At www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/05/2012/layer-by-layer-the-upp... ... a study of ancient stratigraphy in the caves of Mas D'Azil in France has revealed a flood layer - associated with the Arize River. Sand and pebbles were deposited during the last glaciation - with evidence of human activity below and above the intrusive layer. Most of the pre-flood level is attributed to the Aurignacian culture people, around 35,000 years ago.
Archaeology news
Irish catastrophe
The Irish Examiner of May 9th, at www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/6000-year-old-settlement-poses-tsunami-mys... ... is a report on a shell midden in Co Clare (mentioned a couple of weeks ago) which is in the process of being excavated. The shells were collected on the shore and brought to the site and cooked by Mesolithic hunters and gatherers at some point prior to the arrival of Neolithic farmers. A date preceding 6000 years ago is altogether likely but it depends on C14 dating of a black layer of organic material that seems to have covered the midden.
Round-Up of Holes in the Ground
At www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120508094358.htm ... how Europe was repopulated is a bit of DNA analysis from the University of Huddersfield archaeo-genetics department and a paper they published in the American Journal of Human Genetics - but it might be a spot controversial. The findings claim there were refuges for humans during the Late Glacial Maximum, driven south and east by the ice. One of these is well known, Iberia and SW France, and another is in the Ukraine.
Carbon dating problems
At www.nature.com/news/archaeology-date-with-history-1.10573 is a post on problems encountered with C14 dating in the early Holocene and Palaeolithic periods, including a redating of the 'Red Lady of Paviland', discovered by William Buckland in the early 19th century, in South Wales, together with ivory, shell beads, and various ornaments. Tom Higham, an archaeological scientist at Oxford's 'Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit' appears to have ruffled a few feathers and demanded a more consistent treatment of samples.
Bronze Age trade
At www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,518,830958,00.html ... folding chairs, of skilfil construct, have been found in graves from Bronze Age northern Europe. They have striking parallels to Egyptian examples and appear to be local copies made of imported finery. One of the folding chairs was found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.
Stone Boats
At www.livescience.com/19747-stonehenge-ales-stenar-astronomical-calendar.html ... Scandinavians dragged 59 boulders to a cliff top overlooking the Baltic Sea and arranged the megaliths in the outline of a 220 foot long ship. It is known as Ales Stenor (Ale's Stones) and was assembled in the early medieval period - when the Vikings dominated this part of Sweden, towards the end of the Iron Age. It is specifically categorised as a burial monument. Or that is what was thought until a team of researchers with an eye for other factors decided to take a look at the stone boat.
Potentially important portal dolmen found in Pembrokeshire
At www.independent.co.uk/history/secrets-of-the-earliest-britons-could-be-h... ... archaeologists have discovered the remains of an Early Neolithic portal dolmen in a field in Pembrokeshire - together with a linear alignment of stones (a straight line in other words). In addition, and what is expected to be most revealing, the grave has human bone and sherds of decorated pottery. However, the pottery dates to the Late Neolithic, it is being suggested (after 3000BC) but the portal dolmen probably goes back nearly to 4000BC.
Re-writing histories
The Times, (March 31st, 2012) in 'Shining a light on the origins of Islam' is a review of In the Shadow of the Sword, by Tom Holland (Little, Brown:2012) and is an attempt to lift the shroud of mystery surrounding the origins of Islam. Several books on this subject have appeared of late, and this one is less controversial than some of the others. It is assumed that Islam was the spark that caused Arab armies to plunder far and wide, creating an empire from North Africa to Iran and all points in between (Pakistan came somewhat later).
York Minster, St Paul's Cathedral, and other bits and pieces
At www.stuff.co.nz/science/6700701/Ancient-skeleton-linked-to-polynesia ... road construction has come across a burial going back 8000 years on Taiwan and believed to be of direct descent of the people that eventually became the Polynesians.
A geophysical survey on Skomer Island, a former Viking stronghold just off the coast of Pembrokeshire, has revealed the island was settled over thousands of years, from the Neolithic to Roman times - see www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-17644413
Woolly Mammoths
Excellent TV programme this evening, 4th April 2012, on BBC 2, 'Woolly Mammoth:Secrets from the Ice' .... although Alice Roberts bows to the BBC doctrine on CAGW and all that, her books are not so strictly observant of the meme. Not only that, unlike a lot of BBC presenters of all things science, Kate Humble or Grif Rhys Jones for example, she is not a pretty face in front of a camera but a real scientist - and she is not averse to reviewing contrary ideas.