Ancient History

Archived link of the article

April 2023

According to recent archaeological findings published in the journal ‘Science Advances’, up to half the women in the Americas were big-game hunters. “An archaeological discovery and analysis of early burial practices overturns the long-held ‘man-the-hunter’ hypothesis,” lead author Randy Haas, assistant professor of anthropology at University of California, Davis, commented in a news release by the same institution.

To determine whether the discovery was an exception, Prof. Haas examined 429 skeletons spread across 107 other burial sites in North and South America from around 8 000 to 14 000 years ago. Of the 27 individuals buried with hunting tools, 11 were women. The study estimates that somewhere between 30 % to 50 % of hunters were women during that time.

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2 centuries ago this ancient fabric was 26x more expensive than silk. It was worn by the Mughal Emperors, the Romans, Marie Antoinette and even Jane Austen wrote about it.

For the last 200 years, no one has been able to make this fabric.

Invidious link

It's time to discard some common misconceptions and rethink our perspective on human history, so that we can truly reckon with the scope of our political possibilities.

• Optimum Inequality - 3:10
• Agriculture and the "Inevitable" - 7:38
• The Wealth of Evidence - 14:20
• Rethinking Human History - 23:53
• Outro - 30:52

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Researchers pinpoint the mycelial source of museum artifacts

Biofabrication companies are increasingly excited about the prospect of using fungi to produce sturdy, sustainable alternatives to plastic and leather. But a new finding suggests that Indigenous Americans were already making “mycotextiles” at least a century ago. The study, published in Mycologia, confirmed the fungal origin of two wall pockets crafted by a Tlingit woman in Alaska in 1903. Some historical mycotextile use has also been reported in Europe, but “that I know of, this is the first documentation of the use of this material anywhere in North America,” says Nancy Turner, an ethnobotanist at the University of Victoria, who was not involved in the study.

Today, under-floor heating is done with electrical systems or pipes of hot water worked in a pattern under (you guessed it) the floor of the home.

Since hot air rises, this can provide a more efficient and even heat through out the room.

It is a more “gentle” heat, so most people use smart thermostats, and occasionally pair it with a secondary heat (for cold climates), such as a heat pump.

An Ondal is the historic Korean technology which used the smoke from a fire to do the same thing.

(Image Source)

While it may sound immediately dangerous, they were actually careful to cover the under parts of the house with clay and other types of fire-resistant material. As an added benefit, smoke can prevent mold/rot, and deter insects.

This technology dates back to before circa 5000 BC.

Comparatively, this same method is also how bath houses were heated. While the ones in medieval Europe did have a reputation of burning down, some ancient Roman’s had more luck.

Called the “Hypocaust” system, which apparently means “heat from bellow,” and they did just that.

(Image Link)

Under floor heating even goes back further than these examples.

It is funny how often “new” technology is often just updated historic ideas.

Link to research article (open access)

Snippet: “"It was extremely exciting to be able to count the chromosomes of an extinct creature for the first time. It's usually not possible to have this much fun simply counting from one to 28."

By examining the fossil chromosomes, which derived from the mammoth's skin, it was possible to see which genes were active. This is because of a phenomenon called chromosome compartmentalization—the fact that active and inactive DNA tends to segregate into two spatial neighborhoods inside the cell nucleus. For most genes, the activity state matches what researchers saw in modern elephant skin. But not always.

"The obvious question for us was: why is it a 'woolly mammoth?' Why isn't it a 'shockingly bald mammoth?'" said Dr. Thomas Gilbert, director of the Center for Hologenomics and co-corresponding author of the paper.

"The fact that the compartmentalization was still preserved in these fossils was critical, because it made it possible to look, for the very first time, at which genes were active in a woolly mammoth. And it turns out that there are key genes that regulate hair follicle development whose activity pattern is totally different than in elephants."

Researchers learned much but they were left with a puzzle: how could the DNA fragments of ancient chromosomes possibly survive for 52,000 years with their three-dimensional structure intact? After all, in 1905—his 'annus mirabilis,' or 'miracle year'—Albert Einstein published a classic paper calculating how quickly small particles, like bits of DNA, tend to move through a substance.

"Einstein's work makes a very simple prediction about chromosome fossils: under ordinary circumstances, they shouldn't exist," Dudchenko said. "And yet: here they are. It was a physics mystery."

To explain this apparent contradiction, the researchers realized that the chromosome fossils were in a very special state, closely resembling the state of molecules in glass. "Chromoglass is a lot like the glass in your window: it's rigid, but it's not an ordered crystal," said Dr. Erez Lieberman Aiden, co-corresponding author of the study, director of the Center for Genome Architecture and professor at the Baylor College of Medicine.“

Abstract

This talk describes the fascinating and important early town of Çatalhöyük in central Turkey. The site is important because of its large size and elaborate symbolism, including wall art and burials beneath the floors of houses. The speaker has been excavating at the site for 25 years using the latest scientific techniques. A very large team has been piecing together the detailed evidence of the site in order to understand how the society was organized, how it lasted so long, and what its rich symbolism means.

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Louis Armand de Lom d’Arce, baron de Lahontan (1666-1716) was a French aristocrat and soldier who spent several years traveling in the colony New France (Canada). He had frequent contacts with the indigenous peoples of the region and in 1703 published his account of his experiences, New Voyages to North America. The second volume featured a series of dialogues between Lahontan and Kondiaronk (c. 1649-1701, called “Adario” in the book), a Huron political leader, in which they two men discussed their views of their respective societies. Kondiaronk is portrayed as having visited France and as being sharply critical of the society which he observed there. While there is no other evidence that Kondiaronk ever traveled to Europe or expressed the precise opinions described by Lahontan, he had reputation as for intelligence and eloquence, and we know that several other indigenous people did cross the Atlantic during this era.

Vedic tradition inspirations found in Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome

Despite a common popular image of prehistoric Native peoples of the Southeast clad only in sewn leather, including footwear, the majority of archeologically recovered shoes were made using woven plant fiber; specifically, the leaves of a plant known as “rattlesnake master” (Eryngium yuccifolium).

https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-evolution-human-origins-ancient-places-asia/jabal-kaf-addor-rock-shelter-0021004