Archaeologists Unearth 600-Foot Prehistoric Monument During Highway Route Dig

Archaeologists have discovered a massive 600-foot prehistoric monument in the Czech Republic during excavations along the D35 highway route.

Knewz.com has learned that the monument is a prehistoric burial mound dating back to the 4th millennium B.C., making it one of the oldest funerary monuments in Europe.


The burial mound is probably one of the oldest and longest prehistoric monuments in Europe. By: Facebook/Department of Archaeology UHK© Knewz (CA)

Story by Samyarup Chowdhury •

The discovery was made by archaeologists from the University of Hradec Králové, who noted that the dimensions of the burial mound might make it the longest of its kind in Europe as well.

The University wrote in a statement shared on Facebook that the monument is around 623 feet long and nearly 50 feet wide at its widest point.

"[The funerary monument] dates back to the Eneolithic period [also known as the Chalcolithic period], the Funnel-Beaker culture (3800-3350 BC), and it is in this period that burial complexes, of which the mounds are a part, first appear in our territory," the statement mentioned.

"This structure was identified by the discovery of an elongated trapezoidal gutter, curved at the bottom, which is typical for these structures. The length of this gutter, and of the mound in general, is 190 m, making it one of the longest monuments of its kind in the whole of Central Europe."


One of the bodies discovered from the prehistoric burial mound. By: Facebook/Department of Archaeology UHK© Knewz (CA)

Petr Krištuf from the University's Department of Archeology at the Faculty of Arts mentioned the same in a press release, which read (via Newsweek), "The examined specimen represents the longest prehistoric mound not only in our region, but probably in the whole of Europe."

Krištuf added that elongated burial mounds from the Chalcolithic era "are found mainly in Northwestern Bohemia. They have not yet been reliably documented in Eastern Bohemia."

The Chalcolithic era, also known as the Eneolithic period or the Copper Age, spanned from 5000 to 3300 B.C., according to the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, and was characterized by the increasing use of smelted copper.

Per the Journal of Archaeological Science, the earliest evidence of copper smelting was found on the Rudnik mountain in Serbia, dating back to 5000 B.C.

Archaeologists have excavated the entrance to the recently discovered burial mound and found "two central burials," or graves, in the prehistoric structure. The team noted that the size of the funerary monument shows that the ones buried here were likely of high stature.


The second© Knewz (CA)

"The first central burial - a grave with an internal pit construction consisting of gutters on the longer sides and post holes at the corners, the grave offering was a ceramic vessel, the body lying on its left side facing north," read the announcement from the University of Hradec Králové that was published on Facebook.

The second grave was found "without an internal structure," and in this one too, the body was laid on its left side, facing north.

Archaeologists found grave offerings in the second burial as well, including "a collection of five chipped stone artifacts made of SGS glacigenic sediments, commonly known as flint, these are typologically arrowheads and a blade."

Notably, the team found a second pit in this grave, although it is yet unclear whether this was a burial as well.

"Whether it was another grave or not will be revealed by the phosphate analysis carried out, which can identify the presence of human bones by the level of phosphate saturation in the soil," the statement noted.



Human remains discovered at one of the graves near the vicinity of the burial mound. By: Facebook/Department of Archaeology UHK© Knewz (CA)

Aside from the two "central burials," the team found another grave in the burial mound, "with an internal construction, post holes in the corners and gutters." However, the only human remains found in this one are "very poorly preserved" skull fragments.

Krištuf commented on the discovery of multiple graves at this prehistoric monument in the press release, saying, "Similar burial mounds in Central Europe usually consist of only one, maximum two, burials. From this point of view, it will be interesting to see how the discovered graves are related to each other and whether they represent the burials of relatives."


"The significance of the discovery of the long mound… is not only in its size. The first results show that the monumental burial mound stood here for many centuries, and funeral and ritual activities of the local people took place in its vicinity. It was thus an important ritual place and landmark in the landscape at that time," he added, per Newsweek.

Notably, the team also found 27 other graves in the vicinity of the burial mound which are believed to date back to the same period, although "the exact dating will only be possible after the findings have been analyzed in the laboratory," the statement on Facebook read.

New plant discoveries could lead to climate-proof chocolate

By

 Knowridge

 -

July 8, 2024

Theobroma globosum. Credit: Kew Bulletin (2024).

Scientists have discovered three new plant species that are closely related to the tree from which chocolate is made.

This exciting find could lead to the development of “climate-proof” chocolate.

The research has been published in the journal Kew Bulletin.

The new species were found in the rainforests of South America and are close relatives of Theobroma cacao, the tree that produces cocoa beans.

These beans are crucial for making chocolate and other products.

The discovery was made by a team of scientists from University College Cork (UCC), the University of São Paulo, and the New York Botanical Garden.

Dr. James Richardson, a member of UCC’s School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences (BEES) and the Environmental Research Institute, explained the significance of their find.

“These new species were discovered by studying specimens in herbaria. This shows the importance of maintaining natural history collections, as many more species remain to be discovered.

The team found three new species within the section Herrania: T. globosum, T. nervosum, and T. schultesii. These plants are closely related to Theobroma cacao, which is vital for chocolate production. Dr. Richardson emphasized that their discovery highlights how much more work is needed to catalog Earth’s vast biodiversity.

The discovery of these new species could lead to the development of more climate-resilient cacao trees. This would help sustain the production of chocolate and other cacao-based products. “Cacao prices have tripled recently due to low production caused by a prolonged drought in West Africa, the largest cacao-producing region,” Dr. Richardson said.

“Finding new species expands the genetic resources available to us. This might allow us to produce drought-tolerant or disease-resistant cacao trees.”

The team conducted detailed examinations of the leaves, flowers, and fruits of these new species. They collaborated with multiple botanical institutions to achieve their discovery. This research underscores the importance of studying and preserving plant specimens, as many unknown species are still waiting to be found.

In summary, the discovery of these three new plant species could have a significant impact on the future of chocolate production.

By potentially developing more resilient cacao trees, we can help ensure a stable supply of chocolate despite changing climate conditions. This find also highlights the vast amount of undiscovered biodiversity on our planet and the importance of continued research in this field.

How dinosaur extinction helped grapes thrive: ancient seeds tell the story

By Field Museum
-July 7, 2024

Lithouva - the earliest fossil grape from the Western Hemisphere, ~60 million years old from Colombia. Top figure shows fossil accompanied with CT scan reconstruction. Bottom shows artist reconstruction. Credit: Fabiany Herrera, art by Pollyanna von Knorring.


If you’ve ever enjoyed a glass of wine or a handful of raisins, you might owe a thanks to the dinosaurs’ extinction.

Researchers have discovered ancient grape seeds that shed light on how grapes spread after the dinosaurs died out.

This fascinating study, published in Nature Plants, shows how the death of the dinosaurs may have paved the way for grapes to flourish.

Scientists found fossilized grape seeds in Colombia, Panama, and Peru, dating from 60 to 19 million years ago.

These are some of the oldest grape seeds ever found in the Western Hemisphere.

“These are the oldest grapes ever found in this part of the world, and they’re just a few million years younger than the oldest ones found elsewhere,” says Fabiany Herrera, the lead author of the study and an assistant curator at the Field Museum in Chicago.

“This discovery shows that grapes began to spread across the world after the dinosaurs went extinct.”

It’s rare for soft tissues like fruits to be preserved as fossils, so scientists usually study seeds, which fossilize more easily. The oldest known grape seed fossils were found in India and are about 66 million years old.

This timing is significant because it’s around when a massive asteroid hit Earth, causing a major extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs and dramatically changed life on the planet.

“We often think about the dinosaurs, but this extinction event had a huge impact on plants too,” says Herrera. “The forests reset themselves, changing the types of plants that grew there.”

Herrera and his colleagues believe that the extinction of the dinosaurs helped reshape forests. “Large dinosaurs likely kept forests more open by knocking down trees,” says Mónica Carvalho, a co-author of the study. “Without the dinosaurs, forests became denser with more layers of trees.”

These new, dense forests created opportunities for plants like grapes. “In the fossil record, we start to see more plants that use vines to climb trees, like grapes, around this time,” says Herrera. The diversification of birds and mammals after the extinction may have also helped grapes by spreading their seeds.

In 2013, Herrera’s Ph.D. advisor, Steven Manchester, described the oldest known grape seed fossil from India. While no fossil grapes had been found in South America, Herrera suspected they existed. His persistence paid off in 2022, when he and Carvalho were conducting fieldwork in the Colombian Andes.

Carvalho spotted a fossil and exclaimed, “Fabiany, a grape!” The fossil, found in a 60-million-year-old rock, was the first South American grape fossil and one of the oldest in the world.

The tiny fossil seed was identified based on its shape, size, and other features. CT scans confirmed its identity. The team named the fossil Lithouva susmanii, or “Susman’s stone grape,” honoring Arthur T. Susman, a supporter of South American paleobotany.

Further fieldwork in South and Central America led to the discovery of nine new species of fossil grapes. These fossils, ranging from 60 to 19 million years old, tell the story of grapes spreading across the Western Hemisphere and enduring many extinctions and changes.

“The fossil record shows that grapes are a resilient group,” says Herrera. “They’ve suffered a lot of extinction in Central and South America but have adapted and survived elsewhere.”

Given today’s biodiversity crisis, studies like this are valuable for understanding how species adapt to major changes. “These little, humble seeds can tell us so much about the evolution of forests,” says Herrera.

High ceilings can harm exam scores: Here’s why

By

 Knowridge

 -

July 7, 2024

Graphical abstract. Credit: Journal of Environmental Psychology (2024).

Ever wondered why you didn’t do as well as you hoped in that final university exam, despite all your hard work?

If you sat in a huge gymnasium or massive hall, you might have a real reason—high ceilings.

Research from the University of South Australia and Deakin University shows a link between rooms with high ceilings and poorer exam results.

The study, led by Dr. Isabella Bower from the University of South Australia and Associate Professor Jaclyn Broadbent from Deakin University, was published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology.

It reveals that the design of a building affects our ability to perform tasks.

Dr. Bower and her team looked at data from 15,400 undergraduate students between 2011 and 2019 at three campuses of an Australian university. They compared students’ exam results with the ceiling heights of the rooms where the exams were held.

After considering differences between individual students and their previous coursework performance, they found that students scored lower than expected when they took exams in rooms with high ceilings.

The researchers also considered factors like the students’ age, sex, the time of year they took the exam, and whether they had previous exam experience in the courses.

Dr. Bower explains that it’s hard to tell if the lower scores are due to the room’s size or other factors like student density or poor insulation, which can affect temperature and air quality. These elements can impact both the brain and body.

“These spaces are often designed for things other than exams, like gymnasiums, exhibitions, events, and performances,” Dr. Bower says.

“The important point is that large rooms with high ceilings seem to put students at a disadvantage. We need to understand what brain mechanisms are involved and whether this affects all students equally.”

Dr. Bower’s findings are supported by experiments she conducted using virtual reality (VR). In these experiments, she measured brain activity of participants exposed to different room sizes, while controlling for factors like temperature, lighting, and noise.

Using a technique called electroencephalography (EEG), where electrodes are attached to the scalp to measure brain cell communication, her team changed the room sizes and recorded the brain’s response. They also measured heart rate, breathing, and perspiration to see if someone could unconsciously detect a change in the environment.

The VR experiments showed that just sitting in a bigger room caused brain activity linked to focusing on a difficult task. This made them wonder if task performance in large spaces is reduced.

“Based on these results, we wanted to see if being in a large space like a gymnasium while focusing on an important task would result in poorer performance,” Dr. Bower says.

“Exams have been a key part of our education system for over 1,300 years, shaping students’ career paths and lives,” says Assoc Prof Jaclyn Broadbent.

“In Australia, many universities and schools use large indoor spaces for exams to save on logistics and costs. It’s crucial to recognize the potential impact of the physical environment on student performance and make necessary adjustments to ensure all students have an equal opportunity to succeed,” she says.

“These findings will help us better design the buildings where we live and work, so we can perform to the best of our ability.”

Dr. Bower has recently returned from Zurich, where she was the first Australian to receive a NOMIS and  Science Young Explorer Award for her ongoing research into how building design affects brain function and mental health.

Indicators to complement global monitoring of safely managed on-site sanitation to understand health risks

• Freya Mills, 
• Tim Foster, 
• Antoinette Kome, 
• Rajeev Munankami, 
• Gabrielle Halcrow, 
• Antony Ndungu, 
• Barbara Evans & 
• Juliet Willetts 

Clean Water volume 7, Article number: 58 (2024) 

• Article
• Open access
• Published: 07 July 2024

• 
  details

Abstract

Halfway through the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) period, there has been little research on the criteria for monitoring safely managed sanitation under SDG target 6.2. For reporting against SDGs, global indicators are necessarily limited and exclude many safety aspects from a public health perspective. Primary survey data from 31,784 households in seven countries in Asia and Africa were analysed, comparing estimates of safely managed on-site sanitation based on global indicators with five complementary indicators of safety: animal access to excreta, groundwater contamination, overdue emptying, entering containments to empty and inadequate protection during emptying. Application of additional criteria reduced the population with safely managed sanitation by 0.4–35% for specific indicators, with the largest impact due to the risk of groundwater contamination, animal access, and containments overdue for emptying. Combining these indicators across the service chain, excluding transport and treatment, found almost three-quarters of on-site systems currently assessed as safely managed with global indicators were considered unsafe based on complementary indicators. A more comprehensive assessment of safety of on-site sanitation can be achieved through these indicators, which could be integrated into national monitoring systems and used to inform sanitation investments that address local health-related risks.

Introduction

Inadequate sanitation is associated with numerous and varied health risks1. There are multiple sources of faecal environmental contamination from inadequate sanitation systems and multiple pathways for exposure2,3. The presence of a toilet is therefore an insufficient measure to indicate whether positive health outcomes are likely to be achieved by sanitation improvements4, hence numerous authors critiqued the Millennium Development Goal target, expressed solely in terms of access to toilets5,6,7,8. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 6.2 of safely managed sanitation services aims to address these limitations by considering the management of excreta from the toilet to final treatment and disposal9. The Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) led the development of global indicators and standardised core questions to enable consistent and practical classification of sanitation services for national and global monitoring (see Table 3)10. However, these indicators do not cover all aspects of safety, such as those outlined in WHO guidelines on sanitation and health1. The guidelines suggest countries agreeing to the SDG framework should routinely monitor and report on the global indicators, as a minimum, and suggest these are complemented by more nuanced and contextual regional and national indicators. The JMP proposed some expanded indicators, but these focus on expanded definitions of toilet access, for example, privacy of toilet use, and include limited expanded indicators related to the safe management of containments, emptying, conveyance and disposal10. Safely managed sanitation as defined for global monitoring, while a significant improvement in monitoring access to improved toilets, should not be assumed to indicate a service level that protects against many key faecal transmission pathways. Since what doesn’t get measured doesn’t get managed11,12, relying on global indicators to prioritise investment may result in sanitation improvements that do not address critical health risks.

Despite debate and research on other aspects of SDG 6.2, there has been little assessment of the indicators for safely managed sanitation services nor exploration of the complementary indicators that could address the gaps. Numerous publications have critiqued and suggested improvements to the classification of shared toilets as limited sanitation13, the monitoring of progress of lower service levels14, the means of implementation targets15,16, and explored alternatives for monitoring safely managed water services17. However, there has been little discussion on the formation and scope of the indicators for safely managed sanitation services, and even uncertainty about how services will be measured as safely managed16. The opinion piece by Rose et al. defined safe sanitation through a communal social lens as based on the ‘social construct that lies at the intersection of knowledge, societal engagement, and controls’18. Rose’s paper highlighted the role of the community in monitoring but did not review the indicators for safely managed sanitation or propose alternative indicators relevant to their definition18. Beard et al. highlighted the challenges to assessing on-site systems and the need for revised categories for improved sanitation facilities, yet they did not review indicators related to safe management across the service chain19. One paper proposed complementary indicators for safely managed sanitation services for national monitoring in Austria20. This provided valuable insights for high-income contexts with predominately sewerage services, yet was less applicable for low- and middle-income countries with predominantly on-site sanitation.

National and subnational decision-makers should not rely on global monitoring alone to inform investment. Globally defined indicators for water and sanitation may not adequately capture the national realities and challenges faced by individual countries or best suit the needs of individual countries to assess progress towards national goals20,21. Beard et al. argued that for urban sanitation, global monitoring efforts do not provide a clear picture of the challenge of managing excreta at the city scale and that the current indicators have a limited ability to inform policy and action19. This paper does not intend to critique the objective and approach of the SDGs or indicators used for global monitoring but to highlight that these indicators are an initial approach to define a ‘safely managed sanitation service’. Indeed, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recommends that global indicators be complemented by indicators at the regional and national levels, which will be developed by Member States22. The Guidelines on Sanitation and Health also suggest more indicators are needed at the utility and sub-national levels to inform local programmes and actions1. Although the number of countries able to report against safely managed sanitation has increased, significant data gaps remain, particularly regarding on-site sanitation23, making it an opportune time to inform the scope and approach to monitoring sanitation.

Beyond those currently assessed by the global indicators, there are a range of additional exposure pathways associated with inadequate sanitation systems and their management. Animal access to uncovered or inadequately protected faeces can transmit excreta and pathogens to people, surfaces and food, especially in dense settings or places where animals and humans are in close proximity24,25,26. Inadequate subsoil treatment of leachate from unsealed on-site sanitation can contaminate groundwater supplies used for drinking water, with contamination risk influenced by toilet and containment type, soil type, groundwater level and proximity to wells27. Poor operation and management of sanitation can also increase exposure to faecal pathogens. Infrequent emptying of on-site sanitation is associated with an increased likelihood of overflowing, malfunction or reduced performance2. Infrequent emptying can also lead to unsafe emptying practices, such as entering the pit to remove hardened sludge or informal emptying practices such as wash out, putting both the workers and public at risk of exposure2,28. The health risks sanitation workers face during emptying have been increasingly recognised, including direct exposure to faecal pathogens and risks from working in confined spaces29,30.

While environmental sampling and detailed health exposure studies and models have improved our understanding of health risks, household surveys can assess potential exposure pathways at a larger scale and lower cost. Several tools, models and detailed research studies have developed methods to investigate critical faecal exposure pathways25,31,32,33. While they have been valuable in demonstrating the high concentration of pathogens in the environment and need to consider multiple exposure pathways, they typically require high skills or equipment and can be difficult to conduct at scale. Household questionnaires, while limited in simple questions and self-reporting, benefit from capturing sanitation data at scale for a relatively low cost when included in broader surveys. Assessment of indicators of pathogen exposure pathways cannot ensure that a system provides 100% protection against human contact with excreta; however, it can point to common failures in sanitation systems that increase the risk of exposure to prioritise improvements or further in-depth investigation. There remains an opportunity to expand household monitoring to better assess and prioritise potential exposure pathways at a larger scale than the field-based exposure assessments.

Recognising that global monitoring is necessarily limited for simplicity and comparability, this paper proposes complementary indicators that could be incorporated into household monitoring to provide a more comprehensive assessment of on-site sanitation focusing on faecal exposure pathways. While research on other aspects of SDG 6.2 led to debate and refinement of indicators (e.g., shared sanitation) for the assessment of safely managed services, as noted above, previous research identified the need for complementary indicators yet did not suggest potential indicators relevant to areas with predominately on-site sanitation, such as is common in low- and middle-income countries. SNV, an international non-government organisation, conducted baseline monitoring between 2018–2019 in 34 urban and rural districts across seven countries to inform and monitor progress of their sanitation programmes. Trained enumerators conducted surveys of 31,784 households, which included global core questions and supplementary questions related to additional exposure pathways as well as qualitative assessments of service provision. The data from health-related household questions were assessed to compare five complementary indicators with the equivalent global sub-indicators for improved, contained and emptied on-site sanitation. This research evaluated the extent to which consideration of critical exposure pathways reduced the proportion of systems classified as safely managed on-site sanitation and analysed the contexts or conditions in which different indicators may be more or less important. This research aims to address the gap in tested complementary indicators relevant to on-site sanitation that could be incorporated into sanitation monitoring systems. The research is timely as national WASH monitoring frameworks continue to be updated to improve reporting against the SDGs, and these relevant complementary indicators to enhance understanding of local health risks and inform sanitation investments.

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