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Fossil algae predates the origin of land plants and modern animals

Paleontologists have identified a new genus and species of algae more than 500m years old

Palaeontologists have discovered an algae fossil in China, identifying it as a new genus and species called Protocodium sinense. The ancient fossil — 541m years old — predates the origin of land plants, giving scientists new insights into the early diversification of the plant kingdom.

And interestingly the fossil is the first and oldest green algae from this era to be preserved in three dimensions, which has enabled scientists to investigate its internal structure with unprecedented accuracy.

They found that Protocodium appears almost identical to its close relative the modern Codium – a type of green algae found today in many seas – which pushes back the point in history that green algae and land plants shared a common ancestor. 

The findings have been reported in a new study in BMC Biology.

“Protocodium” belongs to a known lineage of green algae and has a surprisingly modern architecture, showing that these algae were already well diversified before the end of the Ediacaran period,” says co-author Cédric Aria, postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto and based at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Canada.

“Its discovery touches the origin of the entire plant kingdom and puts a familiar name on the organisms that preceded the Cambrian explosion over half a billion years ago, when the world’s first modern ecosystems emerged.”

Green algae can photosynthesise, converting light and carbon dioxide into sugars and oxygen. They were therefore likely important foundations of Earth’s early ecosystems, and the study suggests green algae were already established in the world’s shallow waters, as carbon dioxide recyclers and oxygen producers, before the Cambrian explosion.

The Protocodium were discovered as part of the Gaojiashan biota, a significant group of exceptionally well-preserved fossils at the Dengying Formation in the southern Shaanxi Province in north-west China.

“We know that seaweed-like fossils are at least one billion-years-old,” says first author Dr Shu Chai, postdoctoral researcher at Northwest University in Xi’an in Shaanxi Province. “But until now, flat, grainy two-dimensional preservation has made it challenging to recognise more than general morphological structures.”

The whole fossil and its fine cellular details were preserved in three dimensions in a process called phosphatisation where the original organic material was replaced by phosphate, allowing researchers to use electron and X-ray microscopy to virtually slice the through the fossil to reveal its internal structures.

Protocodium fossils are spherical and small (only about half a millimetre wide), with a surface covered by many smaller domes. Inside, the complex, single cell contains thin strands called siphons surrounded by a uniform layer of bulb-shaped structures – a morphology that is typical of certain modern single-celled seaweeds from the genus Codium.

“It’s very telling that such an organism has remained practically unchanged over at least 540 million years,” says Aria. “By the Ediacaran, evolution had driven it towards a stable adaptive zone — it’s been comfortable there since, and more than that, quite successful. So much so, in fact, that nowadays Codium takes advantage of global trade to easily outcompete other algal species.”

https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/ancient-fossil-algae-plant-evolution/

 

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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

 

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Fish fossils from China show how jaws and walking limbs began to evolve 430 million years ago

The finds help inform our understanding of our own evolution.

Fossils of ancient fish unearthed in two separate digs in China are helping piece together how the first jaws and paired limbs evolved – informing understanding of human evolution.

A treasure trove of 436-million-year-old fossils has revealed for the first time that an extinct clade of jawless fish called galeaspids had paired fins. It shows how early fins began separating into pectoral and pelvic fins, the forerunner of arms and legs.

The first vertebrates which left the water around 375 million years ago – the ancestors of all land vertebrates including humans – did so on primitive walking limbs which evolved from paired fins.

Until now, the only galeaspid fossils found were of the armoured fish’s head. The new fossils, described in a new study published in Nature, comprise whole bodies. The specimens were named Tujiaaspis after the indigenous Tujia people who live in the Hunan Province and Chongqing where the fossils were found.

Early vertebrate fossils either show they had separated fins, or they didn’t. There is little evidence of the gradual evolution of paired fins.

“The anatomy of galeaspids has been something of a mystery since they were first discovered more than half a century ago,” says first author Zhikun Gai, a professor at the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “Tens of thousands of fossils are known from China and Vietnam, but almost all of them are just heads – nothing has been known about the rest of their bodies – until now.”

“Tujiaaspis breathes new life into a century old hypothesis for the evolution of paired fins, through differentiation of pectoral (arms) and pelvic (legs) fins over evolutionary time, from a continuous head-to-tail fin precursor,” adds corresponding author Professor Philip Donoghue from the University of Bristol in the UK.

Called the “fin-fold” hypothesis, this theory, though lacking in supporting evidence until now, has been favoured by palaeontologists. It also reconciles contemporary genetic data which studies the effect of controlling the embryonic development of fins in living vertebrates.

Using computer simulations, the team determined that the paired fins of Tujiaaspis gave it an edge while swimming.

“The paired fins of Tujiaaspis act as hydrofoils, passively generating lift for the fish without any muscular input from the fins themselves. The lateral fin-folds of Tujiaaspis allowed it to swim more efficiently,” says co-author Dr Humberto Ferron, also from Bristol.

Another fossil discovery from China, only 3 million years older than Tujiaaspis, is believed to be the oldest undisputed jawed fish. The palaeontologists who discovered the 439-million-year-old specimen believe that it suggests we need to rethink the timeline of vertebrate evolution.

The fish belongs to an ancient group of “sharks” collectively known as acanthodians and predates the previous oldest jawed fish by 15 million years.

Named Fanjingshania, this ancient fish is covered in external, bony “armour” and sports multiple pairs of fins. It is described in a separate Nature paper. What is shocking about the specimen is that it presents evidence of a diversification of major vertebrate groups well before the so-called “Age of Fishes” which began around 420 million years ago.

“This is the oldest jawed fish with known anatomy,” says senior author Professor Min Zhu from the Chinese Academy of Sciences IVPP. “The new data allowed us to place Fanjingshania in the phylogenetic tree of early vertebrates and gain much needed information about the evolutionary steps leading to the origin of important vertebrate adaptations such as jaws, sensory systems, and paired appendages.”

Analysis of Fanjingshania and algorithmic analysis of the phylogenetic tree have major implications for our understanding of when jawed fish originated.

“The new discovery raises questions about existing models of vertebrate evolution by significantly condensing the timeframe for the emergence of jawed fish from their closest jawless ancestors. This will have profound impact on how we assess evolutionary rates in early vertebrates and the relationship between morphological and molecular change in these groups,” says co-author Dr Ivan J. Sansom from the University of Birmingham in the UK.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/china-fish-fossils-jaw-paired-fins/

 

Edited October 4, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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Extinct animal was just hiding under a rock

Scientists find long-lost insect after an 80-year absence.

Beneath a single tree on an island 500 kilometres from Port Macquarie, an insect previously thought extinct has been literally uncovered by biology student from Sydney University.

When Maxim Adams lifted a rock beneath a banyan tree on Lord Howe Island’s northernmost coastline, he was not expecting to find a long-missing animal.

And when he saw an intrusion of large, wingless cockroaches swarming where the rock had been, it took him a moment to realise the significance of what he was seeing.

“I lifted the first rock under this huge banyan tree, and there it was. For the first 10 seconds or so, I thought ‘No, it can’t be’,” Adams says.

‘It’ is Panesthia lata – or the Lord Howe Island wood-eating cockroach – a species previously though to have been wiped out by the arrival of rats on the island in the 1910s.

Adams and his supervising professor Nathan Lo proceeded to spend a week searching for more colonies of these previously vanished arthropods, but to no avail, this was the only group found.

Still, it’s a coup, and although Lo recently wrote of the perseverance of related cockroach on neighbouring islands, the specimens uncovered by Adams are genetically distinct.

The rediscovery and genomic analysis of the species further highlights how physical isolation can lead to evolutionary divergence.

“These cockroaches are almost like our very own version of Darwin’s finches, separated on little islands over thousands or millions of years developing their own unique genetics,” says Chair of the Lord Howe Island board, Atticus Fleming.

“The survival is great news, as it has been more than 80 years since it was last seen. Lord Howe Island really is a spectacular place, it’s older than the Galápagos islands and is home to 1,600 native invertebrate species, half of which are found nowhere else in the world.”

What’s in a name?

There are 11 described species of the genus Panesthia, most of which reside along Australia’s east coast, feeding on rotten wood that is broken down by specialised cellulose-eating enzymes in their digestive system.

After re-discovering P. lata in July, Lo’s team will now turn its focus towards studying the species’ habitat, behaviours and genetics.

They also expect to conduct further studies on Lord Howe Island to better understand how the group found beneath the Banyan tree was able to survive.

However the researchers believe that a new name might be needed for this species, with early observations suggesting that rather than living inside rotting logs, the species may actually favour rocks like the one they were found beneath.

“We found families of them, all under this one banyan,” says Senior Scientist Nicholas Carlile from NSW’s Department of Planning and Environment.

“But despite its common name suggesting they are wood-feeding cockroaches and that they burrow in rotting logs, we now believe they are more of a ‘rock-roach’, with rocks forming an important component of their habitat, possibly due to their co-evolution alongside the ground foraging Lord Howe Island Woodhen.”

https://cosmosmagazine.com/news/extinct-wood-feeding-cockroach-rediscovered/

 

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Death of the dinosaurs: First an asteroid, next a terrifying 1.5 km-high tsunami

Simulations of terrifying impact tsunami that ricocheted around the globe backed up by geological evidence.

 

Animation of the change in sea surface height tsunami propagation over 48 hours model. Shown in ten-minute increments. Credit: Range et al. in AGU Advances, 2022.

What could possibly be worse than dying from a 14-km wide asteroid hitting Earth at 12 kilometres per second? How about surviving that and then dealing with a mile-high tsunami afterwards?

For lifeforms left loitering after the impact 66 million years ago of an asteroid near the Gulf of Mexico town of Chicxulub (pro.: Chix-ah-lubb) – thought to be responsible for the extinction of around 75% of life on the planet (including most of the dinosaurs) – this would have been the terrifying reality.

For the first time, a global simulation of the Chicxulub impact tsunami has reached the shores of a peer-reviewed scientific journal. University of Michigan researchers were able to input the characteristics of the impactor, impact site and models of the Earth and sit back and watch the simulated waves roll around the globe.

What’s more, an investigation of over 100 sites has unearthed evidence supporting the predictions of the simulations.

One of the largest and most destructive tsunamis in recorded history is the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake tsunami, which killed more than 230,000 people.

Researchers estimate the Chicxulub impact tsunami had up to 30,000 times the energy of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake tsunami, making it truly colossal.

The simulations show the tsunami mainly radiated east and northeast into the North Atlantic Ocean and to the southwest, with the South Atlantic, North Pacific, Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean region relatively protected.

The first ten minutes of the impact were modelled using a complex computer program called a hydrocode. The results of the hydrocode at the ten-minute mark were inserted into two different codes, both designed to model tsunami propagation across the ocean. The first model, MOM6, is used to model tsunamis travelling through deep oceans, while the second model, MOST, is used by the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, USA) for tsunami forecasting.

The results from MOM6 and MOST were remarkably similar. “The big result here is that two global models with differing formulations gave almost identical results,” said Ted Moore, a palaeoceanographer and co-author of the study.

Two minutes after impact, the simulation shows a large ‘curtain’ of material ejected from the impact site which pushes a wall of water outward and away from the site. This wall of water would have been around 4.5 km high for a short time, until the ejected material fell back to Earth.

Animation of the hydrocode simulation for the first ten minutes post-asteroid impact (crustal material is brown, sediments are yellow, and the ocean is blue. The origin marks the point of impact and black curves mark material interfaces. Credit: Range et al. in AGU Advances, 2022.

Eight minutes later, a 1.5-kilometre-high tsunami radiated outwards from about 220 km from the shallow-watered granite-laden Yucatán Peninsula impact site in Mexico. This swept around the ocean in all directions.

Over the course of the next 48 hours, the tsunami made its way from the Gulf of Mexico and reached most of the world’s coastlines – including Australia’s.

The researchers also calculated open-ocean wave heights, finding waves in the Gulf of Mexico would have likely been over 100 m, and over 10 m in regions near the coastlines of the North Atlantic and the Pacific near South America. As tsunamis reach shallower waters, the wave heights would have increased, although researchers did not specifically calculate the extent of inland flooding.

“Depending on the geometries of the coast and the advancing waves, most coastal regions would be inundated and eroded to some extent,” say the study authors. “Any historically documented tsunamis pale in comparison with such global impact.”

Animation of the change in sea surface height tsunami propagation over 48 hours from the MOST model. Shown in five-minute increments. Credit: Range et al. in AGU Advances, 2022.

Another important result of this research is that geological samples taken from over 100 sites around the globe support the predicted power and reach of the tsunami.

Looking at 165 published records of marine sediments from two different times in the geological record – either side of the impact and subsequent extinction – the researchers found gaps in the record, or regions of jumbled-up older sediments. These sediments confirmed simulation results showing the main radiation path of the tsunami, along which underwater currents would have reached velocity strong enough to erode the fine-grained seafloor.

“We found corroboration in the geological record for the predicted areas of maximal impact in the open ocean,” said Brian Arbic, professor of earth and environmental sciences and a co-author of the paper.

Interestingly, the research also sheds new light on rocky outcrops on the eastern shores of New Zealand’s north and south islands. Dating from the impact period, these sediments are highly disturbed and incomplete – characteristics originally attributed to tectonic activity in the region. (New Zealand lies along a margin, where the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates converge, making it geologically very active.)

This research suggests that given the age and the simulation results, the New Zealand deposits at 12,000 km away from the impact site, are a record of the power and extent of the Chicxulub event.

“We feel these deposits are recording the effects of the impact tsunami, and this is perhaps the most telling confirmation of the global significance of this event,” Range said.

The researchers are keen to investigate the extent of coastal inundation from the impact tsunami using these results.

You can watch more about these discoveries from the University of Michigan below.

“We found corroboration in the geological record for the predicted areas of maximal impact in the open ocean,” said Brian Arbic, professor of earth and environmental sciences and a co-author of the paper.

Interestingly, the research also sheds new light on rocky outcrops on the eastern shores of New Zealand’s north and south islands. Dating from the impact period, these sediments are highly disturbed and incomplete – characteristics originally attributed to tectonic activity in the region. (New Zealand lies along a margin, where the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates converge, making it geologically very active.)

This research suggests that given the age and the simulation results, the New Zealand deposits at 12,000 km away from the impact site, are a record of the power and extent of the Chicxulub event.

“We feel these deposits are recording the effects of the impact tsunami, and this is perhaps the most telling confirmation of the global significance of this event,” Range said.

The researchers are keen to investigate the extent of coastal inundation from the impact tsunami using these results.

You can watch more about these discoveries from the University of Michigan below.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/dinosaurs-tsunami-asteroid-impact/

 

 

Edited October 6, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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Prehistoric invasive species effects provide clues to tackle modern intruders and aid wildlife conservation

Such knowledge can help us protect species jeopardised by human-catalysed invasions.

New research on a species invasion that took place nearly 450 million years ago could inform how we preserve biodiversity today.

When we think of invasive species, we usually (rightly) think of the impact of human activity on ecosystems. But our ecosystems have undergone intrusions by new organisms for millions of years.

Ian Forsythe, a geology graduate student at the University of Cincinnati, has performed an analysis of a well-known invasion of animals that impacted on an ecosystem in the late Ordovician period. The Ordovician took place around 488-444 million years ago. Forsythe presented his findings to the annual conference of the Geological Society of America (GSA) on October 11.

Forsythe studied a phenomenon called the ‘Richmondian Invasion’ which occurred about 446 million years ago. Species encountered each other for the first time in the late Ordovician, causing a disruption of the shallow sea ecosystems of the time.

“We are a catalyst for these things today. But these biotic invasions happened in the past, too,” says Forsythe.

He was able to build a very detailed picture of how the late Ordovician seas in the US Midwest changed over geologically minute timescales of thousands of years. Such analysis is testament to the rich fossil record from the time left behind in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky, which were submerged in salty sea filled with starfish, crinoids, brachiopods and other molluscs 450 million years ago.

“We have really incredible fossil deposits here. They’re globally exceptional,” Forsythe says. “The quantity of fossils gives us an awesome window to the past. It’s an amazing natural laboratory.”

Australia has a pretty harrowing recent history with invasive species brought by humans. Animals like cane toads,  cats, foxes, sheepo, goats and cattle, and many birds have massively disrupted the island continent’s natural ecosystems and driven many species to extinction.

Unlike this unfortunate result of human-catalysed species invasion, the native species of the late Ordovician thrived even after their ecosystems were overrun with new animals. Forsythe concluded that this is because the original organisms were generalists that didn’t need specialised habitats or food requirements. They instead adapted and made room for the newcomers.

“Generalists are more successful during invasions because they can contract their niche to accommodate novel competitors,” Forsythe explains. The invaders were lower on the food chain, causing little disruption.

• Neanderthal tooth enamel indicates that they might have been carnivores

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Forsythe’s project began at Ohio University in Alycia Stigall’s lab.

Stigall, now a professor at the University of Tennessee, told the GSA: “The Richmondian invasion is one of the most intensively studied fossil invasion events in terms of ecosystem and species impacts. But Ian’s work is truly groundbreaking; he was able to examine changes at the community level at a very fine temporal level of a few thousand years and relate this directly to changes in sea level and the timing of the invaders’ arrival.”

Forsythe stressed that we can learn about the resilience of today’s ecosystems by studying changes in ecological networks millions of years in the past.

“That’s what drew me to invasion science. It’s a big issue today with so many outstanding questions,” Forsythe says. “We can’t answer how these things play out in longer timescales without a long data set.”

Invaders which sit higher on the food chain present a greater existential threat to native species, especially specialists (as opposed to generalist species). “It’s a guiding principle for what imperilled species might require attention first,” Forsythe adds.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/ancient-invasive-species/

 

 

Edited October 18, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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Neanderthal genetics study shows that our closest human cousins probably lived in small groups

New findings shed light on the social organisation of Neanderthals.

New research is bringing to life for the first time a description of the social organisation and small community dynamics of Neanderthals.

Neanderthals were our closest human cousins, but up until now we’ve not known much about how they lived and their social relations.

The research published in Nature and led by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, is based on DNA analysis of 13 Neanderthal individuals from two caves in Russia.

Neanderthals lived in western Eurasia from around 430,000 years ago before going extinct around 40,000 years ago, not long after Homo sapiens (modern humans) arrived in Europe from Africa. There is still debate about what exactly caused the extinction of Neanderthals, but new theories appear to counter the old idea that direct confrontation between Neanderthals and our modern human ancestors led to their demise.

While DNA sequencing has given us a better understanding of some aspects of Neanderthal evolution and physiology, their social organisation has remained a mystery until now.

The Max Planck researchers’ findings shed light on the social organisation of Neanderthals, and despite being only 13 individuals, is one of the largest genetic study of these hominids reported to date.

Eleven of the Neanderthal individuals’ remains were found in the Chagyrskaya Cave and two from Okladnikov Cave. Both caves are in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia, Russia.

The Chagysrkaya Cave is believed to have been occupied by Neanderthals between 59,000 and 51,000 years ago. The Okladnikov remains are at least 44,000 years old.

Of the Chagyrskaya individuals, the results show some were closely related and lived around the same time. Genetic diversity in the Y chromosomes (passed down from father to son) is much lower than the mitochondrial DNA passed down from mothers. This suggests more widespread migration of females than males between tribes.

Homozygosity – possessing two identical forms of a particular gene inherited from each parent – was found to be high in the Neanderthal individuals, at levels similar to those found in mountain gorillas.

The authors suggest such findings are best explained by small communities of around 20 individuals. At least 60% of the females in these groups most likely migrated from another troop to join new mates’ families while the males were fixed.

The findings corroborate earlier research based on fossilized footprints and spatial analysis which also suggested small communities of Neanderthals.

Comparing their new Neanderthal genomes with previously sequenced genomes, the researchers were able to determine that these populations fit into the broader Neanderthal picture.

“All 13 newly sequenced individuals shared most variants with the high-coverage genome from Chagyrskaya Cave and were more similar to the around 50,000-year-old Neanderthal genome from Vindija Cave in Croatia than to the 91,000-130,000-year-old Altai Neanderthal from Denisova Cave. Therefore, although the communities from Chagyrskaya and Okladnikov caves were genetically distinct, they all appear equally related to European Neanderthals and were part of the same Neanderthal population; no individual showed evidence of recent gene flow from other Neanderthal populations,” the authors write.

•  Neanderthal tooth enamel indicates that they might have been carnivores

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The authors note the important advance represented in their large-scale genetic study of a Neanderthal population.

“For the first time, to our knowledge, we document familial relationships between Neanderthals, including a father-and-daughter pair,” they write.

But they note that their sample size is small and may not represent the social organisation and group size of Neanderthals across the continent.

“Our findings raise questions as to whether the characteristics of the Altai communities are related to their isolated geographical location at the easternmost extremity of the known range of Neanderthals (especially because the population size at Vindija Cave was probably larger), or whether they are characteristic of Neanderthal communities more broadly,” the authors comment.

“Future studies should, therefore, when possible, aim to sample multiple individuals from additional Neanderthal communities in other parts of Eurasia to shed further light on the social organization of our closest evolutionary relatives.”

https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/neanderthal-genetics-small-groups/

 

 

Edited October 21, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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Ancient kangaroos might have lived in PNG for 20,000 years post megafauna extinction

A mostly human free oasis.

A new study published in the journal Archaeology in Oceania has found that we might have been a bit premature deciding that all areas of Australia and Papua New Guinea lost their megafauna by 40,000 years ago.

A team including Flinders University in Adelaide and Australian National University researchers, used new dating methods and analysis to discover that, in a forest in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, at what’s known as the Nombe rockshelter site, megafauna survived much longer, even with humans making occasional visits.

In particular, the researchers found in this small oasis, two species of kangaroo that could have survived 20,000 years ago. Read more about the story here.

Cosmos Magazine science journalist Jacinta Bowler talked to researchers at the Flinders University Palaeontology Lab in the video above to understand what the team found.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/cosmos-briefing/ancient-kangaroos-png-megafauna/

 

Edited October 25, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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Rare golden sword pommel acquired by Scottish museum

An "exceptionally rare" gold sword pommel discovered by a metal detectorist near Stirling has been acquired by National Museums Scotland.

The pommel, which is about 1,300 years old, was found in 2019 and was declared to the Scottish Treasure Trove unit.

The gold decoration which would have sat at the top of a sword handle measures 5.5cm wide, weighs 25g and was valued at about £30,000.

The find has been described as "hugely significant".

Dr Alice Blackwell, senior curator of medieval archaeology and history at National Museums Scotland (NMS), said goldwork from this period was "virtually unknown" anywhere in the UK.

She said it showed the spectacular skill and craftsmanship of the early medieval period.

The pommel is thought to date from about 700 AD.

The solid gold object is encrusted with garnets and intricate goldwork which feature religious motifs and fantastical creatures.

The discovery was made at Blair Drummond towards the end of 2019 but NMS said that due to restrictions during the pandemic decisions about its acquisition were delayed.

It was allocated to them on recommendation of the Scottish Archaeological Finds Allocation Panel.

Dr Blackwell said its archaeological value was due to what it told us about important cultural, political and artistic interactions in northern Britain at this time.

She said its decoration combined elements from both Anglo-Saxon England and the kingdoms of Early Medieval Scotland.

"Early medieval Scotland is a really interesting period," Dr Blackwell said.

"You have a number of culturally distinct kingdoms and the pommel's design has taken from the different cultures and melded them together "

That melding of different cultural styles is known as "insular art" style, which was made famous by illuminated manuscripts such as the Lindisfarne Gospels.

Dr Blackwell said this fusion of styles had made it hard to determine where exactly it was made and whom it may have belonged to.

However, she said it potentially could have belonged to royalty due to the higher standard of goldwork the pommel had compared with other goldware found in this period.

"In a way this is the start of the artefact's journey," Dr Blackwell said.

"A lot of research and work is still to be done to uncover what stories it can tells us about the political and cultural landscape of Northern Britain at this time."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-63373168

 

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Mysterious 'Large Object' Detected Near Titanic Wreck Finally Identified

An unexpected sonar “blip” first detected in 1998 near the wreck of the Titanic has finally been identified.  

“We didn’t know what we would discover,” veteran explorer PH Nargeolet, who first spotted the blip, said in a news release. “On the sonar, this could have been any number of things including the potential of it being another shipwreck. I’ve been seeking the chance to explore this large object that appeared on sonar so long ago.”

OceanGate Expeditions has been sending crews in a submersible to document the condition of Titanic for decades. During one of this year’s trips, a team that included Nargeolet checked out the anomaly near the legendary wreck. 

As the video above shows, it was not another shipwreck. Instead, the team discovered an unexpected volcanic formation at a depth of 2,900 meters (9,514 feet) that Nargeolet said was “teeming with so much life.” 

OceanGate is calling it the Nargeolet-Fanning Ridge, named for the veteran diver and mission specialist Oisín Fanning. 

“We are astonished at the diversity and density of the sponges, bamboo corals, other cold-water corals, squat lobsters and fishes that are thriving at 2900 meters deep in the North Atlantic Ocean,” OceanGate Expeditions chief scientist Dr. Steve W. Ross said in a news release.  

Ross, who is also a research professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Center for Marine Science, added: “Uncovering this previously unknown ecosystem also provides an opportunity to make a comparison to the marine biology on and around Titanic.”

The life found on this natural reef may differ from what is now thriving on the nearby artificial reef that Titanic has become. 

Earlier this year, OceanGate released the first-ever 8K footage from Titanic, showing the wreck to be deteriorating. 

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https://www.msn.com/en-gb/travel/news/mysterious-large-object-detected-near-titanic-wreck-finally-identified/ar-AA13m0JG?ocid=mailsignout&li=BBoPWjQ

 

Edited October 26, 2022 by CaaC (John)

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Obese yet malnourished toddler mummy sheds light on life in 17th century aristocratic Austria

‘Virtual autopsy’ shows one-year-old boy was well-fed but kept hidden from sunlight.

Buried in a wooden coffin that was slightly too small and deformed the skull, the young child’s body appeared to be both obese and malnourished. Researchers say the findings might provide a rare insight into historical Austrian aristocratic society.

 

By using CT scanning, scientists were able to perform a ‘virtual autopsy’ on the mummy which was naturally mummified in the conditions of the crypt. Well-preserved soft tissue showed the child was a boy, overweight for his age, and radiocarbon dating suggests a date of death between 1550 and 1635 CE.

By examining the formation and length of the body’s bones, plus evidence of tooth eruption, the researchers were able to estimate that the child was about one year old when he died. The bones also showed that despite being well-fed, the boy was malnourished, with his malformed ribs displaying signs of rachitic rosary. This condition presents in a pattern of prominent bony knobs at points where the rib joins cartilage and results from diseases associated with specific vitamin deficiencies such as rickets (vitamin D) and scurvy (vitamin C).

Vitamin D is found in foods like salmon, tuna, mackerel and beef liver and egg yolks, but we typically only get around 10% of our required Vitamin D from our diets – the rest is made by our bodies when exposed to ultraviolet B (UVB) from the sun.

“The combination of obesity along with a severe vitamin-deficiency can only be explained by a generally ‘good’ nutritional status along with an almost complete lack of sunlight exposure,” said Dr Andreas Nerlich of the Academic Clinic Munich-Bogenhausen and lead researcher.

The child appears to have died from pneumonia, judging by the evidence of inflammation in the lungs. Rickets is known to make children more vulnerable to pneumonia, suggesting that, sadly, not only was the child malnourished, but that this condition may have also led to his untimely demise.

“We have to reconsider the living conditions of high aristocratic infants of previous populations,” said Nerlich.

Relatively little is known about aristocratic childhood in the late Renaissance period, so these mummified remains give key insights into life in Europe of a period generally known for its fervent creativity and intellectual development.

“This is only one case,” said Nerlich, “but as we know that the early infant death rates generally were very high at that time, our observations may have considerable impact in the over-all life reconstruction of infants even in higher social classes.”

To understand more about this period, researchers scoured historical records of the crypt and the family to whom the crypt belonged. Curiously, the child was buried in a simple, unmarked, wooden coffin, although he was dressed in an expensive silk hooded coat. The unmarked coffin appeared to have been slightly too small for the body such that the skull became deformed and was the only infant buried amongst the identifiable adult metal coffins in the crypt.

Historical records of renovations on the crypt confirmed the radiocarbon dating, indicating the child was likely buried sometime after 1600 CE.

The crypt belonged to the Counts of Starhemberg and traditionally was kept exclusively for the burial of heirs to their titles, and their wives, making the body likely to be that of the first-born (and only) son, Reichard Wilhelm, of Count Starhemberg.

“We have no data on the fate of other infants of the family,” Nerlich said, regarding the unique burial. “According to our data, the infant was most probably [the count’s] first-born son after erection of the family crypt, so special care may have been applied.”

https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/toddler-mummy-17thcentury-austria/

 

 

Edited October 31, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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Cleopatra’s long-lost tomb could be hidden in mysterious tunnel

Ever since her tragic death in 30BC, the location of Queen Cleopatra's remains has beguiled archaeologists.

Now, one expert leading a dig in Egypt believes that she may have finally found her tomb - having uncovered a mysterious, 4,600ft-long tunnel.

The tunnel, which Egyptian authorities have described as a "geometric miracle", is beneath the Taposiris Magna Temple - the Great Tomb of Osiris - which is close to the ancient city of Alexandria.

Kathleen Martinez, a Dominican self-taught archaeologist from the University of San Domingo, said that if her theory about the burial site is true, then it would be the "most important discovery of the 21st century".

"As a result of 10 years of study of Cleopatra's historical character ... I need to come to Egypt to the field to see the remains of this temple to be sure that these remains have the possibility of being the lost tomb of Cleopatra," she said in a recent video interview with the Heritage Key website.

"After three months studying the area, I realised it was the perfect place for Cleopatra's tomb. Nobody ever came out with this idea. If there is a one per cent of a chance that the last Queen of Egypt could be buried there, it is my duty to search for her."

Egyptian authorities have extended the archaeologist's permit to continue digging in the area, said the self-styled Cleopatra obsessive.

Her theory is based on the discovery of Greco-Roman architecture and coins in the area, as well as a cemetery - which she says raises the possibility that a royal tomb is close by. The team also found beheaded statues, including one of the Goddess Isis.

Ms Martinez says that as a self-taught archaeologist with a background in criminal law, she can bring a new perspective to the hunt for the Queen of Egypt.

"I don’t think 100 per cent as an archaeologist, because my first training is as a criminal lawyer, so I took Cleopatra as a case,” she said.

Cleopatra ruled as the Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51-30BC. She died by suicide after her defeat by the Roman Empire to avoid being paraded around Rome as a trophy.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/cleopatras-long-lost-tomb-could-be-hidden-in-mysterious-tunnel/ar-AA13SaNm?li=BBoPWjQ

 

 

Edited November 9, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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Archeologists in Italy find remarkable hoard of ancient bronze statues

PHOTOS - 1 of 4

Archaeologists in Italy have discovered a remarkable cache of 24 Etruscan and Roman bronze statues in the remains of an ancient religious sanctuary, hailing the find as the most important of its kind in fifty years.

The treasure trove includes tiny bronze replicas of human body parts, thrown into the thermal waters of the sanctuary by people suffering from illnesses and hoping to be healed.

The objects, found during a digging campaign between June and October, date from between the second century BC and the first century AD.

The importance of the discovery is being likened to that of the Riace Bronzes, two full-sized, naked Greek warrior figures which were found on the seabed off the coast of Calabria in southern Italy in 1972.

The sanctuary, near the village of San Casciano dei Bagni in Tuscany, was a place of worship from the second century BC, first for the Etruscans and then the Romans, who conquered Etruscan lands and incorporated them into their burgeoning empire.

It was built around a hot spring in a part of Tuscany which to this day boasts natural spas where Italians flock to immerse themselves in thermal waters.

The statues and objects would have been deliberately tossed into the water and have been preserved over the centuries by the thick mud at the bottom of stone-walled pools.

The tiny bronze body parts include representations of lungs, hearts, intestines and livers, offered to the gods by people who prayed for recuperation and healing. “It’s a unique find, the most important discovery of bronzes for 50 years,” Emanuele Mariotti, the director of the archaeological site, told The Telegraph.

“They were offered to the gods as a gift. Bronze statues like this would have been very expensive to make so we are talking about the VIPs of the ancient world – powerful Etruscan families and then rich Romans, perhaps even emperors. The sanctuary was a sacred place – it was not a public thermal bath.”

The bronze statues, some of them a metre or three feet tall, represent gods and goddesses such as Apollo, Isis, Fortuna and Igea, the goddess of health.

Archaeologists have also recovered around 5,000 gold, silver and bronze coins, which Roman devotees tossed into the water.

Prof Jacopo Tabolli, the lead archaeologist at the dig, said the discovery would “rewrite history”.

The finds mean that the sanctuary is “a research laboratory on the cultural diversity of antiquity,” he said.

Many of the bronze objects bear inscriptions in Latin and Etruscan and indicate that Etruscan survived for much longer as a living language than previously thought.

Massimo Osanna, the director general of museums and archeological sites, said: “It's the most important discovery since the Riace Bronzes and is certainly one of the most significant discovery of bronzes ever made in the history of the ancient Mediterranean.”

There are plans to turn the dig site into an archaeological park and to build a museum to display the bronzes.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/travel/news/archeologists-in-italy-find-remarkable-hoard-of-ancient-bronze-statues/ar-AA13SeiS?cvid=87f5941ea8a440969ae12a630e4588f2#image=1

 

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Fossils from half a billion years ago preserve first skeletons, solving centuries-old mystery

Chinese fossils show us what the first organisms to make skeletons looked like.

What did the first animals to have skeletons look like? The discovery of extraordinarily well-preserved fossils – over half a billion years old – has helped scientists solve this centuries-old mystery.

The ancestors of all backboned animals (including humans) suddenly appear in the fossil record 550 million years ago during the “Cambrian explosion.” That biological “big bang” saw the evolution of all the basic body plans that we see in the animal kingdom today – including exoskeletal arthropods (ancestors of spiders, insects and scorpions) and vertebrates.

The earliest known vertebrates were small fish-like organisms, no longer than 5 centimetres. One such ancient fish, Pikaia, lived 505 million years ago.

But the answer to the question of how skeletons evolved before becoming bendy backbones has long eluded scientists.

Because the soft tissue surrounding the skeleton is rarely preserved, this has remained a palaeontological riddle.

Four specimens of a species called Gangtoucunia aspera allow scientists to finally answer these questions. The 514-million-year-old fossils preserved impressions of the animals’ soft tissues – including the gut, mouthparts and the tissue surrounding the hollow-tube skeleton.

Gangtoucunia are revealed to have a mouth fringed with smooth tentacles about 5 millimetres long. These tentacles were probably used to capture small arthropods for food. The skeletal pioneers are also shown to have a blind-ended gut – that is, a single opening performed both the function of a mouth and an anus.

The features present in Gangtoucunia are found today only in modern jellyfish, anemones, and their close relatives, the cnidarians – organisms whose soft tissue is rarely preserved in the fossil record. The research shows these animal groups were among the first to build the fossilised skeletons.

Gangtoucunia would have looked like the polyps of true jellyfish. The hard, tubular body anchored to the sea floor would have been topped with the retractable, tentacled mouth. Unlike modern jellies, however, the skeletal tube of Gangtoucunia was made of calcium phosphate – the same stuff that makes up our teeth and bones, but has become more rare in animal skeletons over the aeons.

“This really is a one-in-million discovery,” says author Dr Luke Parry from Britain’s Oxford University. “These mysterious tubes are often found in groups of hundreds of individuals, but until now they have been regarded as ‘problematic’ fossils, because we had no way of classifying them. Thanks to these extraordinary new specimens, a key piece of the evolutionary puzzle has been put firmly in place.”

The fossils are the subject of a research paper published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Analysing the new Gangtoucunia specimens shows that the organisms are not related to annelid worms (like earthworms) as was previously believed. The smooth exterior of Gangtoucunia and its longitudinally-partitioned gut does not correspond to the segmented and transversely-partitioned bodies of annelids.

“The first time I discovered the pink soft tissue on top of a Gangtoucunia tube, I was surprised and confused about what they were,” says first author and Yunnan University PhD student Guangxu Zhang, who collected and discovered the specimens.

“In the following month, I found three more specimens with soft tissue preservation, which was very exciting and made me rethink the affinity of Gangtoucunia. The soft tissue of Gangtoucunia, particularly the tentacles, reveals that it is certainly not a priapulid-like worm as previous studies suggested, but more like a coral, and then I realised that it is a cnidarian.”

While Gangtoucunia certainly appears to be an early jellyfish, it doesn’t rule out the possibility that other fossil tubes may have belonged to animals that looked very different. Some are still believed to have belonged to marine worms and other early worm-like organisms.

“A tubicolous mode of life seems to have become increasingly common in the Cambrian, which might be an adaptive response to increasing predation pressure in the early Cambrian,” adds co-author Dr Xiaoya Ma of both Yunnan and Exeter Universities. “This study demonstrates that exceptional soft-tissue preservation is crucial for us to understand these ancient animals.”

https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/fossils-first-skeletons/

 

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4,000-year-old head lice comb found inscribed with phrase using the alphabet

The comb was made by the Canaanites, an ancient people that lived in what is now Israel and Palestine around 4,000-5,000 years ago.

A tiny ivory comb inscribed with the first ever full sentence found written in the Canaanite language has been discovered by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The comb, which dates back to around 1,700BC, was unearthed at Tel Lachish in Israel - a major Canaanite city state in the Biblical Kingdom of Judah.

The inscription on the comb reads: “May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard.”

The alphabet was invented around 1,800BC by a Semitic people living in the Levant. Shortly after, it was adopted by the Canaanites – an ancient people that lived in what is now Israel and Palestine around 4,000-5,000 years ago. Before the discovery of the comb, the only Canaanite inscriptions found were limited to just two or three words.

The phrase inscribed on the comb is made up of 17 Canaanite letters that form seven words. The engraving is very finely detailed, with letters measuring just 1-3mm across.

“This is the first sentence ever found in the Canaanite language in Israel. There are Canaanites in Ugarit in Syria, but they write in a different script, not the alphabet that is used till today,” said study leader Prof Yosef Garfinkel, of the Hebrew Univeristy of Jerusalem's Institute of Archaeology.

“The Canaanite cities are mentioned in Egyptian documents, the Amarna letters that were written in Akkadian, and in the Hebrew Bible. The comb inscription is direct evidence for the use of the alphabet in daily activities some 3700 years ago. This is a landmark in the history of the human ability to write.”

The comb is made from elephant ivory and measures roughly 3.5cm by 2.5cm. On one side it has six thick teeth that were used for untangling air and 14 fine teeth for removing head lice and their eggs on the other.

As ivory was an expensive material, it’s likely that the comb belonged to someone of high social status – an indication that even wealthy Canaanites suffered from head lice, the researchers say.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/4000-year-old-head-lice-comb-found-inscribed-with-phrase-using-the-alphabet/

 

Edited November 9, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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Earliest sign of controlled fire for cooking found in Israel, dating back nearly 800,000 years

The discovery predates available data by 600,000 years.

A huge carp-like fish, two metres in length, found in Israel, shows that fish were cooked roughly 780,000 years ago. Until now, the earliest evidence for cooking dates to around 170,000 years ago.

Cooking – the act of processing food by controlling the temperature at which it is heated – developed at some point in human history. It is also widely accepted that preparing our food in this way would have had a major impact on brain development and how the human body evolved.

Pinpointing when humans began cooking has been subject to much debate over the last century. Some research suggests a surge in brain size 1.8 million years ago in human ancestor Homo erectus is related to cooked meals.

But concrete evidence of cooking in prehistory is rare.

Findings published in Nature Ecology and Evolution show definitively that the earliest known cooked meal was 780,000 years ago in Israel. The study was conducted by a team of researchers from Israeli universities.

The team analysed the remains of a carp-like fish found at the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov archaeological site in Israel.

Pharyngeal teeth (used to grind up hard food such as shells) from the carp were found in large quantities at the site. Studying the structure of the crystals that form the teeth enamel (which increase in size when exposed to heat), the researchers were able to prove that the fish were exposed to temperatures suitable for cooking and were not simply burned by a spontaneous fire.

“This study demonstrates the huge importance of fish in the life of prehistoric humans, for their diet and economic stability,” say first author Dr Irit Zohar, a researcher at Tel Aviv University’s Steinhardt Museum of Natural History and corresponding author Dr Marion Prevost from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

They add that the find also helps reconstruct the fish population of the region for the first time.

“The large quantity of fish remains found at the site proves their frequent consumption by early humans, who developed special cooking techniques,” Zohar and Prevost explain. “These new findings demonstrate not only the importance of freshwater habitats and the fish they contained for the sustenance of prehistoric man, but also illustrate prehistoric humans’ ability to control fire in order to cook food, and their understanding the benefits of cooking fish before eating it.”

“The fact that the cooking of fish is evident over such a long and unbroken period of settlement at the site indicates a continuous tradition of cooking food,” says co-author and director of the excavation site, Hebrew University of Jerusalem professor Naama Goren-Inbar. “Gaining the skill required to cook food marks a significant evolutionary advance, as it provided an additional means for making optimal use of available food resources. It is even possible that cooking was not limited to fish, but also included various types of animals and plants.”

The authors suggest that not only was the transition from eating raw to cooked food important for our development, but that fish might have played a critical role in human evolution. Omega-3 fatty acids, zinc, iodine and other compounds common in fish are known to contribute greatly to brain development.

In fact, the research team believe that freshwater areas – some which have long since dried up, leaving arid desert behind – may have determined the migration of early humans out of Africa.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/israel-earliest-cooking-fire/

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Spider monkey sacrificed 1,700 years ago in Mexico earliest sign of primate captivity and Mayan gift diplomacy

Spider monkeys were considered an exotic curiosity in pre-Hispanic Mexico.

The complete skeleton of a spider monkey that died 1,700 years ago in Mexico reveal new evidence of social and political ties between the Teotihuacán and Maya Indigenous rulers of the time.

Anthropological archaeologist and University of California (UC) Riverside assistant professor Nawa Sugiyama made the discovery with a team who have been excavating the site at Plaza of Columns Complex, in Teotihuacán, Mexico since 2015.

Along with the spider monkey skeleton were the remains of other animals, thousands of Maya-style mural fragments and over 14,000 broken bits of ceramic, called sherds, from a grand feast. All date from from 250–300CE.

Spider monkeys were considered an exotic curiosity in pre-Hispanic Mexico. Their modern range extends from central Mexico in the north to Bolivia in the south.

The spider monkey found at Teotihuacán, northeast of Mexico City, is the earliest evidence of primate captivity, translocation, and gift diplomacy. Researchers believe the animal was sacrificed in this ceremonial centre, and is evidence of a diplomatic gift exchange with neighbouring Maya.

The analysis of the individual’s remains is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The findings debunk previous beliefs that Maya in Teotihuacán were restricted to migrant communities. The spider monkey helps researchers piece together the complex interactions of high diplomacy in central Mexico 1,700 years ago.

“Teotihuacán attracted people from all over, it was a place where people came to exchange goods, property, and ideas. It was a place of innovation,” says Sugiyama who is first author on the PNAS paper. “Finding the spider monkey has allowed us to discover reassigned connections between Teotihuacán and Maya leaders. The spider monkey brought to life this dynamic space, depicted in the mural art. It’s exciting to reconstruct this live history.”

Multiple methods were applied in studying the female spider monkey. These included zooarchaeology (the study of animal remains in the archaeological record), DNA analysis, isotope measurements, palaeobotany and radiocarbon dating.

The spider monkey was likely between five and eight years old at the time of death. According to the analysis, the animal was captured before the age of three.

Bone chemistry suggests the animal was captive for more than two years, and fed maize, arrowroot and chili peppers by its captors. Prior to arriving in Teotihuacán, it lived in a humid environment, eating primarily plants and roots.

It was ceremonially sacrificed tethered to and associated with a golden eagle, several rattlesnakes and an array of other statecrafts. Among the artefacts were fine greenstone figurines made of jade, shell ornaments, and obsidian blades and projectile points.

This arrangement is consistent with live sacrifice in rituals performed in Teotihuacán’s Moon and Sun Pyramids.

The study is more than about analysing a few bones and bits of ceramic. It helps paint a broader picture of how these powerful, advanced societies interacted.

“This helps us understand principles of diplomacy, to understand how urbanism developed … and how it failed,” Sugiyama explains. “Teotihuacán was a successful system for over 500 years, understanding past resilience, its strengths and weaknesses are relevant in today’s society. There are many similarities then and now. Lessons can be seen and modelled from past societies; they provide us with cues as we go forward.”

https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/spider-monkey-mexico/

 

[CaaC (John)]

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World’s oldest meal found in 550-million-year-old fossils

Australian researchers have found remnants of algae in the digestive systems of ocean-dwelling Paleozoic invertebrates.

Most of us can remember what we ate for our last meal. Ediacara biota, the world’s oldest large organisms, on other hand, might have more trouble answering that question – they’ve been dead for 550 million years.

But now, a team from the Australian National University (ANU), have found the answer. In a collaboration with Dr Ilya Bobrovskiy from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, they managed to identify the remnants of the last meals of a pair of Ediacara biota fossils found in Russia in 2018. It turns out they ate algae from the ocean floor.

They found that one of the two creatures – a slug-like creature called Kimberalla – had a mouth and gut, and digested food in the same way that modern animals do.

The other – Dickinsonia, which looked a bit like a ribbed flatfish or a very large trilobite and measured 1.4m long – was a more basic beast with no eyes, mouth or gut, and absorbed food through its body as it moved along the ocean floor.

“Our findings suggest that the animals of the Ediacara biota were a mixed bag of downright weirdoes such as Dickinsonia, and more advanced animals like Kimberella that already had some physiological properties similar to humans and other present-day animals,” said Bobrovskiy.

By analysing the fossils in search of preserved phytosterol molecules - natural compounds found in plants – they were able to determine that the creatures lived on a diet of algae, which were abundant at the time.

“Scientists already knew Kimberella left feeding marks by scraping off algae covering the sea floor, which suggested the animal had a gut,” said the study’s co-author Professor Jochen Brocks of ANU.

“But it was only after analysing the molecules of Kimberella’s gut that we were able to determine what exactly it was eating and how it digested food.

“The energy-rich food may explain why the organisms of the Ediacara biota were so large. Nearly all fossils that came before the Ediacara biota were single-celled and microscopic in size.”

https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/worlds-oldest-meal-found-in-550-million-year-old-fossils/

 

Edited November 24, 2022 by CaaC (John)
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Gold coin proves 'fake' Roman emperor was real

An ancient gold coin proves that a third century Roman emperor written out of history as a fictional character really did exist, scientists say.

The coin bearing the name of Sponsian and his portrait was found more than 300 years ago in Transylvania, once a far-flung outpost of the Roman empire.

Believed to be a fake, it had been locked away in a museum cupboard.

Now scientists say scratch marks visible under a microscope prove that it was in circulation 2,000 years ago.

Prof Paul Pearson University College London, who led the research, told BBC News that he was astonished by the discovery.

"What we have found is an emperor. He was a figure thought to have been a fake and written off by the experts.

"But we think he was real and that he had a role in history."

FULL REPORT

 

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Amelia Earhart mystery deepens as hidden text found on panel thought to be from her plane

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New evidence has come to light in the mystery of the disappearance of the pioneering American aviator Amelia Earhart, who vanished in 1937 amid an attempt to circumnavigate the globe. Researchers from the Penn State University have used advanced imaging techniques to re-analyse a metal panel, found on the island of Nikumaroro in 1991, that is believed to have come from onto Ms Earhart's aircraft. Their scans revealed hidden text on the weathered aluminium panel that could help to identify it - and confirm whether or not it did come from the missing plane. If the latter is proven correct, the discovery could add weight to the popular theory that Ms Earhart made it to Nikumaroro after contact was lost with her as she approached Howland Island, one of the last waypoints on her planned route.

Ms Earhart - along with her navigator, Fred Noonan - disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean in mid-1937 during her attempt to become the first woman to fly around the globe.

The pair, flying in a Lockheed Model 10-E Electra, were last seen departing from the city of Lae, New Guinea on July 2, on one of the final legs of their journey. However, their plane never arrived as expected at their next stop at Howland Island, which lies nearly halfway between Hawaii and Australia.

According to the radio logs of the the United States Coast Guard Cutter Itasca - on station at Howland to support the flight - in one of her last transmissions, Ms Earhart broadcast that her plane was running out of gas, and only had half-an-hour left.

Despite rescue efforts that lasted 17 days, covered a whopping 150,000 square miles of the Pacific and cost the US Coast Guard and Navy a then-record-breaking $4million, no conclusive physical evidence of the Electra 10-E or her crew were ever found.

Nearly 18 months later, on January 5, 1939, Ms Earhart and Mr Noonan were declared dead - and their disappearance became one of aviation's most enduring mysteries.

Explanations proposed ranged from the prosaic - that they simply crashed into the ocean and sank after running out of fuel - to the outlandish, with one popular conspiracy theory suggesting that Ms Earhart survived the flight, assumed a new identity, and moved to New Jersey.

One location searched in the immediate aftermath of the disappearance was Gardener Island - now known as Nikumaroro - which records said had been uninhabited for 40 years. Aircraft from the US Navy battleship Colorado flew over the island as part of the rescue efforts around a week after the pair vanished.

A subsequent report from the USS Colorado's senior aviator to the Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics read: "Here [on Gardener] signs of recent habitation were clearly visible but repeated circling and zooming failed to elicit any answering wave from possible inhabitants and it was finally taken for granted that none were there."

(Curiously, the official summary published by the USS Colorado's commander, one Captain Friedall, made no mention of the island appearing to have been recently occupied.)

"At the western end of the island a tramp steamer (of about 4,000 tons) lay high and almost dry head onto the coral beach with her back broken in two places. The lagoon at Gardner looked sufficiently deep and certainly large enough so that a seaplane or even an airboat could have landed or takenoff [sic] in any direction with little if any difficulty.

The report concluded: "Given a chance, it is believed that Miss Earhart could have landed her aircraft in this lagoon and swum or waded ashore."

Nikumaroro was the target of a series of eleven later expeditions conducted by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR - pronounced "tiger") with the aim of determining whether Ms Earhart did end up on the island.

The group have reported the discovery of various artefacts on Nikumaroro - including improvised tools, a size-9 woman's shoe heel (Ms Earhart reportedly wore a size 6), a strangely-shaped piece of clear plexiglass and a weathered aluminium panel, around 19 by 23 inches in size.

According to TIGHAR head and aviator Richard Gillespie, the panel - which he found in 1991 - matches one that can be seen covering a window on the right side of the Electra 10-E in a photograph taken of the plane when it departed Miami on June 1, 1973.

Some experts are sceptical about this theory. In 2017, analysis by the New England Air Museum, however, noted that that the unique pattern of rivets seen on the panel matches those seen on the top of the wing on a Douglas C-47 Skytrain - a military transport aircraft that did not enter into service until late 1941, years after Ms Earhart vanished.

Furthermore, a C-47B is recorded to have crashed elsewhere in the Phoenix Island Group during World War 2, with villagers having said that they transported aluminium from that wreck to Nikumaroro.

Nikumaroro was the target of a series of eleven later expeditions conducted by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR - pronounced "tiger") with the aim of determining whether Ms Earhart did end up on the island.

The group have reported the discovery of various artefacts on Nikumaroro - including improvised tools, a size-9 woman's shoe heel (Ms Earhart reportedly wore a size 6), a strangely-shaped piece of clear plexiglass and a weathered aluminium panel, around 19 by 23 inches in size.

According to TIGHAR head and aviator Richard Gillespie, the panel - which he found in 1991 - matches one that can be seen covering a window on the right side of the Electra 10-E in a photograph taken of the plane when it departed Miami on June 1, 1973.

Some experts are sceptical about this theory. In 2017, analysis by the New England Air Museum, however, noted that that the unique pattern of rivets seen on the panel matches those seen on the top of the wing on a Douglas C-47 Skytrain - a military transport aircraft that did not enter into service until late 1941, years after Ms Earhart vanished.

Furthermore, a C-47B is recorded to have crashed elsewhere in the Phoenix Island Group during World War 2, with villagers having said that they transported aluminium from that wreck to Nikumaroro.

In a new study, however, researchers from Penn State University have analysed the aluminium panel in unprecedented detail using neutron radiography. This non-destructive technique - which uses a collimated beam of neutrons to create an image of the object in its path - can both reveal hidden details and even the slighted hints of contaminants.

Unlike in X-ray images, in which the radiation attenuates based on the density of the object being scanned, images in neutron radiography are created because neutrons pass through some particles but not others. This creates a contrast which can be used to build up a picture of the object, revealing details that wouldn't appear in an X-ray photograph.

The study was led by Penn State engineering program manager Daniel Beck, who became interested in the panel after learning about it on the 2019 National Geographic documentary "Expedition Amelia", which covered the deep-sea explorer Professor Robert Ballard's unsuccessful attempt to locate the Electra 10-E in the waters around Nikumaroro.

(Prof. Ballard is famous for uncovering the wrecks of the RMS Titanic, the German battleship Bismarck and the USS Yorktown.)

Mr Beck felt sure that analysis using neutrons from Penn State's Breazeale Reactor would be able to determine if the panel had any hidden secrets to tell.

He said: "We thought it was a good fit - we were fairly confident we'd be able to see the remnants of marks worn away or paint particles. The first images were really exciting, but we knew we needed to do better to confirm what we thought we saw.

"We were already in the process of upgrading the neutron imaging facility, so the panel provided the perfect sample to optimise our neutron radiography capabilities."

Following the upgrade, Mr Beck and his colleagues imaged the panel once again - and made a new discovery. Nuclear engineer Professor Kenan Ünlü explained: "We found what looks like stamped or painted marks that could be from the original manufacturer.

"D24 and 335, or maybe 385. We don't know what they mean, but they are the first new information from this panel that has been examined by various experts with different scientific techniques for over 30 years."

Other writings revealed on the panel include the letters "XRO" and the characters "3" and "D". Armed with this new information, Mr Gillespie is now working with forensic analysts to attempt to determine what these six characters could mean.

If they represent some kind of production number, they might be used to identify the plate as having definitely come - or not - from Ms Earhart's plane.

Mr Gillespie said: "My mission - the mission of TIGHAR - is to use science to help solve aviation mysteries. Whether this information provides more evidence or disproves that the panel belonged to Earhart's plane, I'll be glad to know."

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/amelia-earhart-mystery-deepens-as-hidden-text-found-on-panel-thought-to-be-from-her-plane/ar-AA14KTfU?li=AAnZ9Ug&cvid=606eeecd0eaf449cab1644cd9582fb9c#image=7

[CaaC (John)]

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Bristol: Fossil shows lizards millions of years older than thought

A new discovery suggests lizards have existed for 35 million years longer than previously thought.

The University of Bristol took CT scans of fossilised remains of a reptile that sat in a Natural History Museum storage cupboard for decades.

They show the unknown reptile to be closely related to modern-day lizards.

Dr David Whiteside, who led the research, said the fossil was "likely to become one of the most important found in the last few decades".

It was thought lizards originated from the later Middle Jurassic period but the new findings show they lived in the Late Triassic period (237-201 million years ago).

Sharp teeth

The fossil impacts all estimates of the origin of lizards and snakes, together called the Squamata, and affects assumptions about their rates of evolution.

It was found in storage in a collection from the 1950s, including specimens from a quarry near Tortworth in South Gloucestershire.

The team has named its discovery Cryptovaranoides microlanius, meaning 'small butcher', in reference to its jaws, which are filled with sharp-edged slicing teeth.

Dr Whiteside, from Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, first spotted the specimen in a cupboard full of Clevosaurus fossils.

He explained: "This was a common enough fossil reptile, a close relative of the New Zealand tuatara that is the only survivor of the group the Rhynchocephalia, that split from the squamates over 240 million years ago."

"As we continued to investigate the specimen, we became more and more convinced that it was actually more closely related to modern day lizards than the Tuatara group."

The university team made X-rays of the fossil, allowing them to reconstruct it in three dimensions and see the tiny bones hidden inside the rock.

They said Cryptovaranoides was clearly a squamate because it differed from the Rhynchocephalia in several key areas, including the braincase, in the neck vertebrae and in the shoulder area.

Dr Whiteside concluded: "This is a very special fossil and likely to become one of the most important found in the last few decades."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-63832928

 

 

[CaaC (John)]

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Ancient Denisovan DNA found to have shaped the immune system of modern Papuans

Denisovan DNA makes up about five percent of the DNA of Papuans.

The DNA of Denisovans likely helped the evolution of modern Papuans’ immune systems.

Closely related to Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthals), Denisovans were discovered in 2010 and are only known to science through their DNA and sparse remains in Siberia and Tibet. Denisovans, like Neanderthals, are mysterious ancient humans who went extinct but appear to have interbred with ancient modern humans, Homo sapiens.

Denisovans may have lived until as recently as 30,000 years ago.

It’s believed that Denisovans and Neanderthals shared a common ancestor about 400,000 years ago. While Neanderthals went to Europe, the Denisovans split eastward into Asia.

Today, Denisovan DNA makes up about five percent of the DNA of Papuans, indigenous Australians, Melanesians and other ethnic groups in Southeast Asia such as in the Philippines. Similarly, Neanderthals contributed 1-4 percent of non-African human genomes, depending on the region of the world.

As little as 40,000 years ago, modern humans had 6-9 percent Neanderthal DNA.

Australian and Papuan researchers sought to better understand the significance of Denisovans’ genetic contributions to modern human populations. Their results are published in the journal PLOS Genetics.

The scientists mapped and analysed the genomes of 56 modern Papuans to see if they carried any bits of Denisovan or Neanderthal DNA. They then predicted how the sequences given to the Papuans by the ancient humans might affect the function of different cell types.

Looking at where the genes appeared to not come from ancient Homo sapiens, the team found that Papuans had Denisovan – not Neanderthal – DNA which strongly and consistently affected immune cells and their functions.

Further testing of cell cultures confirmed this. Denisovan DNA sequences influenced nearby genes, either making them more or less pronounced in ways that could affect how the human body responds to infections.

The study suggests that the DNA passed down from Denisovans may have helped early modern humans living in New Guinea and nearby islands by altering their immune response and helping them adapt to their environment.

“Some of the Denisovan DNA that has persisted in Papuan individuals until today plays a role in regulating genes involved in the immune system,” explains senior author Dr Irene Gallego Romero from the University of Melbourne. “Our study is the first to comprehensively shed light on the functional legacy of Denisovan DNA in the genomes of present-day humans.”

Exploring how DNA from now extinct humans plays into gene expression may be key in understanding the consequences of interbreeding between early modern humans and other groups such as Neanderthals and Denisovans.

The results of the study support the theory that ancient DNA from long-gone human groups has impacted genetic diversity and evolution in modern human. Multiple characteristics of modern people can likely be traced back to Denisovan and Neanderthal DNA.

“We show that not only Neanderthal, but also Denisovan DNA is very likely to contribute to gene expression in human populations,” says first author Dr Davide Vespasiani also from the University of Melbourne. “Further validations will reveal whether these effects are mostly cell type specific or consistent across cells.”

https://cosmosmagazine.com/people/denisovan-papuan-dna-immune/

 

[MUFC]

 

[CaaC (John)]

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What if these ancient plaques aren’t religious icons, but toys made by children?

The owl-like plaques from the copper age look like children’s drawings.

The Iberian Peninsula is dotted with thousands of plaques engraved with pictures that look like owls.

Dating from the Copper Age, around 5500 to 4750 years ago, the purpose of these hand-sized owl plaques has remained a mystery. Archaeologists thought they might have religious or ritualistic significance.

But a team of Spanish researchers has another suggestion: what if they’re actually children’s toys?

Publishing in Scientific Reports, the researchers point out the similarities between the plaques and modern children’s drawings of owls, and propose that children made the slate pieces to use as dolls, toys, or amulets.

Lead author Dr Juan J. Negro, a researcher in the Department of Evolutionary Ecology at the Spanish National Research Council’s Estación Biológica de Doñana, says that the simplicity of the designs made them think that these carvings may have been done by children.

Read more: Early humans’ social connections revealed by stone age tool

“The owl-looking plaques are a step behind other handcrafted objects produced in the same time period,” says Negro.

“Investigations by previous researchers who replicated the engraved plaques experimentally reported that the whole process of producing a finished plaque takes about three and half hours – a rather short time.

FULL REPORT