A motley collection. At https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/lasers-reveal-prehistoric-irish-monuments-that-may-have-been-pathways-for-the-dead … LiDAR technology has really revolutionised archaeogy. They can, for example, peer into woodland and map the ground on which the trees are growing – as if they weren’t there. In this instance, they have peered through generations of ploughing and detected a hidden landscape. It was rich in prehistoric monuments and serves to show what humans were up to in an otherwise lean archaeological period in Co Wicklow. LiDAR technology produced three dimensional models of the landscape – peppered with structures. They included five cursus monuments – one of them very long. Longer than any found in Britain or Ireland beforehand.
At https://phys.org/news/2024-04-scientists-ancient-village-drought-seas.html … which concerns the 6200BC event – when sea levels changed in different ways around the globe. In this instance, the target is a drowned village near Carmel, in the eastern Mediterranean. It is known as the 8.2 ka year event, we are told, and in the aftermath there was a serious drought in the Near and Middle East. However, it seems the village in question continued in existence and people adapted to the changing situation. It was therefore drowned at a later point, it would seem, but may have found itself on the seashore whereas previously it was inland. Hence, the switch in lifestyle.
At https://phys.org/news/2024-04-archaeology-team-year-settlement-serbia.html … we have the discovery of a Vinca culture settlement in Serbia, dated around 7000 years ago. This follows the 8.2 ka year event and migration out of what is now Turkey into the Balkans, by farming communities. It was between eleven and thirteen hectares in size and surrounded by 4 to 6 ditches.
At https://phys.org/news/2024-05-dating-liujiang-skeleton-renews-human.html … in this one we are in China. Revised dating of the Liujiang skeleton renews understanding of humans in eastern Asia. It was found in a cave in what is now southern China, and is classed as homo sapiens. The new date puts the modern human during the Late Glacial Maximum – between 33,000 and 23,000 years ago. Previously, it had been loosely dated around 227,000 years ago – presumably by the sediments in which it was unearthed. The revised dates align with dates of other modern humans found in northern China, suggesting a geographically widespread presence of Homo sapiens across eastern Asia after 40,000 years ago, we are told. In other words, after the Laschamp Event and the disappearance of Neanderthals and Denisovans. It ties in perfectly with Homo sapiens in Europe – at the same point in time. What is this telling us?