Of course, the paper's main conclusion isn't that the 40-pound predator of the sky was eating children. The real significance of the paper is that the bird wasn't the scavenger that some paleontologists thought it was. It's evolutionary characteristics and brain size, as measured using CAT scans, indicate that it was more of a big-game hunter.

The paper also offers another example of how rapidly evolution can happen in a closed ecosystem like an island. The eagle's body grew much faster than its brain, in this case. This growth was apparently due to the availability of much larger prey. This prey was most likely the moa bird, but the study also suggests that the eagle might have victimized small children.

In fact, if this bird really did harass the Maoris in New Zealand, it would explain their legend of the pouakai or hokioi, a giant bird that would swoop out of the mountains to attack people, sometimes even killing small children. This giant Haast's eagle might be the mythical beast from these stories. Hopefully this news doesn't mean that there actually is a frightening beast roaming the Americas sucking the blood of innocent goats.

Extinct New Zealand eagle may have eaten humans [via PhysOrg]

(Image: the Haast's eagle attacking moa birds, from PLoS)

The fibers were made from woven flax, which the paleolithic humans gathered in the wild outside their cave. You can see a few examples of the fibers, above, under the microscope. Some are twisted together, indicating they might have been used in ropes or string. Whatever woven items they were part of have long ago disintegrated, but they left behind distinct impressions in the cave's clay floor - and these impressions were what scientists saw when they examined the clay. Scientists could even discern the dyes used to color the fibers, which would have been created with colors derived from plants.

Says Harvard archaeologist Ofer Bar-Yosef, who worked on the excavation of the cave:

This was a critical invention for early humans. They might have used this fiber to create parts of clothing, ropes, or baskets-for items that were mainly used for domestic activities. We know that this is wild flax that grew in the vicinity of the cave and was exploited intensively or extensively by modern humans.

He added that the ability to weave cloth and ropes would have given the people who inhabited this cave many advantages. They could have sewn animal hides into shoes, or knitted cloth sacks to carry their belongings in. Either way, cloth would have aided them in staying warm and remaining mobile.

The people who lived in the Georgian cave, pictured here, occupied it for thousands of years over many generations. Along with the 34-thousand-year-old twine, researchers also discovered flax fibers in the cave dating back to 21 thousand and 13 thousand years ago. Bar-Yosef and his colleagues' research is published in Science this week.

via Science

The Guardian newspaper reports on research carried out by Oxford University scientists on a fragment of bone discovered near Torquay in Devon that contained "delicate cut marks" that, it's been concluded, were made by a stone tool following death. According to the Guardian, scientists decided that the marks on the bone - thought to be part of the forearm of a human adult -

suggest that either the flesh was stripped or the body chopped into pieces – perhaps for ritual reasons or to make it more convenient to handle. The arm appears to have been fractured around the time of death.

Some would think it'd be a bit of a leap from there to cannibalism, but apparently past experience suggests otherwise:

Evidence suggesting cannibalism has been found at a number of prehistoric British sites, including Cheddar Gorge, and bones apparently split to extract the marrow found at Eton in Berkshire.

Being British, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this new revelation. On the one hand, it explains my love of meat and inability to successfully use tableware in polite social situations. But on the other, the idea of my ancestors chowing down on each other makes me slightly uncomfortable, especially if there were ritualistic cleavings in order to get to that point. Can we invent a time machine to go back and check this out already?

Cave bone hints at prehistoric Devon cannibals [Guardian.co.uk]

In the new study published today in Science, a group of European researchers sequenced five mitochondrial DNA taken from Neanderthal bones, some of which were 70,000 years old. They used a special technique to extract Neanderthal DNA from other kinds of materials that get mixed into fossils over time. What they discovered was that this DNA, taken from various regions around Europe, had many features in common.

According to Science:

[The researchers Jeffrey Good and Adrian Briggs] found 55 places out of the 16,565 bases where the mitochondrial genomes varied across the six ancient samples. On average, they found 20 differences between any two samples. In modern humans, about 60 differences exist between any two samples, making Neandertals about one-third as diverse.

Based on this lack of variation, the researchers were able to extrapolate roughly how large the population of Neanderthals might have been between 70,000 and 38,000 years ago. It appears that there were probably only about 7,000 Neandertals in Europe when homo sapiens arrived. The researchers speculate that this low population number may also have contributed to this species' eventual extinction.

The number also helps to explain other archaeological evidence, or rather the lack thereof. Scientists have found very few remains of Neanderthal cultures, and very few fossils of them as well. What this new research suggests, however, is that this tiny band spread very far across Europe. There may not have been a lot of them, they were good travelers.

Some scientists speculate that it might not be appropriate to categorize Neanderthals as a separate species at all. One might view them as an extreme variation on homo sapiens, which evolved squat bodies and thick brows to cope with the extreme cold of the European winter. Homo sapiens, which evolved in Africa, would have looked dramatically different from their pale, squat Neanderthal cousins. For now, however, Neanderthals are classified as their own species. And now it looks as if they were always a very tiny, marginal group.

via Science and Science News

The tiny remains - which revealed a hominid who stood a little over 3 feet when fully grown - was brought in to Stony Brook University on Long Island during a conference on evolution which focused partly on the discovery of Homo floresiensis. While some anthropologists say the Hobbit is just a deformed homo sapiens, others suggest it is just another extinct branch on the hominid tree like the Neanderthals. Remains of the Homo floresiensis were discovered near caves with tools, and some scientists say it probably used fire and hunted.

It's possible that Homo floresiensis was an evolutionary throwback, too. According to Live Science:

Its anatomy seems to be primitive. Many Homo floresiensis features, such as the shoulder, wrist, jaw and teeth, more closely resemble earlier hominin species such as Australopithecus afarensis ("Lucy") than modern humans.

Most of the researchers at the conference believe that the Hobbits represent a new species:

Florida State University anthropologist Dean Falk described a study in which she compared the size and shape of the Homo floresiensis brain (based on scans of the skull) to that of modern humans, chimpanzees, the early hominin species Homo erectus, and humans with a disorder called microcephaly, which has been suggested as an explanation for the Hobbit's small stature. She found the Hobbit brain most closely resembles Homo erectus, and is least like the brain with microcephaly.

"In our view we dispensed at that point with the microcelpahy hypothesis," she said. "It's not just that their brains are small; they're differently shaped. It's its own species."

There are no known pathologies that can account for all the anatomy features seen in Homo floresiensis, Washington University anthropologist Charles Hildebolt said.

I just hope we find some living in some remote area of the forest, or in caves deep under Jakarta.

via Live Science

Image via Stony Brook.

The sword guard you see above would have rested between the sword and the handle, and an x-ray revealed a little hole bored in it where you might hang a loop of jewelry - sort of the pirate sword equivalent of a cell phone charm.



Last week National Geographic reported on several other items recovered from the ship, including these tiny nuggets of gold that were hidden in a keg of what was once ammunition. Researchers speculate that one of the shipmen probably hid his gold in there and then it was lost when the ship sank.



Another bit of treasure recovered was this navigational instrument called a "chart divider." According to National Geographic:

Navigational instruments were favorite targets of looting pirates, because the tools could easily be sold or traded, said archaeologist David Moore of the North Carolina Maritime Museum, who is working on the wreck site.

There was also this gold apothecary weight, inlaid with the fleur de lis, a symbol of French royalty, which corroborates the story that Blackbeard stole the ship from France. Apothecary weights might have been used by a ship's doctor, or perhaps by Blackbeard himself for measuring the weight of gold he'd stolen.

You can find more cool images and back story via National Geographic

Between 1630 and 1631, the plague killed one third of Venice's population, wiping out 50,000 people out of a population of 150,000 in just one year. The panicked population, trying to stop the disease from spreading, often blamed female "vampires" for infecting the living. It was believed that people who chewed or bit their shrouds might be vampires (a dead body might appear to be chewing its shroud if it had post-mortem motor movements, which is fairly common; or bloody fluid released from the mouth after death might make it seem as if the shroud had been soiled by vampire nastiness).

To stop these "vampires," grave diggers would sort through bodies in mass graves and try to find ones who had bitten their shrouds and then shove a brick in their mouths to stop the threat. Yesterday researchers on an island near Venice announced they'd excavated a mass grave and found possibly the earliest example on record of a "vampire" who'd been buried with a brick in her mouth.

via The Hindu

Photo via Matteo Borrini and National Geographic

A paper published this week in Britain’s Journal of Experimental Botany reports the find in China’s Xinjiang region, where many modern strains of cannabis are thought to have originated. In addition to 789 grams of marijuana, the tomb contained bridles, archery equipment, and a harp, apparent provisions for the afterlife. Unlike other early examples of cannabis use, the research team believes that the marijuana was included for its psychoactive properties. Said the lead researcher, neurologist Ethan Russo:

"It was common practice in burials to provide materials needed for the afterlife. No hemp or seeds were provided for fabric or food. Rather, cannabis as medicine or for visionary purposes was supplied."

Russo studies the effects of cannabis on the brain, including its use in pain management for multiple sclerosis and cancer patients. He and other researchers have been conducting a battery of tests on the ancient weed, such as attempting to measure the levels of THC and germinate the seeds found in the cache, in an attempt to better understand ancient uses of the plant.

[The Star]

A team of archaeologists from the University of Chicago will discuss their findings at a conference this weekend. The man who created the stele was named Kuttamuwa, and he describes himself as a "servant" of King Panamuwa. Kuttamuwa's stele, in pristine condition, was found in a suburb of the walled city, far from the palace - archeologists speculate it was probably the man's own house. Though the city of Sam'al was influenced by local Semitic cultures in many ways - including their language - Kuttamuwa and Panamuwa are names that show the Indo-European cultural influence. Also, Kuttamuwa was cremated, a practice shunned by Semitic tribes of that era.

Apparently Kuttamuwa had his stele made while he was still alive, and last summer the archeological team found it, translating its inscription like this (there are question marks for translations they aren't sure of yet):

I, Kuttamuwa, servant of Panamuwa, am the one who oversaw the production of this stele for myself while still living. I placed it in an eternal chamber(?) and established a feast at this chamber(?): a bull for [the storm-god] Hadad, ... a ram for [the sun-god] Shamash, ... and a ram for my soul that is in this stele.

Written in an alphabet derived from Phoenician, the language is a West Semitic dialect similar to Aramaic and Hebrew. The stone depicts Kuttamuwa himself, eating at a table laden with food and drink.

What this reveals, according to research lead David Schloen, is that Kuttamuwa's people believed in a split between body and soul. This was a relatively novel belief at the time, and many neighboring peoples like the Israelites believed the body and soul were one. Kuttamuwa, however, planned for his soul to remain in the stele while his body was cremated. That's why he requested a "feast" in the chamber to feed his soul. Researchers found remains of food offerings in ancient bowls around the stele.

According to archeologist Schloen:

Kuttumuwa's inscription shows a fascinating mixture of non-Semitic and Semitic cultural elements, including a belief in the enduring human soul—which did not inhabit the bones of the deceased, as in traditional Semitic thought, but inhabited his stone monument, possibly because the remains of the deceased were cremated. Cremation was considered to be abhorrent in the Old Testament and in traditional West Semitic culture, but there is archaeological evidence for Indo-European-style cremation in neighboring Iron Age sites.

Funerary Monument Reveals Iron Age Belief [via University of Chicago]

Israeli archaeologist Nira Alperson-Afil and her team investigated an area where the lake had risen and fallen back a number of times, preserving the ancient hominid camp areas in layers of sediment. After digging down through twelve different layers, they found that camp after camp contained discarded flints that were charred by fire. This strongly suggests that they were using the flints to build fires, rather than simply finding fires in nature and keeping flames alive in little containers ala Quest for Fire.

And they were creating fire over generations, too. According to New Scientist:

Because these charred remains exist in all 12 layers of the site, every society must have had access to fire. It's unlikely that all 12 societies would have been lucky enough to find a natural source of fire, says Alperson-Afil, so they must have been able to create it themselves.

What's fascinating about this, aside from the ancient nature of fire-creation, is that somehow these hominids were teaching each other to make fires long before they had the language skills to express why they needed fire. Some anthropologists speculate that complex tool use is what led humans to start experimenting with grammar, and this discovery may help bolster that theory.

Proto-Humans Started Making Fires 790 Thousand Years Ago [via New Scientist]

Though it's not clear what drew visitors through the ages, anthropologists now believe that the many pools in the area were believed to have healing powers. So it was a cross between a hospital, a place of worship, and (after the large rocks were added) a scientific observatory for tracking seasons. Even more intriguing is the idea that people did not come for the giant, tall stones set there — those stones, though familiar to us now, are actually quite recent. In fact the real draw were the smallish "bluestones," dark blue rocks full of sparkling bits of quartz, which were dragged to the area from South Wales, 150 miles away. [via UK Guardian]

• 
  
• "I know the critics are going to hate it," he says. "They already hate it. So there's nothing we can do about that. They hate the idea that we're making another one. They've already made up their minds."

  Have we? Granted, we think Harrison might be too old. Sure, we're not certain how this will do without familiars like Marcus Brody and Sallah. Yes, we love to playa-hate on things. But deep down we all hope this rocks and takes us back to that special place we were at when we saw Raiders for the first time. We don't want to hate this movie, we want to love it.

• 
  
• "The fans are all upset. They're always going to be upset. 'Why did he do it like this? And why didn't he do it like this?' They write their own movie, and then, if you don't do their movie, they get upset about it. So you just have to stand by for the bricks and the custard pies, because they're going to come flying your way."

  People at last year's Comic-Con were peeing in their pants when Karen Allen got introduced as Marion. Literally. The smell was overwhelming. Call me nuts, but I think the fans are excited about this thing.

• 
  
• Lucas didn't mention this one, but a potential reason we're already starting to dislike this film is the inclusion of Shia Lebeouf as "Mutt," and probably the offspring of Indy and Marion (Karen Allen), although no one is officially confirming that. He irritated the crap out of us in Transformers, and we have a really itchy feeling that he'll do the same here. However, we're willing to backpocket that and chalk it up to rampant speculation. For now. Mostly because of this picture of him (bleh) sitting in the massive warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark (rad).
• 
  
• 'And then (spoiler warning) Lucas gets a little more (spoiler alert) specific: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will apparently nudge our hero away from his usual milieu of spooky archaeology and into the realm of (spoiler Code Red) science fiction.'

  Sorry Georgie, but this sounds like a reason we'll love Indy IV. We're tired of him going after religious artifacts with supernatural powers. Give us Indy and something all science-y and steampunk-y and we'll love it. But the Area 51 aliens? Ouch.

• 
  
• Not that he mentions it, but another reason to like Indy IV is Cate Blanchett in this Russian dominatrix outfit. Me-yow.
• 
  
• The Vanity Fair author drops this quote from himself near the end of the piece: "No one outside of the filmmakers will know for sure until May 22, but it would be pretty cool if it turns out that Emperor Palpatine had dropped a crystal skull on Earth. Or maybe one was left behind by the skinny dudes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Or maybe it's, like, E.T.'s cell phone. :)"

  If it turns out that anything from the Star Wars universe had anything to do with the Indiana Jones world, then fans are going to march to George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch, burn it to the ground, and then piss into the ashes before trekking down the Spielberg's slightly harder to find domicile and chugging gallons of water on the way in hopes of repeating the process.

  This goes triple as Harrison Ford hops into a classic 1950s car and drives to an American Graffiti-esque diner in this movie.

• Keys to the Kingdom [Vanity Fair]

The pyramid is about 35 feet high, and its ruins include a statue of an Aztec god, as well as several rooms full of skulls. This is completely cool in a kind of Chariots of the Gods kind of way. Even cooler is the way this photograph juxtaposes a background of thoroughly modern glass-and-concrete buildings with this chunk of ancient stone literally erupting out of the city's body. Image via Reuters.

Ancient pyramid found [Reuters]

Just check out the waistline on Indy's pants. Then note that the cobwebs on his hat might not be fake at all, it might have just come out of storage like that. Plus that photo of Indy and "Indy Jr." make it look like Indiana Jones and the Pretty Young Boy. Cross your fingers on this one.

Serbian researchers just dug up a bunch of 7500-year-old fashions — including mini skirts. Quoted in the AP story, archaeologist Julka Kuzmanovic-Cvetkovic said:

According to the figurines we found, young women were beautifully dressed, like today's girls in short tops and mini skirts, and wore bracelets around their arms . . . [the presence of metal shops] might prove that the Copper Age started in Europe at least 500 years earlier than we thought.

And in Tanzania, a dig revealed that early proto-human primates used tuber-digging spoons quite a bit. Far more than animal-killing tools. What does this leave us with? A blissful image of veggie-eating, mini skirt-wearing ladies making copper tools. Sounds as if human prehistory was more like a liberal arts college than The Land That Time Forgot. Or maybe it's just that science journalists want us to think so.AP photo by Felice Calabro.

Meat vs. Potatoes [LiveScience]

Prehistoric Women Had Passion for Fashion [AP]

A new research paper released today in PLoS Genetics says both studies may have gotten it wrong. They suggest that contamination might have screwed up Green's study, making it appear that there was a lot more admixture between the two hominids than there actually was. On the other hand, evidence from other studies make it seem likely that there was at least some mixing between human and Neanderthal, and that we have inherited some traits from those hairy, European hominids with the big foreheads who died out about 40 thousand years ago. You should expect to see more controversy coming out of Neanderthal DNA sequencing projects in coming months. People never cease to be fascinated by the idea that at one time there were two hominid populations living side-by-side in Europe — and that fascination fuels research grants. Image by Frank Franklin II for AP.

Inconsistencies in Neanderthal Genomic DNA Sequences [PLoS Genetics]