Hobbits Had Million-Year History On Island?

John Roach

for National Geographic News

Published March 17, 2010

"Newfound stone tools suggest the evolutionary history of the "hobbits" on the Indonesian island of Flores stretches back a million years, a new study says—200,000 years longer than previously thought.

The hobbit mystery was sparked by the 2004 discovery of bones on Flores that belonged to a three-foot-tall (one-meter-tall), 55-pound (25-kilogram) female with a grapefruit-size brain.

The tiny, hobbit-like creature—controversially dubbed a new human species, Homo floresiensis—persisted on the remote island until about 18,000 years ago, even as "modern" humans spread around the world, experts say.

Found in million-year-old volcanic sediments, the newly discovered tools are "simple sharp-edged flakes" like those found at nearby sites on Flores—sites dated to later time periods but also associated with hobbits and their ancestors—said study co-leader Adam Brumm, an archaeologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia, via e-mail.

The finding implies that a culture of stone tool wielding ancient humans, with origins in Africa, survived on the island for much longer than previously believed, according to the new research, published online today by the journal Nature.

"That's exciting," because it suggests that by a million years ago, early humans had covered more ground on their exodus from Africa than previously thought, said paleontologist Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum of London, who wasn't involved in the new study."

Read the Rest - Source: National Geographic

Klaus Dona, Spiritual Archaeologist - Project Camelot Interview

Klaus Dona:
Spiritual Archeologist
Vienna, Austria, October 2009

"Klaus Dona comes from the art world. As Art Exhibition Curator for the Habsburg Haus of Austria, Klaus has organized exhibitions world wide. With this background his approach to archeology is unconventional. He has traveled the world in search of unique and unexplained findings. Intrepid and unrelenting, he is on a mission to bring to the eye of the public such finds as giant bones, crystal skulls, carvings and sculptures in forms that do not fit into the contemporary view of our timeline."

"We spent an afternoon with Klaus in Vienna talking at length about his process, his particularly stunning finds and why he is motivated to pursue this unusual vocation. Staunchly open minded, he refuses to retreat in the face of skepticism and doubt. Low on funding, he presses on to discover the real mysteries, going down through the centuries and excavating artifacts that science does not allow for, revealing the existence of physical proof that humanity has barely grazed the surface of our heritage here on Earth."

Kerry Cassidy
28 January 2010

Click here for Klaus Dona's website.

Follow this link to download and listen to this fascinating interview from Project Camelot.
Watch the interview here:

Should We Clone Neanderthals?

 "In addition to giving scientists the ability to answer questions about Neanderthals' relationship to our own species--did we interbreed, are we separate species, who was smarter--the Neanderthal genome may be useful in researching medical treatments. Newly developed techniques could make cloning Neanderthal cells or body parts a reality within a few years. The ability to use the genes of extinct hominins is going to force the field of paleoanthropology into some unfamiliar ethical territory. There are still technical obstacles, but soon it could be possible to use that long-extinct genome to safely create a healthy, living Neanderthal clone. Should it be done?"

"Although most of the Neanderthal genome sequencing is now being done by the San Diego-based company Illumina, the Max Planck Institute initially chose 454 because it had come up with a way to read hundreds of thousands of DNA sequences at a time. Genome-sequencing technology is advancing at a rate comparable to computer processing power. 'Six years ago if you wanted to sequence E. coli [a species of bacteria], which is about 4 million base-pairs in length, it would have taken one or maybe two million dollars, and it would have taken a year and 150 people,' says Jarvie. "Nowadays, one person can do it in two days and it would cost a few hundred dollars."

It's really much more complicated than that.

"Human rights laws vary widely around the world. 'There is not a universal ban on cloning,' says Anderson. 'Even in the United States there are some states that ban it, others that don't.' On August 8, 2005, the United Nations voted to ban human cloning. It sent a clear message that most governments believe that human cloning is unethical. The ban, however, is non-binding."

Wow, this is getting a little scary.

"As different as Neanderthals were, they may not have been different enough to be considered a separate species. 'There are humans today who are more different from each other in phenotype [physical characteristics],' says John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin. He has studied differences in the DNA of modern human populations to understand the rate of evolutionary change in Homo sapiens. Many of the differences between a Neanderthal clone and a modern human would be due to genetic changes our species has undergone since Neanderthals became extinct. 'In the last 30,000 years we count about 2,500 to 3,000 events that resulted in positive functional changes [in the human genome],' says Hawks. Modern humans, he says, are as different from Homo sapiens who lived in the Neolithic period 10,000 years ago, as Neolithic people would have been from Neanderthals."

"The Neanderthals' brains made them capable of some impressive cultural innovations. They were burying their dead as early as 110,000 years ago, which means that they had a social system that required formal disposal of the deceased. Around 40,000 years ago, they adopted new stone-tool-making traditions, the Châttelperronian tradition in Western Europe and the Uluzzian in Italy, that included a greater variety of tools than they had used in hundreds of thousands of years."

"Bernard Rollin, a bioethicist and professor of philosophy at Colorado State University, doesn't believe that creating a Neanderthal clone would be an ethical problem in and of itself. The problem lies in how that individual would be treated by others. 'I don't think it is fair to put people...into a circumstance where they are going to be mocked and possibly feared,' he says, 'and this is equally important, it's not going to have a peer group. Given that humans are at some level social beings, it would be grossly unfair.' The sentiment was echoed by Stringer, 'You would be bringing this Neanderthal back into a world it did not belong to....It doesn't have its home environment anymore.'"

"There were no cities when the Neanderthals went extinct, and at their population's peak there may have only been 10,000 of them spread across Europe. A cloned Neanderthal might be missing the genetic adaptations we have evolved to cope with the world's greater population density, whatever those adaptations might be. But, not everyone agrees that Neanderthals were so different from modern humans that they would automatically be shunned as outcasts."

 "I'm convinced that if one were to raise a Neanderthal in a modern human family he would function just like everybody else," says Trenton Holliday, a paleoanthropologist at Tulane University. "I have no reason to doubt he could speak and do all the things that modern humans do."

 "'I think there would be no question that if you cloned a Neanderthal, that individual would be recognized as having human rights under the Constitution and international treaties,' says Lori Andrews, a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law. The law does not define what a human being is, but legal scholars are debating questions of human rights in cases involving genetic engineering. 'This is a species-altering event,' says Andrews, 'it changes the way we are creating a new generation.' How much does a human genome need to be changed before the individual created from it is no longer considered human?"

Read the Entire Article @ Archaeology.org

Oldest Musical Instrument - #51 Discover Magazine Top 100 Stories of 2009

Top 100 Stories of 2009 #51: Oldest Musical Instrument Found

"35,000 years ago, humans in what's now Germany were making sophisticated flutes from the bones of griffon vultures."

by Aline Reynolds

From the January-February special issue; published online January 3, 2010

 

"More than 35,000 years ago, our ancestors living in present-day southwestern Germany were playing sophisticated music, according to University of Tübingen archaeologist Nicholas Conard. In June he announced that he and his colleagues had unearthed an ancient bone flute in Hohle Fels, a cave in the Swabian mountains. The sound produced by the flute “is almost identical to tones of the major scale played on today’s flute,” says Nikolaj Tarasov, a recorder specialist at the Music University of Karlsruhe in Germany. The five-holed instrument—carved from the bone of a griffon vulture—might be capable of expressing greater harmonic variety than the modern-day flute, he says."

"Conard’s group discovered fragments of three ivory flutes in their 2008 digs. Four other bone and ivory flutes were previously found in the same area. Collectively, these are regarded as the oldest known musical instruments. The researchers conjecture that music was important in the geographic expansion and cultural development of humans during the Upper Paleolithic era. “We can now state that our ancestors had a developed culture,” Tarasov says. “Not only were they surviving, but they had time to do something that required superior skill.”

SOURCE: Discover Magazine.com

27 Cuneiform Tablets Unearthed In Syria Along With Over 6,000 Yr Old Oven, Dolls & Much More

By Ruaa AL-Jazaeri    Saturday, 06 February 2010 16:50

"According to Syrian media, archaeological expeditions working at North-eastern Syria (Hasaka Province) have discovered several collective tombs and parts of seals with different shapes in addition to 27 cuneiform tablets dating back to 2500 BC."

"Director of Hasska Antiquities Department Abdul-Masih Baghdo said that the British expedition working at the site of Tal Barak had studied many clay jars discovered at the site."

"He added that the expedition also studied several archaeological findings to find out the location of the buildings dating back to the Babylonian and Mitanni periods."

"Three collective tombs were also unearthed at the site of Tal Majnuna, dating back to the period between 3600 to 3800 BC."

"The Japanese expedition working at the site of Tal Siker al-Ehmir discovered many residential buildings with stone foundations and floors painted with plaster, inside of which several archaeological artefacts made of clay and firestone were unearthed."

"The American expedition working at the site of Tal Mouzan unearthed parts of a stone-made wall surrounding a temple dating back to 2500 BC along with walls and floors built of bricks dating back to 3600 BC."

"The expedition had prepared a program to provide services at the site in addition to restoring the palace located there."

"It also conducted a study on 25 thousand pottery fragments dating back to the middle Assyrian age in addition to studying plant samples as many grains, fruits and vegetables were discovered."

"The American expedition had also unearthed parts of seals with different shapes dating back to 2500 BC."

"The Japanese expedition working at the site of Tal Tabban discovered many archaeological buildings, walls and architectural structures dating back to different historical phases, the most important of which were 27 cuneiform tablets."

"The Italian expedition working at the site of Tal Beri discovered brick-built buildings dating back to the first half of the third millennium BC. Many clay pieces were unearthed inside the buildings in addition to discovering an architectural structure dating back to the period between the second and third century AD."

"The Russian expedition working at the site of Tal Khazna has unearthed several buildings and architectural structures dating back to second half of the second millennium BC."

"Inside the floor of the tower, the expedition unearthed four fireplaces, an oval-shaped building filled with ashes and a number of dolls representing humans and animals in addition to wheels made of mud, blades of sickles and basalt stones used as bases of some tools."

"The Syrian-German expedition working at the site of Tal Fukhira discovered brick-made walls dating back to the Roman era and holes dating back to the Hellenistic era and three phases of the Assyrian age in addition to discovering clay-made tombs built under an architectural structure and many cuneiform tablets."

"The Syrian-Belgian expedition working at the site of Tal Khasham conducted a survey for the current season at the basalt hill, located between al-Shaddada and Murakada cities through which it discovered 24 settlement areas."

"The expedition also unearthed 5 hunting grounds and 8 settlement areas through another survey in addition to discovering hundreds of stone paintings at the site of al-Jawadia."

"The Syrian-French expedition working at the site of Tal Faras last season discovered a building dating back to 3600 BC including many rooms and an oven .One can enter the building through a ladder."

"Parts of a large room dating back to 3900 BC and residential buildings were also discovered, inside of which many rooms and an oven were unearthed dating back to the period between 3900 and 4300 BC."

"A lot of clay pieces were discovered inside some halls dating back to the first half of the third Millennium BC."

"The Syrian-Belgian expedition working at the site of Tal Shaghir Bazar has unearthed a number of plaster-made buildings built on an official building dating back to the Old Babylonian period, inside of which several tombs were discovered in addition to discovering a circular building."

The expedition also unearthed a number of clay pottery and cuneiform tablets in addition to studying animal bones unearthed at the site.(SANA)

SOURCE: Global Arab Network

Graham Hancock - Quest For The Lost Civilization

In this video, Quest For The Lost Civilization, Graham Hancock, international bestselling author of Fingerprints of the Gods, The Sign and the Seal, and Heaven's Mirror takes you on a journey through some of the worlds oldest and most mysterious archaeological sites to examine the evidence that the ancients had far more knowledge about the sky and perhaps possessed far more knowledge than previously thought. This video travels throughout Egpyt, Cambodia, Easter Island, South America. You won't want to miss this if you enjoy ancient mysteries and theories.





To see the rest, follow the You Tube links.
Part 3 - Egypt / Angkor Wat
Part 4 - cont.
Part 5 - Sphinx/weathering dates?/ 10,500B.C. alignment
Part 6 - Maya/Chichen Itza/ Nazca Lines - Southern Peru
Part 7 - Nazca/Astronomy/Druids/Callanish/Dragon Hill/ Stonehenge
Part 8 - Carnac/ Flood/ Teotihuacan/ Pyramid of the Sun/
Part 9- Teotihuacan/ La Venta/ Olmec/Chichen Itza/Aztecs/(feathered) serpent symbolism/Egypt
Part 10 - Easter Island/Yonaguni - Underwater/
Part 11 - Pohnpei/Underwater structures
Part 12 - Underwater structures/ Summary/Easter Island/ Angkor/Giza
Part 13 - Inca (Peru/Cuzco) again - "souls of the dead become stars of the sky"/Navel of the Universe/megaliths/ancient astronomers
Part 14 - 10,500B.C & the ancient world.