university said.

“It’s a valley full of these game boards, like an ancient arcade,” Waweru said in the release. “Given the erosion of some of the boards, I believe people were playing these games there a very long time ago.”

A photo shows one of these ancient Mancala-like game boards. Dozens of holes are carved in two parallel rows. Each hole is deep enough to hold several stones used as game pieces.

The “ancient arcade” found at Lewa Wildlife Conservancy.

“Modern people in the region tend to play games like Mancala when they are out herding,” Waweru said. “That’s probably what they were doing here.”

The exact age of carvings is unknown. Waweru suspects the game boards vary in age with some being re-used or re-carved several times.

Waweru said the area has “been occupied over and over again throughout time. Within the last 10 thousand years, people played Mancala there … People tend to look at early life as brutish, nasty, and short. But perhaps life was not all about survival.”

Waweru hopes to study the site further in the future.

Lewa Wildlife Conservancy is about 110 miles northeast of Nairobi.

1,300-year-old armor — with bow, arrows and sword — found under war horse remains

Moira Ritter
Thu, February 1, 2024

Toward the end of the seventh century, a warrior — dressed in a full set of armor — was buried beneath his horse in what is now Hungary.

For the last 1,300 years, his burial has stayed hidden. That is until November, when archaeologists were exploring the outskirts of Ebes, a village in eastern Hungary, and discovered the remains of a horse.

Beneath the horse bones, they found the warrior’s ancient burial, according to a Feb. 1 news release from the Déri Museum.

The armor was equipped with a wooden quiver holding arrows, a bow and a sword, archaeologists said. Archaeologists didn’t say if human remains were excavated from the burial.

Photos shared by the museum in a Jan. 31 Facebook post show the discovery on display.

The findings mark only the second time a complete and intact set of lamellar armor has been discovered, officials said. Lamellar armor is a style of armor that was used by ancient warriors.

City officials from Debrecen — which is located less than 10 miles northeast of Ebes — shared footage of the armor and weapons on Facebook.

Archaeologists believe the armor belonged to an Avar warrior from the end of the seventh century.

The Avar were people from Mongolia who established an empire in the region between the Adriatic and Baltic seas spanning the sixth and eight centuries, according to Britannica. They warred with other large empires, nearly occupying Constantinople in 626. By 805, the Avar submitted to Charlemagne, the first emperor of what became the Holy Roman Empire.

Cache of coins was hidden in a box underground for 850 years — until now. See it

Moira Ritter
Thu, February 1, 2024

Hundreds of years ago, someone filled an oak box with a cache of coins. The box ended up buried next to what is now a street leading to a town center in France, and that’s where it stayed until 2021 when archaeologists found it.

Archaeologists were conducting a preventive excavation ahead of a real estate project in Guérande, according to a Jan. 31 news release from the Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives (INRAP). That’s when they found the stash of coins, along with three others, dating to medieval times.

Three other deposits were found in the ruins of a 14th century masonry building, according to officials. © Edith Peytremann, Inrap

Ancient records mention Guérande as early as the ninth century, and experts said the town erected a wall sometime between the 13th and 15th centuries.

Research revealed that between the 12th and 13th centuries there was a medieval occupation at the site, officials said.

The box of coins was an isolated deposit that dates to between 1180 and 1204, according to archaeologists.

The three other deposits were found in the ruins of a 14th century masonry building, experts said. They date to between 1341 and 1342 and vary in preservation.

The best preserved collection of coins was found in a pitcher with a broken neck that was reused as a container. The pitcher was sealed with a pot turned upside down.

Linen envelopes holding coins were found within one of the deposits, experts said. © A. Cazin, Heritage Factory in Normandy

Researchers used 3D imaging to see inside the pitcher without damaging the artifact, officials said.

Inside the pitcher, archaeologists identified four linen fabric envelopes holding coins. The linen groups were placed inside a larger leather envelope.

The linen envelopes were held within a larger leather envelope, archaeologists said. © A. Cazin, Heritage Factory in Normandy

The other two deposits from the masonry building were less preserved, experts said. They were also sealed in ceramic containers and held traces of textile fragments among the coins.

Archaeologists said they have identified more than 2,000 coins from the deposits. They will continue examining the coins and the textiles from the deposits.

Guérande is about 330 miles southwest of Paris.

Google Translate was used to translate a news release from INRAP.

Bones found in 8-meter-deep pit may ‘fundamentally change’ history of humans in Europe

Katie Hunt, CNN
Thu, February 1, 2024

Microscopic fragments of protein and DNA recovered from bones discovered in 8-meter-deep cave dirt have revealed Neanderthals and humans likely lived alongside one another in northern Europe as far back as 45,000 years ago.

The genetic analysis of the fossils, which were found in a cave near the town of Ranis in eastern Germany, suggested that modern humans were the makers of distinctive, leaf-shaped stone tools that archaeologists once believed were crafted by Neanderthals, the heavily built hominins who lived in Europe until about 40,000 years ago.

Modern humans, or homo sapiens, weren’t previously known to have lived as far north as the region where the tools were made.

“The Ranis cave site provides evidence for the first dispersal of Homo sapiens across the higher latitudes of Europe. It turns out that stone artifacts that were thought to be produced by Neanderthals were, in fact, part of the early Homo sapiens toolkit,” said research author Jean-Jacques Hublin, a professor at the Collège de France in Paris and emeritus director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, in a news release.

“This fundamentally changes our previous knowledge about the period: Homo sapiens reached northwestern Europe long before Neanderthal disappearance in southwestern Europe.”

The discovery means the two groups, who once interbred and left most humans alive today with traces of Neanderthal DNA, may have overlapped for several thousand years. It also shows that Homo sapiens, our species, crossed the Alps into the cold climes of northern and central Europe earlier than thought.

Three studies detailing the discoveries and lab analysis were published Wednesday in the journals Nature and Nature Ecology & Evolution.
Earliest Homo sapiens fossils found north of the Alps

The style of stone tool found at Ranis has also been discovered elsewhere across Europe, from Moravia and eastern Poland to the British Isles, according to the studies. Archaeologists call the tool style Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician, or LRJ, in reference to the places where it was first identified.

To identify who made the artifacts, the team excavated Ilsenhöhle cave near Ranis from 2016 to 2022. When the cave was first excavated in the 1930s, only the tools were found and analyzed. This time around the team was able to dig deeper and more systematically, ultimately uncovering human fossils there for the first time.

“The challenge was to excavate the full 8-metre sequence from top to bottom, hoping that some deposits were left from the 1930s excavation,” said study coauthor Marcel Weiss, a researcher at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in a statement. “We were fortunate to find a 1.7 metre thick rock the previous excavators did not get past. After removing that rock by hand, we finally uncovered the LRJ layers and even found human fossils.”

However, the human remains weren’t immediately identifiable among the hundreds of bone fragments unearthed during the six-year dig. It was only later the team knew definitively that the layers of sediment that contained the LRJ stone tools also included humans remains.

Excavating an 8-meter deep pit at Ranis cave was a logistical challenge and required elaborate scaffolding to support the trench, the researchers said. - Marcel Weiss

The researchers used proteins extracted from bone fragments to identify animal and human remains they found, a technique known as palaeoproteomics. It allows scientists to identify human and animal bones when their form is unclear or uncertain. Using the same technique, the team also managed to identify human remains among bones excavated during the 1930s.

However, the protein analysis was only able to identify the bones as belonging to hominins — a category that includes Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis, or Neanderthals. To distinguish between the two, the team was able to extract fragments of ancient DNA from the 13 human fossils they identified.

“We confirmed that the skeletal fragments belonged to Homo sapiens,” said study coauthor Elena Zavala, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in the release.

“Interestingly, several fragments shared the same mitochondrial DNA sequences — even fragments from different excavations,” Zavala added. “This indicates that the fragments belonged to the same individual or were maternal relatives, linking these new finds with the ones from decades ago.”
Unexpected adaptability

Radiocarbon dating of the fossils and other artifacts in the cave suggested that these early humans were living there from around 45,000 years ago, making them the earliest Homo sapiens known to have inhabited northwestern Europe.

The region would have had a dramatically different climate then, with conditions typical of steppe tundra such as that found in present-day Siberia. The dig revealed the presence of reindeer, cave bears, woolly rhinoceroses and horses. The researchers also concluded that hibernating cave bears and denning hyenas primarily used the cave, which had only periodic human presence.

Extracting proteins from archaeological bone fragments must be performed in a sterilized environment to avoid contamination. - Dorothea Mylopotamitaki

“This shows that even these earlier groups of Homo sapiens dispersing across Eurasia already had some capacity to adapt to such harsh climatic conditions,” said coauthor Sarah Pederzani, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of La Laguna in Spain, who led the paleoclimate study of the site. “Until recently, it was thought that resilience to cold-climate conditions did not appear until several thousand years later, so this is a fascinating and surprising result,” she said, according to the news release.

William E. Banks, a researcher at the University of Bordeaux in France, said the studies showed how new methods are allowing archaeologists to examine sites in unprecedented detail, improving the ability to pinpoint when a site was occupied.

The “discoveries provide another important piece of the puzzle of this culturally and demographically complex period in Europe,” Banks noted in a commentary published alongside the studies. However, Banks, who wasn’t involved in the research, added that archaeologists “must be careful not to generalize findings from one or two sites.”

He noted that recent discoveries suggested Neanderthals were more culturally and cognitively complex than popular stereotypes suggest and that archaeologists should “not necessarily assume” in all cases that modern humans made more complex styles of stone tools from that pivotal period before Neanderthals disappeared.

Scientists Have Traced the Lost Journey of Stonehenge’s Mysterious Megaliths

Tim Newcomb
Wed, January 31, 2024

Tetra Images - Getty Images

Two mysterious sarsen blocks of Stonehenge may have come from much farther away than originally believed.

A new study places the origin of the stones up to 76 miles from the famous site.

The mixture of locales from which Stonehenge stones originated seemingly continues to grow.

Stonehenge hasn’t given up all its mysteries just yet, even though scientists are working to cut them away one by one. The latest scientific effort has been pointed towards identifying the origin of a pair of unidentified sarsen stones—numbers 26 and 160—that don’t neatly fall into past identification efforts.

The results may stretch our understanding of Stonehenge a bit—76 miles southeast, to be more precise.

In a new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, researchers employed X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry to analyze the chemical composition of 54 sarsen stone fragments culled from the 5,000-year-old site. This allowed the team to show that stones located at England’s Stonehenge have a more diverse provenance than previously believed.

Over the past few years, scientists have traced the origins of many of the remaining 52 stones at the site. These stones fall into a variety of differing categories, some grouped together and others standing solitary. The bluestones of the inner circle come from the Preseli Hills in Wales, and a variety of the sarsen stones (made of silcrete sandstone) were traced in 2020 to roughly 19 miles from Stonehenge. That site, known as West Woods and located in the southeast Marlborough Downs, was a key source of stone for Neolithic people—both because of the widely available supply and natural access points.

But not all the sarsen stones were linked to West Woods, and stones 26 and 160 remained mysterious. Plus, some original Stonehenge stones no longer reside at the site, making tracing quite tricky.

The team looked to find a match for the non-West Woods stones by investigating sarsen debris that had been excavated from Stonehenge trenches in 2008. While much of the debris did tie to the Marlborough Downs area—which includes West Woods, Monkton Down, and Totterdown Wood—the team also matched some debris to Bramdean, Hampshire (31 miles away) and Stoney Wish in East Sussex (76.4 miles to the southeast).

“This adds a second likely source area for the sarsen megaliths at Stonehenge in addition to West Woods,” the authors wrote. “At this stage, we can only speculate on the reasons why sarsen stone from such diverse sources is present at Stonehenge.”

The team added that one of the fragments sourced from Monkton Down was part of a “flake removed from the outer surface of a large sarsen boulder, most probably during on-site dressing. This adds a second likely source area for the sarsen megaliths at Stonehenge in addition to West Woods.”

The additional fragments, including the ones linking to East Sussex, could have come from the outer surface of stones 26 or 160, which are chemically distinct from other sarsen megaliths. The fragment may also be part of a now-missing stone.

“It is also possible that the analyzed fragments were pieces of saccharoid sarsen hammerstones of their pre-forms, or small blocks brought on-site for ceremonial or non-ceremonial purposes,” the authors wrote.

All the team can know for sure is that not all the fragments originated in the West Woods. While the findings answer some questions, they are far from the last word when it comes to understanding Stonehenge.

Treasure-filled jar — possibly an offering — found in sand near 1,800-year-old ruins

Moira Ritter
Wed, January 31, 2024

About 1,800 years ago, someone in the United Arab Emirates filled a pottery jar with a collection of treasures: several gold Roman coins, some local bronze currency and a bronze bracelet. Then, they took the jar to a nearby religious building as an offering.

Or at least that’s what archaeologists who just rediscovered the jar during excavations at the Tell Abraq archaeological site in Umm al-Quwain hypothesize.

The team of archaeologists recently finished their 2023-2024 excavations of the sprawling, multi-period site, according to a Jan. 28 post from the Umm al-Quwain Department of Tourism and Archaeology.

The latest explorations of the ancient settlement — which dates to as early as about 2500 B.C. and was inhabited until about 300 A.D. — found a variety of ruins and artifacts, officials said. Among the most exciting finds were the gold coins, which were a first-of-their-kind for the area.

Here’s what archaeologists found at Tell Abraq.

A treasure-filled pottery jar and a fully preserved building

Archaeologists said one of their most important finds of the excavation was a fully preserved building dating to between the first and second centuries A.D.

The building contained a single square room, and it was associated with several other finds, including the “most astonishing” discovery of the season, Michele Degli Esposti, the excavation’s co-director, said in the video.

Within the building’s ruins, a pottery jar containing Roman coins, local coins and a bronze bracelet were found, Esposti said. The jar may have been a ritualistic offering, and the building could have been a cultic center.

Experts said it’s possible the Roman coins, known as “Uri,” were minted in France and were spread east through the extensive Roman trade network, according to a Jan. 24 post from the department. The gold coins bear depictions of Tiberius, who was the Roman emperor from 14 A.D. until 37 A.D.

Archaeologists discovered Roman coins among other ancient artifacts in the United Arab Emirates, officials said.

The discovery marks a turning point in understanding the ancient site, indicating its important religious role and participation in trade networks.

Several stone statues, bronze figurines and clay figures were also associated with the buildings ruins, according to Esposti.

Additionally, an “outstanding” roughly worn stone with an fragmented inscription engraved on it was found in a rubble heap near the site, he said. Experts are working to translate the inscription, but it could be associated with religious practices.

A ‘remarkable’ metal figurine

Ruins of another ancient building, reduced to just a series of walls, were also discovered beneath years of built up sand, Ammar Albanna, who works for the department, said in the video.

Experts identified two construction phases of the building, according to Albanna. The first phase dates to the Iron Age, about 2,000 years ago. The second construction phase was later, indicated by different building techniques.

Within the ruins, archaeologists found a trove of artifacts.

Among their finds, experts found arrowheads, a knife, bronze coins and a “remarkable” metal figure which parallels finds from other Iron Age sites, Albanna said.

Three new graves from about 4,000 years ago

Archaeologists found three graves, dating to between the seventh century B.C. and the third century B.C.

One of the graves held two iron spears and two stone beads, according to Zoe Ceccato, an archaeologists on the project. Another held remains, including a finger with a ring on it.

Other graves had been found at the site during earlier excavations.

More ancient ruins

The remains of two other structures and a ditch equipped with an “outstanding” retaining wall were also found, archaeologists said in the video.

Within the first structure — a building described as a “unique monument” — experts found remains of a plaster floor and charred seeds, which dated to about the middle of the second millennium B.C.

The building has evidence of several architectural modifications, and archaeologists said the first changes were likely caused by a fire that caused damage shortly after the building’s initial construction.

The second structure dates to the Iron Age, around the first millenium B.C., experts said. Archaeologists uncovered plaster floor and several square-shaped structures that were likely used as bases for pillars or other removable features.

A deep ditch with a mud brick retaining wall was also found. Archaeologists said the bricks were covered with mud mortar and finger grooves left in the structure give insight into building techniques from the time.

The ditch was likely active between the end of the first and second millenia B.C., experts said.

Umm al-Quwain is in the northeastern United Arab Emirates.

Google Translate and Instagram were used to translate Instagram posts from the Umm al-Quwain Department of Tourism and Archaeology.

Mexico's Purepecha Indigenous group

welcomes the New Year with ancient

'New Fire' ceremony

PHOTO ESSAY

EDUARDO VERDUGO

Fri, February 2, 2024

OCUMICHO, Mexico (AP) — Guided by their ancestral lunar calendar, members of Mexico’s Purepecha Indigenous group celebrated their own New Year’s Eve — a little differently than the West’s traditional New Year.

The Purepechas, who live in the western state of Michoacán, preserve the pre-Hispanic belief in the “New Fire” ceremony, a version of which was also practiced by their ancient rivals to the east, the Aztecs.

Because the Purepechas' lunar calendar of 18 months leaves an orphan day that belongs to no month, that day — which this year fell on Thursday — is viewed as a time for both mourning and renewal. That is when a symbolic fire is extinguished. In past generations, no fire was allowed on that day and meals were eaten cold, although the prevalence of gas and electric burners has made that obsolete.

Then at midnight, a new fire is lit and not allowed to go out until the new year.

That ancient ceremony was carried on this week by Antonio Tinoco, 35, who served as the guardian of last year’s New Fire.

For a year, Tinoco tended the symbolic flame in Erongarícuaro, a village on the shore of Pátzcuaro Lake. “You care for it like a child, and you feed it,” he said.

“It is both sad and happy at the same time,” Tinoco said of Thursday's ceremony in which his old flame was celebrated and then extinguished; a new one was lit in its ashes and will be handed on to a new guardian in another town.

“We are closing a cycle. Last year we lit a flame, and yesterday we handed it over, and putting it out signified the end of this cycle, and today a new cycle begins,” Tinoco said.

Each year the guardianship of the fire is passed to a different town, so Tinoco physically carried a portion of last year's fire in a small brazier during a three-day walk over mountain trails to the town of Ocumicho, 50 miles (80 kilometers) to the west.

The metal brazier is suspended on poles between four men. It can be a taxing and risky task.

“It can be tricky, like children are,” Tinoco said. “If you are not careful, it can burn you. Yesterday I felt like it was burning my shirt, so I said to myself ‘it seems like it’s hungry,' so I fed it and it calmed down.”

Ocumicho is where the New Fire ceremony is being held this year. There, a new guardian will be selected to tend it and pass it on Friday.

But first, on Wednesday night, the old fire was celebrated and then extinguished. The women of Ocumicho ascended a small pyramid made of adobe bricks and poured copal incense on the old fire, before it was extinguished.

That spot is where the new fire was finally lit again around midnight.

The ceremony is part of an effort to preserve ancestral customs among the Purépecha, many of whom have to migrate to the United States to earn a living. Many of them have also spent years fighting against mining and illegal logging that target the pine and fir forests of the mountainous region where they live.

Loggers often clear cut trees to plant avocados, a highly lucrative export crop in Michoacán.

Though he acknowledges that Michoacán has its problems, Tinoco says he feels good about carrying on the tradition.

“I feel happy, I feel satisfied with everything that we have achieved,” he said.

____

Mexico Indigenous New Year
Purepechas Indigenous people carry a flame through the mountains, from Erongaricuaro where residents kept the flame alive for one year, to the residents of Ocumicho in Michoacan state, Mexico, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. A new flame will be lit in Ocumicho at the “New Fire” ceremony on Feb. 2 to mark the new year, after extinguishing the old fire on Feb. 1 which is considered an orphan day that belongs to no month and is used for mourning and renewal. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

German domestic spy agency has its former head, now a hard-right politician, under scrutiny

Associated Press
Wed, January 31, 2024

Hans-Georg Maassen, then head of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution waits for the beginning of a hearing at the home affairs committee of the German federal parliament, Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday Sept. 12, 2018. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has put its former head, who has become a hard-right politician since being removed from the job several years ago, under scrutiny. Hans-Georg Maassen posted a letter from the BfV agency to his lawyer on his website Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024, following a report that the authority he led from 2012 to 2018 now has him in its files on right-wing extremism. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, File)More

BERLIN (AP) — Germany's domestic intelligence agency has put its former head, who has become a hard-right politician since being removed from the job several years ago, under scrutiny.

Hans-Georg Maassen posted a letter from the BfV agency to his lawyer on his website Wednesday after public broadcaster ARD and media outlet t-online reported that the authority he led from 2012 to 2018 now has him in its files on right-wing extremism.

The letter, dated Jan. 16, listed information that the BfV has him in its files. The agency refused to comment on the report and the letter, saying that it doesn't comment on individuals because of their rights, German news agency dpa reported.

Maassen was removed as the head of the BfV in 2018 after appearing to downplay far-right violence against migrants in the eastern city of Chemnitz. He became a vocal if marginal figure on the hard right of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, the party once led by former Chancellor Angela Merkel, and ran unsuccessfully for election to the national parliament in 2021.

CDU leaders last year launched an effort to expel Maassen, following a tweet in which he said that the direction of “the driving forces in the political and media sphere” was “eliminatory racism against whites and the burning desire for Germany to kick the bucket.”

In recent weeks, Maassen has set in motion plans to turn an arch-conservative group he leads, the WerteUnion, into a new political party. On Saturday, he tweeted a letter announcing that he was leaving the CDU, currently Germany's main opposition party, which he asserted is now “a variant of the socialist parties and not an alternative to them.”

On Wednesday, Maassen wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the government “is clearly afraid” of him and his prospective new party, and said the letter sent to his lawyer “contains no substantiated evidence that justifies observation.”