Wildfires are known to have been frequent features of the Australian past – and Aborigines usually get the blame as they have a habit of setting the bush alight in controlled fires to manage the vegetation and flush out wildlife. At http://phys.org/print388293621.html … scientists are hoping to map landscape fires by using dripping water in caves. The idea is to plot a sequence of wild fires on the land above the caves which hopefully will reveal some interesting information about timescales involved.
At https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/neanderthals-in-ge… …. around 45,000 years ago Neanderthals were abundant in numbers across Europe – but shortly afterwards the numbers crashed. Suddenly. However, catastrophism as an explanation is not allowed and therefore the manoeuvring of the scientists is quite amusing in itself. The point is made that the Neanderthals seem to have disappeared suddenly.
An analysis of sites in Europe came to the conclusion Neanderthals were at their maximum numbers between 200,000 and 40,000 years ago. More than 50 per cent of the sites have been dated to the Middle Palaeolithic era but most notably between 60,000 and 43,000 years ago. This is when they peaked – during the warmer conditions prior to the Late Glacial Maximum. However, even during this period Neanderthals show evidence of decline and absence (probably as a result of migration). The point is – they always came back (but not after 43,000 years ago). In the period 110,000 and 70,000 years ago there was only four settlements sites in Europe (known about) but between 70,000 and 43,000 years ago there were 94 sites (so far recorded). It is worth noting conditions were much colder between the end of the last Interglacial period and 60,000 years ago – especially around 70,000 years ago which is associated with a super volcano exploding. This is of course guesswork as any kind of catastrophic event could have occurred – with a volcano as the icing on the cake. This seems to imply the Neanderthals liked fairly warm weather but note the researchers don't jump to this conclusion as 60,000 to 40,000 years ago was in the middle of the last Ice Age. In fact, one might even have a sneaky feeling they are trying to hide the fact the Ice Age did not involve a 100,000 year period of very cool weather. In fact, it might even suggest the idea of lengthy ice ages is pure invention.
Over at www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160719161657.htm … we have a press release from Cornell University in respect of a new article by Sturt Manning and team, 'Integrated Tree Ring Radiocarbon High Resolution Timeframe-to Resolve Earlier Second Millennium BCE Mesopotamian Chronology' in the online journal PLoS ONE 2016:II (7) ie July 2016). Obviously another attempt to fit the 1628-5BC low growth tree ring event to Thera but using a roundabout way to accomplish it – redating the First Dynasty of Babylon. Should be worth getting hold of if you can – as it impinges directly on chronology (and therefore the idea of revising the orthodox scheme).