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Here's news of a podcast, which although has been available since December 2005, is one to which I've only just subscribed; called "Point of Enquiry", the production is part of the 'Center For Enquiry', which describes itself thus...
"The Center for Inquiry is a daring new concept. Although modern world civilization is based upon the achievements of science and technology, until this time there has been no authoritative and credible voice defending the scientific outlook in examining religion, human values, and the borderlands of science. If the naturalistic outlook is to supplant the ancient mythological narratives of the past, it needs a new institution devoted to its articulation and dramatization to the public. The Center for Inquiry is that institution."
All previous episodes, of which there are about 80, remain available - I subscribed via iTunes, and there are other options for listening at the linked website. There are additional links to popular shows,
Each issue features a different guest, many of whom will be instantly recognisable - Phil Plait, Steven Pinker, Susan Blackmore, Richard Wiseman, Dennett and Dawkins, with even Salman Rushdie popping in for a visit. At the moment I'm listening to Prof. Eugenie Scott, of the Dover, Pa. 2005 trial fame, discussing Creationism masquerading as Intelligent Design, and the attempts by some to have both subjects taught together in the science classroom.
The running times for the podcasts mostly hover between 30 - 40 minutes, although some are much longer, and I imagine there's plenty of topical interest to many.
image from here
This story looks at how the application of genetics to the study of modern medicine might yield dramatic improvements in the quality of life experienced by sufferers of rheumatoid arthritis, an inflammatory disease which is caused by defects in the autoimmune system - an estimated 3 million people in the US suffer from this, and I assume that the 1% ratio of the population broadly applies to other populations across the world.
Over the last decade, Dr. Gregersen and his colleagues have been amassing a genetic database complete with siblings with rheumatoid arthritis (and some family members without it) in an attempt to single out those genes that are involved in the autoimmune process. In fact, in 2004, they identified a gene called PTPN2 that confers a two-fold risk for rheumatoid arthritis and a number of other autoimmune diseases. The Feinstein now holds the largest collection from rheumatoid arthritis patients in the world.
Following the cellular pathway, it has been shown that PTPN22 influences the "trigger point" for activation of T-cells, immune cells that are normally called on to wage battle against infection. In autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, PTPN22 appears to put people at higher risk of a wayward T-cell response.
Although as we are aware, the field and depth of genetic research has burgeoned in recent years, I found this interesting...
What took two years to identify in the laboratory -- shared bands of genetic material -- would take two days today. And that speed is what excites Dr. Gregersen. "We have the tools to get at these genes rather quickly now," he said. "The more patients and controls that we have, the more power we will have to pull out new genes and make associations."
Reducing a 'solution horizon' from two years in the 1980s to two days in 2007 is not only a formidable achievement, but points to a future, which if technology proceeds at its current rate, would allow for almost instantaneous diagnoses and treatments to be administered to the patient.
However, it might be some time before that sort of technology becomes available to all - for those of us lucky enough to live in the First World, there will be greater access to such medicinal advances, but for tens of millions of others, their agonising wait for pain relief will inevitably be longer.
image from here
Here's an article from Discovery, which looks at a suggestion from H. Lee Seldon in which he proposes that the approximately 20-year maturation period of the modern human brain, not only gives us greater powers of speech than our archaic forebears, but also leaves us more vulnerable to disorders such as schizophrenia.
The theory proposes that language, creativity and many mental diseases are linked, due to the fact that they may originate in the neocortex, as well as the densely cell-packed cortex, located towards the top of the brain. These brain regions appear to mature and develop more slowly than other areas.
Although there are conflicting claims about possible Neanderthal creative abilities, no direct evidence supports that this extinct human species or subspecies possessed full-fledged grammatical language. Neanderthals had large brains, but researchers believe their mental skills matured rapidly, closing the door to disorders associated with the cortex.
There has been discussion in the past about how some genes, which at first seem harmful, may have introgressed into the modern human genome at the start of the Upper Palaeolithic - I think it was proposed that a gene that codes for microencephaly (I think) might also add cognitive abilities to modern humans - in any event, it is so widespread that it would seem there is an overall benefit conferred on the human population, though I need to check the facts further. Meanwhile, here's some more detail by way of explanation to Seldon's theory...
The first factor is a sex-linked gene that "steers brain development towards anatomical and functional asymmetry." A second genetic factor allows us to process fatty acids and produce large quantities of brain membranes, essentially permitting the growth of a big brain.
While Neanderthals probably possessed the first factor and some version of the second, the third genetic determinant appears to be unique to modern humans. Seldon believes it is a gene that influences cortical growth and stretching.
"In a nutshell, I feel that the extremely long maturation time of our brains — greater than 20 years — allows them to develop many and various capabilities, such as language and schizophrenia," H. Lee Seldon, the theory’s author, told Discovery News.
It also delays the end of brain growth until the third decade of life. The developing white matter in the cortex literally winds up expanding parts of our brain like a balloon, according to the hypothesis.
Neanderthals had pretty large brains themselves, in some cases bigger than our own - which would imply that if they matured much earlier than our own, there must have been some explosive growth episodes for Neanderthal brains. So, is the ballooning of our own cortex so comparatively late a feature unique to modern humans, and if so, I wonder what caused this feature evolve, so recently.
see also: TNT - The Neanderthal Tools
image: Guattari skull, from TNT
For anyone who may not yet have heard the news, the Hadza tribe in Tanzania, one of the last hunter-gathering peoples on Earth, are about to have their land confiscated by the Abu Dhabi royal family who have decided that they need the land more, in order that may have a private hunting area to themselves - the patch of land they already use in Tanzania has become too crowded - by other members of the same royal family, equally keen on armed outdoor leisure pursuits.
A number of posts have hit the web, the best of which is over at Northstate Science, and written by Chris O'Brien, who has not only worked with these tribespeople in the past, but personally knows some of those quoted in the original news story. He describes how the Hadza have not been consulted, and may now face prosecution and imprisonment, simply for hunting on what have previously been their own lands. Here's a quote from him...
It is ironic that government officials would be calling the Hadza “backwards”. On the contrary, it appears the Tanzanian government, far from exhibiting a societal maturity more in line with the 21st century, seems to prefer a cultural connection with 19th century Europeans in North America or 16th century Spanish in Central and South America. Indeed, catering to UAE royal family despotism might make Marmo and other Tanzania officials more comfortable with a return to the 17th century Arab slave trade across East Africa.
The Tanzanian government has frequently attempted to “settle” the Hadza and make them good little agriculturalists like we all should be. And, as the article has pointed out, this almost never works:
Government efforts over 40 years to forcibly integrate the Hadzabe into modern society have mostly failed. Instead, the Hadzabe seem to have preferred changing at their own pace, adopting bits of modern life over centuries…
A program to move families into a village of metal houses ended with Hadzabe fleeing to the bush after only a few days. "When it rains, those houses make a lot of noise," said Sarah Makungu, who tried them.
Previous attempts at introducing them to the concept and practice of agriculture have not been successful, as he further explains...
I remember returning to work with the Hadza in the early 1990s, at a time when the government forced them into settlements and brought it western development workers to teach them how to grow corn. Understanding that the Hadza would not be able to feed themselves while they were in “training” to grow corn, truckloads of milled corn were brought in regularly to feed the families until they were able to sow and harvest their own crops. The Hadza graciously accepted this government handout while the process of growing food was demonstrated to them over a number of months. All the while, Hadza men sat in the community meetings, working on arrows and bows.
Eventually, the government felt the Hadza had been shown all they needed. The trucks of corn stopped coming, the officials said “good luck in your new economic system” and departed, and the development workers went back to their western countries. And the Hadza? They promptly left the settlement when no one was around and returned to hunting and gathering in the bush.
This was also covered by Afarensis, here and here, and as can be seen from the headline, Kambiz at Anthropology.net is making a big effort to try and publicise this further; as he comments here...
One of the best things we can do, I can think of at this time, is good ole arm waving and hollerin’ to bring attention to the matter.
Since Christopher O’Brien’s excellent and emphatic post really transferred a personal attachment to this issue, I’ve submitted it to Digg to get more people alerted. I urge you to help start saving the Hadza and their culture by raising awareness to this violation and at least help digg up Chris’ post — it is the least we can do as anthropologists, in my humble opinion.
Although it could be argued that attempts to culturally upgrade the Hadza might lead to their greater life expectancy, as well as bring them other material benefits, it's not for us in the wider world to forcibly compel others to live a life we deem to be 'better', simply because we deem such an upheaval appropriate.
update: it seems the Washington Post are covering this too..
50,000 Years of Resilience May Not Save Tribe
see also: United Arab Emirate Royals Plan Mass Eviction For Ancient African Tribe
and: Hadzabe People Of Tanzania Face Serious Threats
image from schmoo
Whilst England is currently experiencing what has been described in some quarters as the wettest drought since records began, the news from Mars indicates it is fast becoming the wettest planetary desert we have yet discovered. This from New Scientist Space...
The report identifies specific spots that appear to have contained liquid water two years ago, when Opportunity was exploring a crater called Endurance. It is a highly controversial claim, as many scientists believe that liquid water cannot exist on the surface of Mars today because of the planet’s thin atmosphere.
If confirmed, the existence of such ponds would significantly boost the odds that living organisms could survive on or near the surface of Mars, says physicist Ron Levin, the report's lead author, who works in advanced image processing at the aerospace company Lockheed Martin in Arizona.
There has been some speculation as to what may have caused the recently discussed cavernous holes on the surface of Mars, which in some way resemble karst sinkholes on Earth - these have a visual similarity to the round openings seen on Mars. However, karst sinkholes on Earth occur on limestone, which is quite easily dissolved by acid contained within water.
The underground water of karst topography carves our impressive channels and caves that are susceptible to collapse from the surface. When enough limestone is eroded from underground, a sinkhole (also called a doline) may develop.
The holes on the Martian surface are in ancient lava flows, so I'm not sure if the karst sinkhole theory would be relevant here, as I'm fairly sure water can't dissolve lava rock. But if there is water below the surface on Mars, it might at least explain why we're seeing what may be puddles of the stuff, which has somehow risen to the surface sitting in an atmosphere which shouldn't allow for their presence - all very odd, imo. (more later)
Despite the fact that it took many years for the arrow-head in Ötzi's shoulder to be detected, it is now accepted that this was what caused his death, some 10,000 ft up a mountain, around 5,200 years ago. This follows earlier speculation, in the subsequent decade of the Iceman's discovery, which held he may have died from cold or hunger,
The question that now surrounds Ötzi's demise is how and why he came to be fatally wounded, shot from behind and slightly below him, high on a mountain pass; further discoveries indicated the presence of blood, possibly belonging to three other individuals on his clothing, plus cuts on his hand, possibly sustained while trying to fend off a frontal attack by someone armed with a sharp instrument or weapon.
However, it's the other details that have been gleaned from examining the contents of his stomach, and revealed what not only what he ate for his last meal, but where and at what time of the year that these events took place.
Examination of food - and perhaps more importantly - tree pollen in his stomach has established that Ötzi started his day with a meal in a wooded valley below the Alps.
Pollen from the hornbeam tree indicates he must have ingested it, probably accidentally, did so between March and June, and because of the climate and related altitude above which hornbeam cannot survive, indicated he acquired the pollen while down in the Ötz valley.
It isn't known why he left the relatively sheltered valley without food and water, or whether the fatal arrow wound was inflicted at the lower or higher altitude.
But the nature of the wound he sustained makes it likely he died fairly rapidly, due to internal bleeding, which ostensibly makes it probable he was shot up on the glacier, rather than being injured and trying to escape over the mountains. The nature of his wound would likely have weakened him quite rapidly, and climbing up a mountain may well have been nigh impossible.
The fact he was shot in the back may have meant that he had been pursued up the mountain by people with whom he had fought earlier, and who had caught up with him on the glacier, where they finished him off. We might have expected his foe to have then helped themselves to some of his possessions - here I'm thinking particularly of his copper axe, which along with other useful equipment, might have been tempting for the survivors to have stolen from him either pre- or post- mortem.
So that would indicate that he wasn't ambushed by bandits - if indeed, that profession was ever taken up by the society in which Ötzi had lived.
All that seems certain is that the man who ate breakfast one spring morning in a wooded mountain valley, would later be lying dead, the result of blood pouring out from the ripped artery below his left collar-bone. And although he probably died alone, he has, thousands of years later, given us the chance to peer into a snapshot vision of alpine life in the Copper Age.
Moreover, the discovery of his body has meant that many seemingly separate branches of science have been able to unite their combined talents to create an incredibly detailed picture of how this individual may have lived his life, what he ate, how he dressed and armed himself, as well as his age and general health condition at the time of his death.
see also: The Iceman's Last Meal
It's not often we see Government ministers taking an official interest in extraterrestrial life, but Minister for Science Malcolm Wicks met with senior figures from academia to discuss their belief that primitive life will be shown to exist elsewhere in space, within the next decade.
A recent revolution in technology means astronomers can now spot Earth-like planets orbiting faraway stars, raising the chances of alien life being found. By analysing reflected light, it is becoming possible to find any that may host vegetation and breathable atmospheres.
"Twenty years ago we only had one solar system to study and that's the one we live in. But since then, there's been an explosion in the number of planets outside our solar system that we've been able to detect," said Professor Keith Mason, chief executive of the Science and Technology Facilities Council and former head of space physics at University College London. Some 200 planets have been detected orbiting stars other than the sun.
This meeting was set against the backdrop of the ESA Darwin Mission, slated for lift-off in 2015, with the aim of examining stars to see if they have accompanying planets, and then examining 50 of those considered most likely to be able to support life. This from the Darwin website...
Darwin's main objective is to detect and characterise Earth-like worlds. To do this, Darwin will survey 1000 of the closest stars, primarily looking for small, rocky planets. It will provide images of these worlds as points of lights.
Having found them, Darwin will be able to study these 'points of light' using a spectroscope to determine whether any of them possess an atmosphere. If the planets do have atmospheres, Darwin's data will show its rough chemical composition. Ultimately, by analysing the gases present in the atmosphere, it could be possible to determine whether life exists on the planet being studied.
And while we're busy trying to detect signs of alien life, there's always the possibility that alien life will also be looking for other signs of life besides their own...
Our own existence may already have come to the attention of any aliens who are peering in our direction across the depths of space. Since the advent of radio waves, stray signals have leaked from Earth and travelled as far as 80 light years into space, far beyond the closest stars.
"If there's intelligent life out there, they sure as hell know we're here," said Michael Perryman, an astrophysicist at the European Space Agency.
I'm not sure how far into space that decipherable radio or TV shows might travel, but interesting to think we might be an entertainments hub for extraterrestrial others, who access us through the 'favourites' function on the equivalent of their remote control consoles.
As will be apparent from the headline, the latest edition of 4SH is up and running, at Testimony of the Spade, so head on over to read a selection of recent archaeology and anthropology posts, covering a good mix of topics, so plenty to keep the reader occupied. Many thanks go to Magnus Reuterdahl for kindly hosting this edition, which can be accessed by following the linked at top.
More on the putative comet that supposedly caused the megafaunal extinction in North America, ushering in the Younger Dryas and extinguishing the extant Clovis culture.
This particular report has some relevant images to accompany, hence its inclusion here. To briefly recap...
At sites stretching from California to the Carolinas and as far north as Alberta and Saskatchewan — many of which were home to prehistoric people of the Clovis culture—researchers have long noted an enigmatic layer of carbon-rich sediment that was laid down nearly 13 millennia ago.
"Clovis artifacts are never found above this black mat," says Allen West, a geophysicist with Geoscience Consulting in Dewey, Ariz. The layer, typically a few millimetres thick, lies between older, underlying strata that are chock-full of mammoth bones and younger, fossil-free sediments immediately above, he notes.
As well as the sedimentary evidence, eyes have been cast in the direction of the Carolina Bays, described as...
Around 1 million of these elliptical, sand-rimmed depressions, measuring between 50 meters and 11 kilometres across, scar the landscape from New Jersey to Florida. In samples taken from 15 of the features, Howard and his colleagues found iridium-rich magnetic grains and carbon spherules with tiny diamond fragments similar to those found at Clovis archaeological sites.
The long axes of the great majority of the Carolina Bays point toward locations near the Great Lakes and in Canada—a hint that the extraterrestrial object disintegrated over those locales, says George A.Howard, a wetland manager at Restoration Systems, an environmental-restoration firm in Raleigh, N.C.
Howard has posted a few links up at his site which can be found here, with links to other abstracts that were presented at the recent Acapulco Joint Assembly\AGU session on the Ice Age Catastrophe and although many are unconvinced that a single cometary event like this could have caused such widespread destruction - I read of one objection which argued that the asteroid which hit the Yucatan peninsular 65 million years ago didn't wipe out the dinosaurs, as otherwise claimed in the popular literature.
image: Carolina Bays from here
The latest issue of Current Anthropology is now available, and there a couple of articles in particular that caught my eye, both of which look at funerary practice in the distant and relatively recent past. The first one is 'Decapitation and Rebirth: A Headless Burial from Nasca, Peru', by Christina Conlee, from the University of Texas, whilst the second is 'From the Sunghir Children to the Rmito Dwarf - Aspects of the Upper Paleolithic Funerary Landscape', by Vincenzo Formicola from the University of Pisa, Italy.
Despite the seeming frequency of decapitations in the pre-Columbian world of human sacrifice, there are very few headless burials - although trophy heads were often kept, it seems the bodies that were once attached to the heads were disposed of separately, which would suggest a degree of informality in their subsequent disposal.
The second essay by Formicola looks at the types of burials and who was included therein, starting at Sunghir around 28,000 bp through the Romito Dwarf from Italy, and dating to the very end of the Upper Palaeolithic, ca. 10,000 bp.
Sunghir, whose dates hover between 28,000 and 25,000 bp, is perhaps one of, if not the most, spectacular burials of its era, the Gravettian, and it is noticeable that this complex burial appears almost 'out of nowhere'. Although humans had been burying individuals since at least the Middle Palaeolithic, none came even close to Sunghir in the sheer amount of time and effort expended in their preparation - and it was to be some considerable time before similarly elaborate burials reappeared beneath the landscape.
Indeed, it is notable that as Gravettian time elapsed, burials became devoid of grave goods, at least by 18,000 bp, so maybe a change in perception of whatever abstract context had brought about the elaborate bead burials had changed as the years rolled by.
The idea that upwards of 5,000 man-hours was devoted to the production of the differently sized mammoth ivory beads, does seem to indicate that the deaths of these children and adult was in some way anticipated; it seems clear that the beads, and presumably the garments to which they were attached, had been placed on the cadavers in a fully-fleshed, pre-skeletal state - dressing skeletons in clothes would presumably more difficult.
Slightly off-topic, the present edition (No.23) of Current World Archaeology has an article, 'The New World: England's First View Of America' reflecting on what the first Europeans made of their newly acquainted indigenous Native Indian populations in the new world. Part of this looks at the way in which dead chiefs were de-fleshed, yet the ligaments were left intact, thus leaving the skeletons in a more articulated state than would otherwise have been expected. Here's some paraphrased comment from Theodor de Bry, referring to an ossuary temple, wherein the mummified bodies of 10 (former) chiefs were laid out...
"The tomb of the werrovans or chieff lordes...First the bowls are taken forth then pull aside the skin, cut the flesh clean from the bones. Then dry the flesh in the sun and when it was well dried enclose it in mats and enclose the flesh in the chests at the foot of the chiefs. Then the bones remaining still fastened together with the ligaments whole and uncorrupted are covered again with leather and their carcass fashioned as if their flesh were not taken away."
There is therefore a very faint chance that the Sungir skeletons could have been treated in a similar way - thus allowing enough time to pass between death and subsequent burial of the by-then skeletal but articulated remains of the individuals, for mortuary beads and other items to be manufactured while the bodies were de-fleshed, with the skeletons being dressed some considerable time after the individuals had died.
However, I'm not aware of any cut-marks on the Sungir bones that would indicate de-fleshing - at least not by use of sharp tools or implements. Moreover, with an estimated 5,000 hours of labour needed to make the perforated beads alone, it seems unlikely that enough time would be available to make all those beads, attach them to shrouds or other funerary garments, and then perform the burial ceremonies.
So assuming that a time-table was being observed, with the beads and other grave goods being manufactured with a specific day or date in mind, the only way a definite day of death could be predicted was if one had been specially pre-selected.
Initial studies of the site by Bader, referred to by Soffer in 'The Upper Palaeolithic of the Central Russian Plain' led him to suggest that a single person could have taken 417 days to make the beads, although it is likely that more than one person had been involved in their manufacture - and it may be that whoever did the work were people who themselves had been selected for the job because of their expertise or experience of making such artufacts. In any event, I think the 417 days
The presence of these beads at other sites and times during this period is most notable by its absence - there may have been other burials, undiscovered or now lost to us, where similar event were staged, but it is the sheer amount of work and planning that produced these extraordinary objects which appears to tell us that something of great significance to the people of Sungir was happening - and even if this did involve human sacrifice, we can have but scant idea of what the sacrifices were being carried out for.
Sacrifice permeated human societies most strongly throughout the late Neolithic and into historical times, and although there were many different aims and desires of those who perpetrated them, these events tend to reflect a society that is greatly more sedentary and concerned with maintaining social stability and coherence, however contradictory that may seem to us now. Meso-America, and to some was steeped in sacrificial blood for many hundreds of years
And if it's difficult for us to comprehend humans having their hearts ripped from their living bodies as tribute to a sun or other god, we can have almost no clue as to what might have motivated Gravettian-era people from 28,000 years ago to deliberately kill other humans in order to either cause something to happen, or prevent something else from happening; this assumes sacrifice as a solution to a problem, as perceived by the priestly or other elite of ancient civilisations. But the people at Sungir didn't belong to a civilisation as we would understand it, and although there may have been strictly observed ceremonies and rituals, it's impossible to say whether they might have been sacrificing to a god or goddess, attempting to benefit by material gain, or interacting with what may have been spirits from an abstract realm, or preparing the victims for a journey through the afterlife on a quest or journey of some sort.
Another point that springs to mind is to consider that if these Sungir adorned burials had been planned a long time in advance, whether the actual graves were dug some time beforehand, with pre-funerary rites taking place, whether objects were placed in the grave pre-mortem, and whether the victims themselves were aware of these graves and their own future place within them - or were they kept away from the site itself, living in the locality, but forbidden or prevented from seeing the tombs.
This brings to mind the Inca practice of selecting children for sacrifice, and then parading them through the lands on a long walk-about journey, before finally winding up at the chosen mountain-site for the sacrifice. It's not known how aware the child victims were of their impending fate, but it would have seemed prudent to have kept them unaware of the true nature of their journey to the mountain, if for no other reason than to discourage their chosen victim from trying to escape their clutches.
For a fuller account of Sungir and the other sites discussed in this paper, Kambiz has written up a formidable and illustrated post at Anthropology.net, now in its new incarnation at Wordpress.
Time flies quicker on the Internet than virtually anywhere else on Earth, as evidenced by the 13th edition (already) of Kris Hirst's 'Amalgamated Friday', a weekly round-up of what's been hitting the headlines in the twin-like worlds of archaeology and anthropology.
As she notes, the air has been thick with the war of words that has ensued since the opening of Ken Ham's Creation Museum, with some of the reviewers taking a pasting, apparently for not being condemnatory enough.
There are some very good articles in the archaeology section, as well as a couple on Open Access, a topic which is fast becoming one of the most important regarding the publication of scientific papers, peer review and who gets to read such material without forking out too much, if anything at all, in the way of hard cash
There's a host of other good posts which have appeared during the week, particularly on the origins of hominid bipedalism, and it's very worthwhile making a note of AF, as a recent reference for stuff you may have recently missed, as well as a good resource for seeing what was topical in a given week, several weeks or months down the line.
image 'Ines' by Peter Freitag, from here
One of the more surprising facts about the London sewage system is that it has only existed since 1858 - another is that it was invented by a distant grandfather of the person at the Dutch TV station that is responsible for the screening of 'Big Brother', thus completing a cycle of taking crap out of the system, and then pumping it back in, 150 years later, via our TVs.
This article goes back considerably further in history to the time of ancient Rome, and how its citizens managed their own water supplies, and demonstrates the odd disconnect between the end of the Roman Empire, and the loss of much of its technology which in many cases was only rediscovered during the Industrial Revolution - for example, central heating, a mainstay of modern living, was in houses nearly 2,000 years ago, but once the Romans left, no-one apparently was able to re-create the technology. Here's a look at those Romans...
The Romans are renowned for engineering marvels, among which is the aqueduct that carried water for many miles in order to provide a crowded urban population with relatively safe, potable water, as well as less essential but very Roman aquatic uses.
Rome had 9 aqueducts by the time of the engineer Frontinus, our main ancient source on the water supply. The first of these was built in the fourth century B.C. and the last in the first century A.D. Aqueducts were built because the springs, wells, and Tiber River were no longer providing the safe water that was needed for the swelling urban population.
These aqueducts allowed at least some Roman households to be directly connected to the water supply, although communal fountains were the main service provider. Bearing in mind the outbreaks of cholera that used to occur in London from similar fountains, we might wonder as to the general health of Rome's population, who must surely have fallen prey to similar illnesses.
Although there were sewers in Rome, we can see the beginnings of the time-honoured tradition of simply hurling liquid human waste out of the nearest window, onto the street below, though whether there was an equivalent of 'Gardez loo' (with 'loo' being derived from 'l'eau'.), isn't mentioned here...'cave aquae', maybe.
Apparently, urine was prized as a commodity for those in the toga-cleaning business, thus disposal of urine into communal vats was doubtless encouraged by those particular artisans.
Roman London is said to have had as good a network of latrines and public baths as anywhere in the Empire, but for general use, numerous urinals in the guise of stone urns, were found to have been installed in entrances to 'taverns and workshops'.
This is in marked contrast to the later Vikings and Saxons, where according to this passage from 'Waste Matter', in 'London - The Biography' we are advised...
"...there is evidence of excrement dropped anywhere and everywhere, even within the houses, which suggests a deterioration in healthy practice."
Moving on to a Mediaeval point of departure, it was forbidden at the time for 'no-one shall place dung or other filth in the streets or lanes, but cause the same to to be taken by the rakers to the places ordained', which in this case meant out-of-town rubbish tips, and thence as manure for the fields.
A partial solution to general street maintenance and cleaning thereof was to allow pigs to roam freely along the streets and alleys, consuming refuse at their own discretion, whilst at the same time finding themselves being chased out of the homes of disgruntled residents, disturbed by porcine incursions of the inquisitive kind.
image: probably a sketch based on or for 'Aqueduct Near Rome' 1832, by Thomas Cole
More from Malibu archaeologist Dr. Gary Stickel and his ongoing battle to protect, and hopefully one day fully excavate, the Farpoint site, situated on private land, and the first known Clovis site on the western US Pacific sea-board.
Dr. Stickel has founded a group called 'Friends of Farpoint' which aims to “foster a National Park Service connection to the site.” and to “foster better legislation (not only for the City of Malibu, but at the county, state and federal levels) to preclude problems, such as at Farpoint with access to the site and concern about destruction of artifacts, from occurring at other locations.”
Although it is thought that further excavations there will help provide insight into whether Clovis was a European import or indigenous invention, Stickel contends that there are problems with both theories - one of those problems being that is looks as though humans have been living in the New World since at least 50,000 years, possibly longer, with other humans arriving at different intervals between then and Clovis.
Of particular interest to Stickel is finding out more about the origins of the Chumash Native American people, whom he believes may have occupied Farpoint for thousands of years prior to the arrival of modern Europeans in the Malibu area. However, the site itself is in a state of continuing upheaval...
The site has been suffering destruction in the forms of many long trenches, pits and excavations for a reflecting pool, all of which were unnecessary as there were other options to provide those facilities for the new mansion complex, and all of that destruction was done without any archaeology on those affected site areas.”
Stickel stressed that “it is a sad fact that our laws, not just in the City of Malibu where the site is located, but in general, are not strong enough to protect and allow us to conserve such a unique, highly significant site, one that may well yield critically needed information on how our continent was first inhabited.”
In this case, it was reported earlier that the landowner had paid around $100,000 in costs towards the excavations, and it's understandable from a materialistic perspective, why that person isn't keen on further spending; but there should be ways in which the site can be further investigated without further cost to the owner, as well as methods by which archaeology can be carried out so as not to disrupt the peace and quiet that a private landowner would reasonably expect.
Hopefully, over time, the landowner may become more responsive to the idea of placing Farpoint in its true archaeological context, and with any luck, other sites may turn up in the locale.
At the end of the article is a contact number for anyone interested in obtaining further information on 'Friends of Farpoint'.
image: Laguna Canyon, near Laguna Beach, California, John Stewart, from here
The latest edition of Stimulus Respond, which describes itself as an on-line magazine for the 'urban anthropologist', is up, or out; it is published every 2 months, with each issue focussing on a specific subject for discussion, with this latest featuring 'animals' as the topical glue which binds it together.
The various sections are divided into Literature, Fashion, Art, Music and Features - the latter of which gives a piece called 'Love Letter to a Roadkill Pheasant'.
The article that caught my eye most was 'Animal Astronauts' by Janet Harbord, which as the title suggests, looks at the relationship between space-bound animals and the humans who send them on their way - definitely worth a read.
The topic of the next issue is 'travel', for anyone interested in submitting suitable material.
image from here
In an initiative by the University of Tromsø, geologists and archaeologists are teaming up to look at how and why people settled so far north immediately after the last Ice Age, around 10,000 bp.
Professor Blankholm says the objective of this comprehensive research project is to create new models and scenarios about how the early settlement in Northern Circumpolar Areas took place.
“Most people believe the earliest human settlement in the High North came from the south, but some hypotheses are exploring the possibility that they also came from the east,” he says.
“There are also many hypotheses about how and why people came so far north. One reason can be that they followed their reindeer northwards. The early settlers also had a very strong connection with the marine environment and they utilised the marine resources well.”
We tend to think of people at that time as relying primarily on the land for food resources, but it is becoming apparent that people also relied on coastal environments to support them. But that in itself would only explain how some people survived, not why they headed so far north into Scandinavian Norway - although Professor Blankholm believes they were also following the reindeer as they migrated from a warming south to the cold North.
Professor Blankholm looks with astonishment at many of the archaeologists’ and public’s marginalisation of the High North. He is often asked what on earth could have lead to human settlement in such isolated, cold and apparently unproductive areas.
“The archaeological discipline has been directed by western culture which has seen the High North as somewhat mystical. But there must be a good reason as to why humans moved here so rapidly after the Ice Age. I believe that the living conditions up here were optimal at that time, and that it must have been absolutely fantastic for these people to be here.”
There was an article a few months back in which it was suggested that some of the earliest inhabitants of post-glacial Britain came up from what is now the Basque country - it is likely that they too followed a coastal route rich in marine resources - in the modern day, the Basques are particularly fond of fish and sea-food, as they probably have been for tens of thousands of years.
The doomed city of Pompeii still has tales of its past to tell, particularly in how it ran from day to day, as explained to us by Penelope Allison, of Leicester University, in a book called "The Insula of the Menander at Pompeii Volume III" (Oxford University Press, 2007).
A notable aspect of her findings is how individual households appear to have been much more self-sufficient than might have been thought, and how gadgets could be deployed in a variety of ways for different purposes.
"We believe that whenever we find medical instruments, they belonged to doctors. But I think that a lot more high-level first aid went on within households," Allison said. "We have found surgical instruments in domestic contexts, and I think someone in the house was responsible for sewing up injured people."
Weaving looms found in the homes also imply that women—or perhaps even men—did much of the sewing for their own families rather than purchasing clothes ready-made, she said.
I'm not sure whether this implies that Romans themselves were making their own clothes, patching up their own injuries etc., or whether instead their slaves were tasked with these duties, but the impression given here is that it was the Romans themselves...
With all the sewing—of wounds and clothes—among other daily chores, busy residents of Pompeii probably had little time left for long, relaxing meals at the dinner table.
There was an absence of formal dishware sets but an abundance of small grilling vessels (like barbecues) found in the residences studied, indicating that people were eating-and-running on the go, Allison said.
I find it hard to believe that a society that was essentially powered by slave labour would be too busy to sit down to eat their meals, but that's how the finds are currently being interpreted - as ever, we'll have to wait for a more complete data-set to be sure, but nevertheless, this looks like a very interesting study.
After many years of speculation that suggested bipedalism, or walking upright on two legs, originated when early hominids came down from the trees, and out onto the mosaic of the savannah, produced by a cooling climate, a team of researchers has concluded that upright walking began in trees.
Susannah Thorpe, Robin Crompton and Roger Holder came to their conclusions after analysing the movement of wild orang utans, which spend most of their lives in trees.
They found that orang utans used upright locomotion to fetch food from the small branches of trees and to cross directly from one tree to another.
"Both access to fruits and crossing gaps in the trees would require an ability to navigate very thin, terminal tree branches which are liable to bend under body mass," said Professor Robin Crompton, from the University of Liverpool.
"The logical conclusion from the environmental, fossil, and experimental evidence is that upright, straight-legged walking originally evolved as an adaptation to tree-dwelling."
I'm pretty sure this idea has been mentioned elsewhere in the recent past, and although, according to Daniel Lieberman of Harvard, there is some doubt as to the selective benefits of forest-dwelling hominids, it could be argued that when they did venture out of the forest environment, they were in a sense, able to hit the ground running.
