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Ancient spines threaded onto sticks found in Peru

The strange burial practice was discovered in the Chincha Valley on the Pacific Coast of Peru.

Researchers working in Peru have unearthed 192 human spines that were ceremonially threaded onto posts made of reeds 500 years ago. The discovery, published in the journal Antiquity, highlights an Andean burial tradition that has only been found in this specific area of Western Peru, which is known as the Chincha Valley.

Teams of archeologists excavated 20 sites around the region, and found the spines in elaborate graves known as chullpas. The fact that these ‘vertebrae-on-posts’ were discovered at multiple sites may suggest this was a common and well-known practice, they say.

It is thought that the spines were reconstructed and held-together with reeds many years after death, possibly due to the graves being looted and damaged by European settlers. The dead being buried intact was an important part of the culture of the Chincha people, so their reconstruction and reinterment would have been highly significant.

This coastal region was once the heartland of the Chincha Kingdom, but between 1533 and 1583 its population declined massively due to epidemics, famines and the arrival of foreign invaders.

FULL REPORT

 

 

Edited February 6, 2022 by CaaC (John)

[Tommy]

Not sure if this is the right topic for it, but I thought this was rather fascinating. Once every 1300 years.  

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https://news.sky.com/story/most-extreme-rogue-wave-on-record-confirmed-in-north-pacific-ocean-12541824

 

Most extreme 'rogue wave' on record confirmed in North Pacific Ocean
The November 2020 "killer wave" was so extreme, such an event is believed to only happen once every 1,300 years.

The most extreme "rogue wave" on record has just been confirmed in the North Pacific Ocean.

In November 2020, a freak wave lifted a single buoy off the coast of British Columbia 17.6 meters high (58ft) and the four-storey wall of water has now been confirmed as the most extreme ever recorded.

Such an event is believed to only happen once every 1,300 years.
However, a recent study predicts wave heights in the North Pacific will only increase with climate change - meaning the 2020 wave may not hold the record for long.

For centuries, "rogue waves" were considered nothing more than nautical folklore, but in 1995, on the first day of January, a 26-meter high wave (85ft) struck an oil drilling platform off the coast of Norway.

At the time, the so-called Draupner wave defied all previous scientific models.

Since then, a dozen rogue waves have been recorded, some even in lakes. Their tendency to occur unexpectedly and with huge force makes them especially dangerous.
While the one that surfaced in November 2020 was not the tallest, its relative size compared to the waves around it was unprecedented.

A rogue wave is defined as one that is more than twice the height of the waves around it.

The Draupner wave was 25.6 meters tall - compared to neighbouring waves which were only 12 meters tall.

Meanwhile, the Ucluelet wave was nearly three times the size of its surroundings.

"Proportionally, the Ucluelet wave is likely the most extreme rogue wave ever recorded," Said Dr Johannes Gemmrich, of the University of Victoria.

"Only a few rogue waves in high sea states have been observed directly, and nothing of this magnitude. The probability of such an event occurring is once in 1,300 years."

"The unpredictability of rogue waves, and the sheer power of these 'walls of water' can make them incredibly dangerous to marine operations and the public," added MarineLabs CEO, Dr Scott Beatty.

"The potential of predicting rogue waves remains an open question, but our data is helping to better understand when, where and how rogue waves form, and the risks that they pose."

 

 

 

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Giant ancient stone jars have been found by archaeologists working in the lush, hilly forests of Assam in India, and they may have been used for burial rituals by an ancient and vanished people.

The 65 newly discovered sandstone jars – some tall and cylindrical, others partly or fully buried in the ground – came as a surprise to the researchers, who initially set out to survey existing, well-known sites.

“We still don’t know who made the giant jars or where they lived. It’s all a bit of a mystery,” says ANU PhD student Nicholas Skopal, co-author of a study about the findings.

Even more exciting, Skopal notes, “the team only searched a very limited area so there are likely to be a lot more out there – we just don’t yet know where they are.” 

The research was led by Tilok Thakuria from North Eastern Hill University and Uttam Bathari from Gauhati University, India.

The jars, some spanning up to three metres high and two metres wide, are similar to other jars which have been uncovered in other parts of South Asia, including Laos and Indonesia.

Skopal notes that the researchers don’t know exactly what the jars are used for, but by tracing histories passed down through the generations they have some clues.

“There are stories from the Naga people, the current ethnic groups in north-east India, of finding the Assam jars filled with cremated remains, beads and other material artefacts,” Skopal says.

The burial theory aligns with findings from jar sites in Laos, which showed evidence of mortuary remains.

Giant ancient stone jars – who made them?

According to Skopal, the people who made the jars don’t seem to be associated with any living groups or cultures in India, so they’re some of the last fingerprints of a disappeared people. 

“Which means there is an importance to maintain the cultural heritage,” Skopal says.  “The longer we take to find them, the greater chance that they will be destroyed, as more crops are planted in these areas and the forests are cut down.”   

The researchers worked with local communities to uncover potential jar sites, often through areas of mountainous jungle that were difficult to navigate.  

“Once the sites have been recorded, it becomes easier for the government to work with the local communities to protect and maintain them so they are not being destroyed,” Skopal says.  

https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/giant-ancient-stone-jars-india/

 

 

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New discovery sheds light on the peopling of the Pacific

An epic migration story is revealed through a piece of pottery.

Scientists think they may have found the smoking gun that explains why humans colonised the thousands of scattered islands of the South Pacific – and it lies in a sherd of pottery found hidden on a small island in Papua New Guinea (PNG).

The peopling of the Pacific islands is one of humanity’s most epic migration stories. In just three millennia, an ancestral cultural group called the Lapita spanned a third of the Earth’s surface, reaching some of the most isolated landmasses on the planet.

As they moved, these ancestral Pacific Islanders are thought to have brought with them Austronesian languages, new domestic animals species like pigs, dogs and chickens, and a distinctive kind of pottery.

“For a long time it was thought Lapita groups avoided most of Papua New Guinea because people were already living there,” says Ben Shaw, lead researcher of the new study published today in Nature Ecology and Evolution. But, as this new research shows, that wasn’t always the case.

Brooker Island is a small finger of land that juts out into the sea near the southern tip of PNG, an early step in the chain of islands that makes up the South Pacific. 

The Gutunka archaeological site nestles in a north-facing bay at the edge of an epic lagoon on the island that is, according to researchers, one of the most biodiverse marine ecosystems in the world.

Painstakingly excavated in 2018 and 2019, the earliest layers of the site contained the bones of a menagerie of introduced species, including pigs and dogs, and rats. As described in a new study in Nature Ecology and Evolution, later layers revealed a rich complex of pottery and tools unique to the Lapita culture, including foreign-source obsidian, blades consistent with tattooing, and the distinctive pots. 

The researchers believe the Lapita people may have initially arrived as sporadic, occasional visitors, before establishing a more permanent base in the bay, as evidenced by more complex material culture and the more intensive harvesting of sea turtles for food. 

“Lapita cultural groups were the first people to reach the remote Pacific islands such as Vanuatu around 3,000 years ago,” says Shaw. “But in Papua New Guinea, where people have lived for at least 50,000 years, the timing and extent of Lapita dispersals are poorly understood.”

Shaw says the new discovery explains why the Lapita people colonised the Pacific islands 3,000 years ago: he suggests that contact with Indigenous people on PNG may have influenced migration pathways and led to island-hopping, as populations met, interacted and possibly butted heads.

“It is one of the greatest migrations in human history and finally we have evidence to help explain why the migration might have occurred and why it took place when it did,” he says.

The discovery, Shaw says, was a massive stroke of luck.

“We had no indication this would be a site of significance, and a lot of the time we were flying blind with the areas we surveyed, so it is very much like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.”

But Shaw notes cooperation with local populations was key to the discovery, which is why the Brooker Island community is listed as a senior author on the paper.

“A lot of our good fortune was because of the cultural knowledge, and we built a strong relationship with the locals based on honesty and transparency about our research on their traditional lands,” he says. “Without their express permission, this kind of work would simply not be possible.”

https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/archaeology/pacific-islands-migration-new-discovery-png/

 

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New species of tiny frog

Six new species of tiny frogs from Mexico

Scientists have identified six new species of frog the size of a thumbnail from the forests of Mexico, with one earning the distinction of Mexico’s smallest frog.

All six species are smaller than an Australian five cent coin, around only 15mm long when fully grown, according to a new study published in Herpetological Monographs.

The newly discovered species are known as ‘direct-developing’ frogs: rather than hatching from eggs into tadpoles like most frogs, they emerge from the eggs as perfect miniature frogs.

Researchers studied 500 frog specimens that had originally been collected in Mexico but were gathered from museums around the world.

They used DNA sequencing to sort the frogs into groups based on how similar their genes were, then CT-scans were used to create 3D models of the frogs’ skeletons, so that physical details could be compared.

The six new species are all from the same genus Craugastor.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/biology/tiny-frog-hibernation-exocomet/

 

 

Edited May 4, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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Mystery solved as strange fish-like fossil finally identified

Scans of the 390 million-year-old creature’s fossil shows it may have been closely related to the first four-limbed vertebrates.

All four-limbed vertebrates, including humans, are descended from the first organisms which transitioned from Earth’s ancient oceans to land. New research on a 390 million-year-old fish-like creature which has puzzled palaeontologists for 130 years might finally answer the question of where it fits in the evolutionary tree, and how it relates to the evolution of four-limbed animals.

Palaeospondylus gunni was a 5cm-long fish-like creature with a body similar to an eel. In a study published in Nature, an international team used powerful X-ray technology to scan the animal’s fossilised skull – squashed under nearly 400 million years worth of sediment. The team argues their results provide evidence to suggest Palaeospondylus was closely related to the animals which eventually left Earth’s early oceans to become the first land-dwelling vertebrates.

Dr Yuhzi (Daisy) Hu, co-author of the paper while she was at the Australian National University, spoke with Cosmos. Despite Palaeospondylus fossils being quite abundant, she says the creature’s small size and poor quality of its fossils have made it quite difficult to study. “Placing this specimen in the evolutionary tree has been quite difficult after the discovery of the first one in 1890. So, it is a question that hasn’t been answered in over 100 years.”

Hu helps paint a picture of what the world looked like when Palaeospondylus was alive.

Palaeospondylus lived in a period of geological time known as the Devonian, often referred to as the “Age of Fishes”. The Devonian saw the appearance of the first vascular plants, increased diversity and complexity of marine life, and mass extinction events that saw the demise of brachiopods, trilobites and conodonts.

The late Devonian was hot and humid. Towering above the land were forests made up not of trees, but giant mosses. The first roots, leaves and seeds began evolving toward the end of the period. On the forest floor, arthropods dominated the land.

Shallow water reefs of rugose corals and encrusting red algae were abuzz with life. A time known as the “Devonian explosion” saw a rapid diversification of vertebrate marine life. Jawless and armoured fish, known as placoderms, are common. The first jawed fish also appear. “We also have the rise of the first sarcopterygians, lobe-finned fish, which eventually produced the first tetrapods just before the end of the Devonian,” Hu adds.

In the Palaeospondylus scans, Hu says they found three semicircular canals, which indicate the inner ear morphology of jawed vertebrates. “This resolves an issue which previous studies were not able to identify.”

Previous studies suggested that the animal was related to primitive jawless vertebrates. But the key cranial features observed in the new study suggests that Palaeospondylus beplaced into the tetrapodomorpha – four-limbed animals. “So, it was more closely related to limbed tetrapods than to many other known tetrapod morphs that still retained fins,” says Hu.

Unlike tetrapodomorphs in general, teeth, dermal bones and paired appendages have never been associated with Palaeospondylus. These features are readily found in fossils of other animals that lived around the same time and place. “Whether these features were evolutionarily lost or whether normal development froze halfway in fossils might never be known,” says the paper’s lead author Tatsuya Hirasawa of the University of Tokyo. “Nevertheless, this heterochronic evolution might have facilitated the development of new features like limbs.”

But the most exciting aspect of the study, according to Hu, is “the chance to propose its evolutionary position and be able to identify the cranial skeleton boundaries. That’s actually the key to us.” This was made possible because this specimen is quite well preserved, and the modern technology allowed them to study it in more detail.

“Finding a perfect, or even well-preserved, fossil specimen is already quite hard,” Hu says. “We were literally talking about winning the lottery or even harder. Those two samples that were selected in this study, I think they were out of 2,000 fossils. So, a lot of time has been used in the beginning, before you even dig into studying the animal.”

Once specimens were chosen, the researchers used the extremely powerful RIKEN SPring-8 synchrotron in Japan to generate high-resolution micro-CT scans using X-rays. Unusually, the team used fossil skulls completely embedded in the rock. “Choosing the best specimens for the micro-CT scans and carefully trimming away the rock surrounding the fossilised skull allowed us to improve the resolution of the scans,” says Hirasawa. “Although not quite cutting-edge technology, these preparations were certainly keys to our achievement.”

Hu says that the aim of the paper is to help answer the question: what was Palaeospondylus? “I think we’re a step closer towards that answer. But I don’t think we achieved the answer yet. It’s basically a pixel puzzle that we want to resolve, and it obviously contributes to our curiosity as human beings. That’s usually what fundamental science can do. But there’s a certain distance that we need to go to achieve full 100% certainty.”

Hu believes the team won’t limit their study to early vertebrate evolution in the fossil record. “I think they will decide to use molecular biology and genetics to study developing embryos of key modern vertebrates, such as our Australian lungfish. The strange morphology of Palaeospondylus is comparable to that of tetrapod larvae. So it’s very interesting from a developmental genetic point of view.” The plan is, Hu says, to “study the water-to-land transition in vertebrate history with the help of Palaeospondylus and all the other developmental biology stuff that the team has got.”

https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/fish-like-fossil-palaeospondylus/

 

Edited May 30, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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Giraffe evolution mystery solved by bizarre fossil

Giraffes’ long necks may have evolved through the males’ violent courtship rituals rather than access to food.

Before Charles Darwin identified natural selection as the process by which species evolved, French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck put forward his own theory of evolution. Lamarck suggested that acquired characteristics were inheritable.

Lamarck famously cited giraffes as an example. Giraffes stretched their necks to browse higher in trees, posited Lamarck, and the continuation of that habit resulted in a gradual lengthening of the limbs and neck – traits which would then be passed on to the next generation. And voila! Long necks on giraffes.

Conversely – and more correctly – Darwinian evolution proposes that giraffe ancestors would have had slight variations in neck length. Those with longer necks may have been more successful in getting food, hence the attribute is “selected” through the more long-lived, healthier, longer-necked giraffes.

End of story.

But discussions about Lamarckism vs Darwinism aside, we’re still learning about giraffe evolution. And new research published in Science suggests that long necks may have more to do with courtship than obtaining a meal.

In mating rituals, rival male giraffes swing their long necks, hurling their heavy skulls at competitors. Bulls target weak spots on their opponents with their cranial weaponry – ossicones (the skin-covered bone structure atop a giraffe’s head) and osteomas (bony growths on the animal’s skull).

A longer neck means greater force and damage to the rival.

Researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences studied fossils of strange early giraffoid Discokeryx xiezhi.

Fossils, including a full skull and four cervical vertebrae, belonging to Discokeryx xiezhi were analysed. The 17 million-year-old fossils were found in the Junggar Basin in Xinjiang, China.

Discokeryx xiezhi lived in the Miocene geological epoch which spanned 23 to around 5 million years ago. The Miocene saw the emergence of the first kelp forests and grasslands.

Beginning over 40 million years after the extinction of the large dinosaurs, the age of mammals was in full swing. The first dogs, bears, hyenas and sabre-toothed cats in Smilodon’s family appeared. Primitive antelope, deer, elephants and giraffes appeared.

“Discokeryx xiezhi featured many unique characteristics among mammals, including the development of a disc-like large ossicone in the middle of its head,” says co-author of the paper Professor Deng Tao from IVPP. Deng said the single ossicone resembles that of the xiezhi, a one-horned creature from ancient Chinese mythology which gives its name to the ancient mammal.

The researchers say the animal’s joints between its head and neck, and between the very stout cervical vertebrae, are the most complex of any mammal. These articulations, the team found, were adaptations to high-speed head-to-head impact. They found this structure was far more effective than even that of extant animals who engage in head-on combat, such as musk oxen. In fact, Discokeryx xiezhi may have been the best adapted vertebrate to utilise head impact of all time.

“Both living giraffes and Discokeryx xiezhi belong to the Giraffoidea, a superfamily. Although their skull and neck morphologies differ greatly, both are associated with male courtship struggles and both have evolved in an extreme direction,” says lead author Wang Shiqi.

Comparing the horns of giraffoids, cattle, sheep, deer and pronghorns, the team found greater diversity among giraffes. They also found greater extremes in Giraffoidea, indicating more intense courtship struggles.

“Stable isotopes of tooth enamel have indicated that Discokeryx xiezhi was living in open grasslands and may have migrated seasonally,” says co-author Men Jin. The researchers suggest that the less habitable grasslands may have pushed animals like Discokeryx xiezhi to engage in fighting behaviour as a survival-related stress caused by the environment. The genus Giraffa, to which the modern giraffe belongs, emerged around 7 million years ago in similar environments. The authors suggest that similar extreme struggle and sexual selection is what led to the rapid elongation of giraffe necks.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/giraffe-neck-evolution-courtship/

 

Edited June 4, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna31424

Ancient city discovered in Iraq after Tigris river drought 

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Scientists discover new giant water lily species

A new species of giant water lily has been discovered - and it’s been hiding in plain sight for 177 years.

The huge plant had been in the archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and was growing in a number of aquatic collections but it was mistakenly identified as another species.

Now a detailed scientific study has revealed that it is new to science.

It also holds the record as the world's largest water lily, with leaves growing more than 3m (10ft) wide.

The plant has been called Victoria boliviana - named after Bolivia, where it grows in a single water basin in part of the Amazon river system.

FULL REPORT

 

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Eye-popping fossil fish found in cattle field

A ferocious-looking fossil fish has been unearthed from a remarkable new Jurassic dig site just outside Stroud, in Gloucestershire.

Pachycormus: It looks like it is going to jump out at you

The creature - a tuna-like predator called Pachycormus - is beautifully persevered in three dimensions.

With its big teeth and eyes, it gives the impression it is about to launch an attack.

The specimen was identified by prolific West Country fossil-hunters Neville and Sally Hollingworth.

"It was a real surprise because, when you find fossils, most of the time they've been pressed flat through pressure over time," Neville told BBC News.

"But when we prepared this one, to reveal its bones bit by bit, it was amazing because we suddenly realised its skull was uncrushed.

"Its mouth is open - and it looks like it's coming out at you from the rock."

• Ancient fossil is earliest known animal predator
• Huge fossilised ‘sea dragon’ found in UK reservoir

The couple found the fish head in a grassy bank behind a cow shed in the village of Kings Stanley.

It had been encased in one of the many limestone nodules that were falling out from an exposed clay layer.

The landowner, Adam Knight, had no idea his English longhorn cattle were grazing on top of a rich fossil seam, recalling a time, 183 million years ago, when his farm would have been lying under warm tropical ocean waters.

Mr Knight gave permission to Neville and Sally, and a team led from the University of Manchester, to investigate the bank further.

https://www.msn.com/ru-xl/news/other/eye-popping-fossil-fish-found-in-cattle-field/ar-AA105gdB#:~:text=Eye-popping fossil fish found in cattle field Palaeontologists,new Jurassic site just outside Stroud%2C in Gloucestershire.

 

Edited July 29, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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[Coma]

 

[CaaC (John)+]

5 minutes ago, Coma said:

 

Bloody amazing that.

[Coma]

Just now, CaaC (John) said:

Bloody amazing that.

I know.  I wonder how long it took to build that house.  The intricacy of the pieces is mind-blowing.

[CaaC (John)+]

21 hours ago, Coma said:

I know.  I wonder how long it took to build that house.  The intricacy of the pieces is mind-blowing.

 

Edited August 6, 2022 by CaaC (John)

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Mini yet mighty: New two-legged, armoured dinosaur found in Argentina is the first of its kind

The new dinosaur is estimated to have lived nearly 100 million years go.

Researchers in Argentina have dug up a dinosaur unlike anything seen before.

Over the last couple of hundred years, we have pretty much come to grips with the general shapes and sizes of dinosaurs. So it’s not every day that we find fossils which break the mould.

Called Jakapil kaniukura, the new dinosaur has spikes and armour plating similar to the famous Stegosaurus and Ankylosaurus. At roughly 1.5 metres from nose to tail and weighing about as much as a cat (4-7 kilograms), the new dino kid on the block is lightweight by dinosaur standards. With leaf-shaped teeth, it was a an herbivore, chomping on vegetation between 97 million and 94 million years ago.

The dinosaur was bipedal and had a short beak capable of chewing through tough, woody plants, according to the paper announcing the discover published in Scientific Reports.

A video showing a computer-simulated reconstruction of Jakapil produced by Chilean palaeoartist and palaeontology student at the Río Negro National University Gabriel Díaz Yantén can be viewed below.

Jakapil lived in the last period of dinosaur rule, the Cretaceous. This suggests that a whole lineage of armoured dinosaurs, previously unknown to science, was living in South America.

Paleontologists at the Argentinian Félix de Azara Natural History Foundation uncovered a partial skeleton of a subadult Jakapil The specimen was uncovered in rich dinosaur country in the Río Negro province in northern Patagonia, southern Argentina.

Most dinosaurs from the Thyreophora group, including Stegosaurs and Ankylosaurs, have been found in the northern hemisphere and lived in the Jurassic period which came before the Cretaceous.

The authors of the new paper write that the discovery of Jakapil “shows that early thyreophorans had a much broader geographic distribution than previously thought.”

Among the fossils of the specimen are a near-complete lower jaw, neck, back and tail vertebrae, leg and arm bones, and of course some of the spikes running from its neck down the animal’s spine.

Humble yet hardy, Jakapil kaniukura takes its name from the “shield bearer” in the Puelchean or northern Tehuelchean indigenous language of Argentina, and “Kanikura” comes from words meaning “crest” and “stone” in the indigenous Mapudungun language.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/new-dinosaur-argentina-armoured/

 

 

Edited August 16, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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[Coma]

This account is great.

 

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Africa's oldest dinosaur found in Zimbabwe

Scientists have unearthed in Zimbabwe the remains of Africa's oldest dinosaur, which lived more than 230 million years ago.

The Mbiresaurus raathi was one metre tall, ran on two legs and had a long neck and jagged teeth.

Scientists said it was a species of sauropodomorph, a relative of the sauropod, which walked on four legs.

The skeleton was discovered during two expeditions, in 2017 and 2019, to the Zambezi Valley.

"When we talk of the evolution of early dinosaurs, fossils from the Triassic age are rare," Darlington Munyikwa, deputy director of National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe, and who was part of the expeditions, told the BBC.

He said that fossils from that era - which ended more than 200 million years ago - had been unearthed in South America, India and now Zimbabwe.

The find is expected to shed more light on evolution and migration of early dinosaurs, back when the world was one huge continent and Zimbabwe was at the same latitude as those countries, he said.

Zimbabwe has been aware of other fossils in the area for decades and Mr Munyikwa said there were more sites that needed further exploration in the area, subject to funding availability.

"It shows that dinosaurs didn't start out worldwide, ruling the world from the very beginning," Christopher Griffin, another scientist involved in the expedition, told the BBC.

"They, and the animals they lived with, seem to have been constrained to a particular environment in the far south - what is today South America, southern Africa and India."

He added that the find was the "oldest definitive dinosaur ever found in Africa".

Prof Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan, a palaeontologist at the University of Cape Town, told the BBC that the discovery was important because it was part of the lineage that gave rise to the sauropod dinosaurs, which includes the diplodocus and the brontosaurus.

"It tells us that when dinosaurs were evolving, they were found on different continents, but they seem to have followed a hot humid environment rather than dry inhospitable one," she told the BBC. "We hope there is more coming out of that area."

She added that the area where the discovery took place had seen recent gas mining exploration.

"I hope that there is a strict policy in place to ensure that if they encounter fossils, they hand them over to the museums, so we don't lose that material," she said.

The near-complete skeleton of the Mbiresaurus raathi is stored in a room in a museum in Zimbabwe's southern city of Bulawayo. It is thought to date to the Carnian stage of the Triassic period, when today's Zimbabwe was part of the massive supercontinent Pangaea.

Dinosaurs were believed to be well adapted to the high latitudes where today's Zimbabwe is located, which were humid and had ample vegetation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62751974

 

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Old news  Posted it in the ships thread about 6 months ago. 

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Gold coins hidden in 7th Century found in wall

Archaeologists in Israel say 44 pure gold coins dating to the 7th Century have been found hidden in a wall at a nature reserve.

Weighing about 170g, the hoard found at the Hermon Stream (Banias) site was hidden during the Muslim conquest of the area in 635, experts estimated.

They said the coins shed light on the end of the Byzantine rule in the area.

The Byzantine Empire was the eastern half of the Roman Empire, which survived for more than 1,000 years.

"We can imagine the owner concealing his fortune in the threat of war, hoping to return one day to retrieve his property," said Yoav Lerer, director of the excavation.

"In retrospect, we know that he was less fortunate."

Apart from the gold coins, the excavation - in a residential quarter of the ancient city - also uncovered the remains of buildings, water channels and pipes, bronze coins and much more, Israeli authorities said.

Dr Gabriela Bijovsky, a numismatic (currency) expert at the Israel Antiquities Authority, said some of the coins were of Emperor Phocas (602-610), but most were of his successor Heraclius.

Banias has a particular place in Christian tradition, being the site where Jesus is said to have told the apostle Peter, "on this rock, I will build my church".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-63122180