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Ground Penetrating Radar

13 June 2020
Archaeology

William sent in a link to www.yahoo.com/news/archaeologists-discovered-ancient-city-buried-1956001… … archaeologists have mapped an entire Roman city using ground penetrating radar. The highly detailed images have revealed infrastructure that excavations would have missed. A bath house, theatre, shops and temples can be seen as well as a huge public monument which may related to the religious practices of the locals. Federii Novi is must over 30 miles from Rome.

 

At https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2020/06/tropical-disease-in-… … tropical disease in medieval Europe revises the history of a pathogen related to syphillis. A study in Scientific Reports concerns a genomic analysis on medieval skeletons from a Vilnias in Lithuania. It was a plague burial but one of the skeletons showed a signal of something else – a pathogen of a disease somewhat similar to syphillis. The prevailing opinion is that the first outbreak of syphillis in Europe coincided with Carles VIII's seige of Naples in 1495  when a debilitating disease erupted amongst his soldiers. This occurred shortly aftger Columbus has his ships crews had returned from the Amricas. The researchers went on to show th disease had an origin in a tropical climate and was common to humans and primates. It turns out it arrived in Europe from West Africa – as a result of the slave trade. However, this particular disease, although closely related to syphillis, is not syphillis, so the search is still on. 

At https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2020/06/denisovan-dna-influe… … just as Neanderthal DNA affects that of modern day Europeans and West Asians so does Denisovan DNA impact on people from New Guinea and the Solomon Islands etc. These people appear to have existed across SE Asia and were overwhelmed  by later waves of migration. They still survive in parts of Oceania (or the South Pacific).

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