Archaeologists develop large-scale method to identify ancient human settlements.
Hidden in the landscape of the fertile crescent of the Middle East, scientists say, lurk overlooked networks of small settlements that hold vital clues to ancient civilizations.
Beyond the impressive mounds of earth, known as tells in Arabic, that mark lost cities, researchers have found a way to give archaeologists a broader perspective of the ancient landscape. By combining spy-satellite photos obtained in the 1960s with modern multispectral images and digital maps of Earth's surface, the researchers have created a new method for mapping large-scale patterns of human settlement. The approach, used to map some 14,000 settlement sites spanning eight millennia in 23,000 square kilometres of northeastern Syria, is published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1.
“Traditional archaeology goes straight to the biggest features — the palaces or cities — but we tend to ignore the settlements at the other end of the social spectrum,” says Jason Ur, an archaeologist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who is co-author of the study. “The people who migrated to cities came from somewhere; we have to put these people back on the map.”
Such comprehensive maps promise to uncover long-term trends in urban activity. “This kind of innovative large-scale application is what remote sensing has been promising archaeology for some years now; it will certainly help us to focus our attention on the big picture,” says Graham Philip, an archaeologist at Durham University, UK.
Soil signatures
The satellite-based method relies on the fact that human activity leaves a distinctive signature on the soil, called anthrosols. Formed from organic waste and decayed mud-brick architecture, anthrosols are imbued with higher levels of organic matter and have a finer texture and lighter appearance than undisturbed soil — resulting in reflective properties that can be seen by satellites.
To sift through satellite images for those signatures, co-author Bjoern Menze, a research affiliate in computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, built on his skills from his day job identifying tumours in clinical images.
Menze trained software to detect the characteristic wavelengths of known anthrosols in images spanning 50 years of seasonal differences. This automation was key. “You could do this with the naked eye using Google Earth to look for sites, but this method takes the subjectivity out of it by defining spectral characteristics that bounce off of archaeological sites,” says Ur.
Menze and Ur also used digital elevation data collected in 2000 by the space shuttle as part of NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). This information enabled the authors to estimate the volume of the larger sites for the first time — and to use this volume as a proxy for a site’s longevity. The bigger the mound, the longer the settlement survived.
Tony Wilkinson, an archaeologist at Durham University and Ur’s former mentor, says that being able to measure the volume of many sites over large areas remotely is a breakthrough. However, Philip cautions that the resolution of the SRTM data may be too coarse to provide an accurate measurement for the volume of the smaller settlements. Nonetheless, he expects that the method will spark new archaeological insights for several different regions.
New life for old hypotheses
The method has already renewed speculation about the importance of water to city development. Surprisingly, this study found that a handful of sites are unexpectedly large given that they are not located near rivers or in areas of high precipitation. “The settlement known as Tell Brak, for example, is far too large for what one would expect at such a marginal position,” says Ur. “This is where things get interesting.”
Jennifer Pournelle, a landscape archaeologist at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, agrees. “These findings validate hypotheses I’ve introduced in southern Iraq — namely that irrigation is an after-effect of urbanization,” she says. “It’s not what enables a city to develop; it’s what keeps them going after soil moisture dries up.”
Pournelle says that she plans to adopt this method as soon as possible, and notes that it offers a valuable way to learn more about large regions, particularly when they are remote and difficult to access because of local conflicts.
___________
References:
Gewin, Virginia. 2012. "Satellites expose 8,000 years of civilization". Nature. Posted: March 19, 2012. Available online: http://www.nature.com/news/satellites-expose-8-000-years-of-civilization-1.10257
References: Menze, B. H. & Ur, J. A. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1115472109 (2012).
Friday, April 6, 2012
Thursday, April 5, 2012
"Lost" Great Wall of China Segment Found?
Google Earth, carbon dating suggest wall network even bigger than thought.
A forgotten section of the Great Wall of China has been discovered deep in the Gobi Desert—and outside of China—researchers say.
With the help of Google Earth, an international expedition documented the ancient wall for roughly 100 kilometers (62 miles) in a restricted border zone in southern Mongolia in August 2011.
The defensive barrier formed part of the Great Wall system built by successive Chinese dynasties to repel Mongol invaders from the north, according to findings published in the March issue of the Chinese edition of National Geographic magazine. (The National Geographic Society is responsible for both the magazine and National Geographic News.)
Preserved to a height of 9 feet (2.75 meters) in places, the desert discovery belongs to a sequence of remnant walls in Mongolia collectively known as the Wall of Genghis Khan, said expedition leader and Great Wall researcher William Lindesay.
Named after the founder of the Mongol Empire, the Wall of Genghis Khan usually survives only as "a faint trace," Lindesay said in an email.
But "we found a 'real wall', standing high and existing as a dominant landscape feature," he said.
What's more, it wasn't the work of Genghis Khan or his heirs but actually a long-lost segment of the Great Wall of China network, the team's findings suggest.
First to Investigate New Great Wall?
Close to China in the border region of Ömnögovi Province, the ancient structure hadn't been scientifically explored or studied before, said Lindesay, director of the International Friends of the Great Wall conservation group, based in Beijing, China.
"We're the first to investigate the ruins," he said.
"According to the army officers who minded us, we were the first outsiders to be allowed into the area," Lindesay added. "We assumed various local Mongolians had been to the area, but had not considered the structure of much interest."
At times seeking out topographic clues seen in Google Earth—the wall is visible on satellite images—the team located two well preserved but contrasting stretches of wall.
One section had been made mainly with wet mud and a woody desert shrub called saxaul, the other from blocks of black volcanic rock.
Along its vast length, Lindesay suspects, the wall originally stood at least 2 meters (6.5 feet) taller than it does today.
"What we found was just the last remaining piece of a 'fossil'—the skull or the large thighbone, with the rest missing," he said.
"One can expect the wall was both much higher and continuous for vast distances."
That dark basaltic rock seems to have been an obvious choice for the second stretch, which crosses the rugged remains of extinct volcanoes.
The clean, straight edges to the blocks indicate that the stone was quarried, which would have required a large, organized workforce and an efficient transport system, the team said.
Rewriting History
Ancient Mongolian texts suggest that the so-called Wall of Genghis Khan was built as an animal fence by Khan's son Ögedei to keep wild gazelle on his land.
But the recently explored Gobi Desert wall segment isn't in a region where large herds of gazelle occur.
"There would be no reason to build an animal wall in the Gobi," said anthropologist and Mongolia historian Jack Weatherford, formerly of Macalester College, Minnesota.
Chinese researchers, perhaps not surprisingly, have speculated that China's Han dynasty had erected these little-studied stretches in about 115 B.C.
But radiocarbon dating of partly exposed wood and rope remains extracted from the wall indicates that the saxaul-segment construction went on for more than a hundred years—and occurred about a thousand years later than thought, from A.D. 1040 to 1160.
Those dates hint that the Western Xia dynasty built the walls—or at least rebuilt old Han walls on the sites.
Holding Back the Mongol Tide
This northwestern Chinese dynasty isn't known to have contributed to the Great Wall system, but in at least one aspect, a Western Xia origin makes sense.
During the Western Xia period, Mongol tribes were rising in strength and making forays south, Lindesay noted.
"If one imagines the wall as a platform, with some kind of battlement—perhaps of wooden stakes, functioning as a shield to those manning its top—then it would have been an effective defense installation," he said.
But, mysteriously, the expedition team found no pottery, no trash, no coins, no weapons—nothing to prove the wall was ever actually manned. Nor did they find any of the watchtowers that mark surviving sections of the Great Wall within China.
"The wall system was incomplete," Lindesay said. "It not only lacked the signaling capability [to make smoke signals]—it didn't appear to be capable of accommodating troops."
Unfinished Business
"I believe the wall here is only half built and that there was, for some reason, a rethink on locating the wall here," Lindesay said.
It isn't difficult to imagine how the purported Great Wall segment's harsh desert location might have led to the remote frontier defense being abandoned, he added.
Weatherford, the Minnesota-based anthropologist, agrees with Lindesay's conclusion that the newfound remains were Chinese constructions.
There's a good reason, Weatherford added, that the stretch nevertheless carries Genghis Khan's name.
Mongolians, he said, are sensitive to the idea of "Chinese structures built on their land, since it carries the possible claim that the land was once Chinese.
"By calling it the Genghis Khan Wall, the name makes the place Mongolian and rejects foreign influence," Weatherford said.
He also describes the expedition new findings as "very important, because to my knowledge this wall has not been studied."
"I would risk saying that it is the largest human-made structure or artifact in all of Mongolia," he added. "It is amazing to me that it is not already much better analyzed."
_______________
References:
Owen, James. 2012. ""Lost" Great Wall of China Segment Found?". National Geographic News. Posted: March 19, 2012. Available online: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/03/120319-great-wall-of-china-mongolia-science-lindesay/
A forgotten section of the Great Wall of China has been discovered deep in the Gobi Desert—and outside of China—researchers say.
With the help of Google Earth, an international expedition documented the ancient wall for roughly 100 kilometers (62 miles) in a restricted border zone in southern Mongolia in August 2011.
The defensive barrier formed part of the Great Wall system built by successive Chinese dynasties to repel Mongol invaders from the north, according to findings published in the March issue of the Chinese edition of National Geographic magazine. (The National Geographic Society is responsible for both the magazine and National Geographic News.)
Preserved to a height of 9 feet (2.75 meters) in places, the desert discovery belongs to a sequence of remnant walls in Mongolia collectively known as the Wall of Genghis Khan, said expedition leader and Great Wall researcher William Lindesay.
Named after the founder of the Mongol Empire, the Wall of Genghis Khan usually survives only as "a faint trace," Lindesay said in an email.
But "we found a 'real wall', standing high and existing as a dominant landscape feature," he said.
What's more, it wasn't the work of Genghis Khan or his heirs but actually a long-lost segment of the Great Wall of China network, the team's findings suggest.
First to Investigate New Great Wall?
Close to China in the border region of Ömnögovi Province, the ancient structure hadn't been scientifically explored or studied before, said Lindesay, director of the International Friends of the Great Wall conservation group, based in Beijing, China.
"We're the first to investigate the ruins," he said.
"According to the army officers who minded us, we were the first outsiders to be allowed into the area," Lindesay added. "We assumed various local Mongolians had been to the area, but had not considered the structure of much interest."
At times seeking out topographic clues seen in Google Earth—the wall is visible on satellite images—the team located two well preserved but contrasting stretches of wall.
One section had been made mainly with wet mud and a woody desert shrub called saxaul, the other from blocks of black volcanic rock.
Along its vast length, Lindesay suspects, the wall originally stood at least 2 meters (6.5 feet) taller than it does today.
"What we found was just the last remaining piece of a 'fossil'—the skull or the large thighbone, with the rest missing," he said.
"One can expect the wall was both much higher and continuous for vast distances."
That dark basaltic rock seems to have been an obvious choice for the second stretch, which crosses the rugged remains of extinct volcanoes.
The clean, straight edges to the blocks indicate that the stone was quarried, which would have required a large, organized workforce and an efficient transport system, the team said.
Rewriting History
Ancient Mongolian texts suggest that the so-called Wall of Genghis Khan was built as an animal fence by Khan's son Ögedei to keep wild gazelle on his land.
But the recently explored Gobi Desert wall segment isn't in a region where large herds of gazelle occur.
"There would be no reason to build an animal wall in the Gobi," said anthropologist and Mongolia historian Jack Weatherford, formerly of Macalester College, Minnesota.
Chinese researchers, perhaps not surprisingly, have speculated that China's Han dynasty had erected these little-studied stretches in about 115 B.C.
But radiocarbon dating of partly exposed wood and rope remains extracted from the wall indicates that the saxaul-segment construction went on for more than a hundred years—and occurred about a thousand years later than thought, from A.D. 1040 to 1160.
Those dates hint that the Western Xia dynasty built the walls—or at least rebuilt old Han walls on the sites.
Holding Back the Mongol Tide
This northwestern Chinese dynasty isn't known to have contributed to the Great Wall system, but in at least one aspect, a Western Xia origin makes sense.
During the Western Xia period, Mongol tribes were rising in strength and making forays south, Lindesay noted.
"If one imagines the wall as a platform, with some kind of battlement—perhaps of wooden stakes, functioning as a shield to those manning its top—then it would have been an effective defense installation," he said.
But, mysteriously, the expedition team found no pottery, no trash, no coins, no weapons—nothing to prove the wall was ever actually manned. Nor did they find any of the watchtowers that mark surviving sections of the Great Wall within China.
"The wall system was incomplete," Lindesay said. "It not only lacked the signaling capability [to make smoke signals]—it didn't appear to be capable of accommodating troops."
Unfinished Business
"I believe the wall here is only half built and that there was, for some reason, a rethink on locating the wall here," Lindesay said.
It isn't difficult to imagine how the purported Great Wall segment's harsh desert location might have led to the remote frontier defense being abandoned, he added.
Weatherford, the Minnesota-based anthropologist, agrees with Lindesay's conclusion that the newfound remains were Chinese constructions.
There's a good reason, Weatherford added, that the stretch nevertheless carries Genghis Khan's name.
Mongolians, he said, are sensitive to the idea of "Chinese structures built on their land, since it carries the possible claim that the land was once Chinese.
"By calling it the Genghis Khan Wall, the name makes the place Mongolian and rejects foreign influence," Weatherford said.
He also describes the expedition new findings as "very important, because to my knowledge this wall has not been studied."
"I would risk saying that it is the largest human-made structure or artifact in all of Mongolia," he added. "It is amazing to me that it is not already much better analyzed."
_______________
References:
Owen, James. 2012. ""Lost" Great Wall of China Segment Found?". National Geographic News. Posted: March 19, 2012. Available online: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/03/120319-great-wall-of-china-mongolia-science-lindesay/
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Remarkable Russian petroglyphs
Artefacts are usually displayed in museums but sometimes there are some that just can’t be put on exhibition – as is the case with one that is hidden deep in the Russian forests.
It was known that there were rock carvings on some islands in Lake Kanozero, and Jan Magne Gjerde, project manager at the Tromsø University Museum, went out there to document them as part of his doctoral work however, when he and his colleagues had completed their work, the number of known petroglyphs had risen from 200 to over 1,000.
“I still get chills up my spine when I talk about it because it was such an emotional experience finding these carvings,” says Gjerde. “No matter how much I explore over the next 50 years, chances are close to zero that I’ll ever find anything comparable.”
Join a 5,000-year-old bear hunt
In the summer of 2005, Gjerde drove more than 1000 kilometres east to Lake Kanozero. Together with Russian colleagues he discovered what he calls some of the world’s oldest animated cartoons.
“Petroglyphs are found at four sites in the area − on three islands and on a stone block on the lakeshore. The oldest ones date to between 5,000 and 6,000 years old,” explains Gjerde. The main site is on the island of Kanozero.
According to Gjerde, these aren’t like the petroglyphs they are used to seeing, depicting one moose or one deer. These are fantastic cartoons presenting entire episodes. For example the one they found at the main site, which depicts a bear hunt.
He describes in detail a hunter who is heading uphill on skis and tracking a bear. The ski tracks are just as one would expect for someone going up a slope with a good distance between the strides. The hunter then gets his feet together, skis down a slope, stops, removes his skis, takes four steps – and plunges his spear into the bear.
“This is the oldest example of a cartoon petroglyph we know of, at least in Northern Europe, so it was utterly thrilling to get the chance to be part of this discovery,” he says.
Testifying to a rich society
Gjerde and his colleagues camped in a tent on Kanozero for ten days while documenting the discoveries. Time flies when you suddenly have to make ten times as many drawings as you expected.
They marked off the figures in chalk and then traced this onto plastic sheets, which could be brought back home and properly photographed and documented.
Gjerde admits that the task was challenging at times because it would suddenly start raining, and drawing on wet plastic with a felt pen isn’t all that easy.
“Actually I didn’t have enough plastic sheeting with me because I had only expected 200 petroglyphs, not a thousand. It was pretty frustrating at times and I used all my clothes and everything I had of paper to dry off the plastic.”
The figures depicted in the Lake Kanozero rock carvings include moose, boats, whales, humans, harpoon lines, beavers and all kinds of other ordinary and extraordinary images and scenes from the distant past.
And this isn’t artwork that was easy to make.
“Look for instance at this whale,” he says. “It’s over a metre long and the entire figure is hewn out in full depth. This says something about the lifestyle of the people who made the carvings. It must have been a fairly rich society because to make such grand petroglyphs you need your share of leisure time.”
Just showing off?
The purpose of the petroglyphs is a matter of debate. Were they illustrations to stories, did they have a religious significance or were there other reasons why these prehistoric people carved images of themselves and their deeds into the bedrock?
“We don’t know for sure why they did this, but boasting about a successful hunt is still something we do. This could be evidence of bragging in the Stone Age. It would be a lot better to come home with a tale of killing a bear than bringing back a hare.”
He thinks there was probably there was more to it than just bragging, but when you catch a 1,300 kg beluga whale, your food supply is secured for weeks.
“It’s not hard to understand that they wanted to boast about something like that.”
5,000-year interval erased
“We can excavate a settlement or find arrowheads but we usually don’t have direct evidence of what sort of animals have been hunted with such weapons,” says Gjerde, as he points to a figure of harpoon lines which indicate that the people had been out on the White Sea hunting whales.
Most of the petroglyphs were still covered in sod when Gjerde and his colleagues arrived. So much of their time was spent removing this turf and washing the uncovered rock.
Gjerde says their efforts were like erasing the time interval of 5,000 years.
It was like burying a snapshot today and someone in the distant future would get a notion of what was going on when you were alive.
“These people, at this spot, documented part of their lives and I was fortunate to be one of the first people in 5,000 years to see it,” he says.
Visit Past Horizons to see the incredible pictures.
________________
References:
Jakobsen, Hanne. 2012. "Remarkable Russian petroglyphs". Past Horizons. Posted: March 18, 2012. Available online: http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/03/2012/remarkable-russian-petroglyphs
Translated by Glenn Ostling
It was known that there were rock carvings on some islands in Lake Kanozero, and Jan Magne Gjerde, project manager at the Tromsø University Museum, went out there to document them as part of his doctoral work however, when he and his colleagues had completed their work, the number of known petroglyphs had risen from 200 to over 1,000.
“I still get chills up my spine when I talk about it because it was such an emotional experience finding these carvings,” says Gjerde. “No matter how much I explore over the next 50 years, chances are close to zero that I’ll ever find anything comparable.”
Join a 5,000-year-old bear hunt
In the summer of 2005, Gjerde drove more than 1000 kilometres east to Lake Kanozero. Together with Russian colleagues he discovered what he calls some of the world’s oldest animated cartoons.
“Petroglyphs are found at four sites in the area − on three islands and on a stone block on the lakeshore. The oldest ones date to between 5,000 and 6,000 years old,” explains Gjerde. The main site is on the island of Kanozero.
According to Gjerde, these aren’t like the petroglyphs they are used to seeing, depicting one moose or one deer. These are fantastic cartoons presenting entire episodes. For example the one they found at the main site, which depicts a bear hunt.
He describes in detail a hunter who is heading uphill on skis and tracking a bear. The ski tracks are just as one would expect for someone going up a slope with a good distance between the strides. The hunter then gets his feet together, skis down a slope, stops, removes his skis, takes four steps – and plunges his spear into the bear.
“This is the oldest example of a cartoon petroglyph we know of, at least in Northern Europe, so it was utterly thrilling to get the chance to be part of this discovery,” he says.
Testifying to a rich society
Gjerde and his colleagues camped in a tent on Kanozero for ten days while documenting the discoveries. Time flies when you suddenly have to make ten times as many drawings as you expected.
They marked off the figures in chalk and then traced this onto plastic sheets, which could be brought back home and properly photographed and documented.
Gjerde admits that the task was challenging at times because it would suddenly start raining, and drawing on wet plastic with a felt pen isn’t all that easy.
“Actually I didn’t have enough plastic sheeting with me because I had only expected 200 petroglyphs, not a thousand. It was pretty frustrating at times and I used all my clothes and everything I had of paper to dry off the plastic.”
The figures depicted in the Lake Kanozero rock carvings include moose, boats, whales, humans, harpoon lines, beavers and all kinds of other ordinary and extraordinary images and scenes from the distant past.
And this isn’t artwork that was easy to make.
“Look for instance at this whale,” he says. “It’s over a metre long and the entire figure is hewn out in full depth. This says something about the lifestyle of the people who made the carvings. It must have been a fairly rich society because to make such grand petroglyphs you need your share of leisure time.”
Just showing off?
The purpose of the petroglyphs is a matter of debate. Were they illustrations to stories, did they have a religious significance or were there other reasons why these prehistoric people carved images of themselves and their deeds into the bedrock?
“We don’t know for sure why they did this, but boasting about a successful hunt is still something we do. This could be evidence of bragging in the Stone Age. It would be a lot better to come home with a tale of killing a bear than bringing back a hare.”
He thinks there was probably there was more to it than just bragging, but when you catch a 1,300 kg beluga whale, your food supply is secured for weeks.
“It’s not hard to understand that they wanted to boast about something like that.”
5,000-year interval erased
“We can excavate a settlement or find arrowheads but we usually don’t have direct evidence of what sort of animals have been hunted with such weapons,” says Gjerde, as he points to a figure of harpoon lines which indicate that the people had been out on the White Sea hunting whales.
Most of the petroglyphs were still covered in sod when Gjerde and his colleagues arrived. So much of their time was spent removing this turf and washing the uncovered rock.
Gjerde says their efforts were like erasing the time interval of 5,000 years.
It was like burying a snapshot today and someone in the distant future would get a notion of what was going on when you were alive.
“These people, at this spot, documented part of their lives and I was fortunate to be one of the first people in 5,000 years to see it,” he says.
Visit Past Horizons to see the incredible pictures.
________________
References:
Jakobsen, Hanne. 2012. "Remarkable Russian petroglyphs". Past Horizons. Posted: March 18, 2012. Available online: http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/03/2012/remarkable-russian-petroglyphs
Translated by Glenn Ostling
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Why Bilinguals Are Smarter
SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.
This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.
They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle Martin-Rhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins — one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.
In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task.
The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind — like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.
Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition? Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often — you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language,” says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of Pompeu Fabra in Spain. “It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life).
In a 2009 study led by Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, 7-month-old babies exposed to two languages from birth were compared with peers raised with one language. In an initial set of trials, the infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a screen. Both infant groups learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation of the puppet. But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new direction while the other babies did not.
Bilingualism’s effects also extend into the twilight years. In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism — measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language — were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.
Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?
___________
References:
Bhattacharjee, Yudhijit. 2012. "Why Bilinguals Are Smarter". New York Times. Posted: March 17, 2012. Available online: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html?_r=1
This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.
They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle Martin-Rhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins — one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.
In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task.
The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind — like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.
Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition? Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often — you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language,” says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of Pompeu Fabra in Spain. “It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life).
In a 2009 study led by Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, 7-month-old babies exposed to two languages from birth were compared with peers raised with one language. In an initial set of trials, the infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a screen. Both infant groups learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation of the puppet. But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new direction while the other babies did not.
Bilingualism’s effects also extend into the twilight years. In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism — measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language — were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.
Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?
___________
References:
Bhattacharjee, Yudhijit. 2012. "Why Bilinguals Are Smarter". New York Times. Posted: March 17, 2012. Available online: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html?_r=1
Monday, April 2, 2012
Mary Rose skeletons studied by Swansea sports scientists
Skeletons recovered from the wreck of a King Henry VIII's warship the Mary Rose are being studied to discover more about life in the 1500s.
Swansea University sports scientists are hoping to find out more about the toll on the bodies of archers who had to pull heavy bows.
It is documented that archers were aboard the ship when it sank in 1545.
The wreck was raised from the Solent in 1982, containing thousands of medieval artefacts.
The ship, which is now based in Portsmouth where a new museum is being built to house her, also had 92 fairly complete skeletons of the crew of the Mary Rose.
Nick Owen, a sport and exercise bio mechanist from the College of Engineering at Swansea University, said: "This sample of human remains offers a unique opportunity to study activity related changes in human skeletons.
"It is documented that there was a company of archers aboard when the ship sank, at a time when many archers came from Wales and the south west of England.
"These archers had specialist techniques for making and using very powerful longbows. Some bows required a lifetime of training and immense strength as the archers had to pull weights up to 200lbs (about 90kg)."
He said archers were the elite athletes of the Tudor age, requiring great skill and strength to fire up to 12 arrows a minute, holding a heavy bow in one arm.
"It is known that archers were on board as 'arm guards' that they used were found. But they don't know which skeletons they would be.
"So we are analysing the lower arm bones as those are the ones that are likely to show a difference," he said.
"In fact, on one of the skeletons we have looked at, the surface area of the joint between the lower arm and elbow is 48% larger than on the joint on the other arm."
Effect on skeletons
Alexzandra Hildred, curator of ordnance at the Mary Rose Trust said that in the Tudor age, it was a requirement by law for every man and boy to practice archery regularly from an early age.
"Many of the skeletons recovered show evidence of repetitive stress injuries of the shoulder and lower spine," she said.
"This could be as a result of the shooting heavy longbows regularly.
"Being able to quantify the stresses and their effect on the skeleton may enable us at last to isolate an elite group of professional archers from the ship."
The team from Swansea's College of Engineering are basing their research on the bio mechanical analysis on the skeletons of the archers to examine the effect of a life of using very powerful longbows on the musculoskeletal system.
Part of the process of analysing the skeletons involves creating 3D virtual images so that measurements can be taken from the remains without causing any damage to them.
The results of the research are expected this summer and will be used to help with information for the new Mary Rose museum, which is due to open in the autumn.
Mr Owen said the work was important to understand the past.
"For the Mary Rose Trust, it's important because they know so much about the ship and every object on there - but nothing about the people on board," he said.
"They're trying to tell the human story. The new museum is going to have information about people who were on the boat.
"One of them will be an archer - from their injuries and stresses to the incredible feats of strength and endurance."
The ship sank while leading an attack on a French invasion fleet in 1545.
The wreck has undergone 17 years of conservation treatment since being salvaged.
Visit the Mary Rose Organization website to learn more.
________________
References:
BBC News. 2012. "Mary Rose skeletons studied by Swansea sports scientists". BBC News. Posted: Available online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17309665
Swansea University sports scientists are hoping to find out more about the toll on the bodies of archers who had to pull heavy bows.
It is documented that archers were aboard the ship when it sank in 1545.
The wreck was raised from the Solent in 1982, containing thousands of medieval artefacts.
The ship, which is now based in Portsmouth where a new museum is being built to house her, also had 92 fairly complete skeletons of the crew of the Mary Rose.
Nick Owen, a sport and exercise bio mechanist from the College of Engineering at Swansea University, said: "This sample of human remains offers a unique opportunity to study activity related changes in human skeletons.
"It is documented that there was a company of archers aboard when the ship sank, at a time when many archers came from Wales and the south west of England.
"These archers had specialist techniques for making and using very powerful longbows. Some bows required a lifetime of training and immense strength as the archers had to pull weights up to 200lbs (about 90kg)."
He said archers were the elite athletes of the Tudor age, requiring great skill and strength to fire up to 12 arrows a minute, holding a heavy bow in one arm.
"It is known that archers were on board as 'arm guards' that they used were found. But they don't know which skeletons they would be.
"So we are analysing the lower arm bones as those are the ones that are likely to show a difference," he said.
"In fact, on one of the skeletons we have looked at, the surface area of the joint between the lower arm and elbow is 48% larger than on the joint on the other arm."
Effect on skeletons
Alexzandra Hildred, curator of ordnance at the Mary Rose Trust said that in the Tudor age, it was a requirement by law for every man and boy to practice archery regularly from an early age.
"Many of the skeletons recovered show evidence of repetitive stress injuries of the shoulder and lower spine," she said.
"This could be as a result of the shooting heavy longbows regularly.
"Being able to quantify the stresses and their effect on the skeleton may enable us at last to isolate an elite group of professional archers from the ship."
The team from Swansea's College of Engineering are basing their research on the bio mechanical analysis on the skeletons of the archers to examine the effect of a life of using very powerful longbows on the musculoskeletal system.
Part of the process of analysing the skeletons involves creating 3D virtual images so that measurements can be taken from the remains without causing any damage to them.
The results of the research are expected this summer and will be used to help with information for the new Mary Rose museum, which is due to open in the autumn.
Mr Owen said the work was important to understand the past.
"For the Mary Rose Trust, it's important because they know so much about the ship and every object on there - but nothing about the people on board," he said.
"They're trying to tell the human story. The new museum is going to have information about people who were on the boat.
"One of them will be an archer - from their injuries and stresses to the incredible feats of strength and endurance."
The ship sank while leading an attack on a French invasion fleet in 1545.
The wreck has undergone 17 years of conservation treatment since being salvaged.
Visit the Mary Rose Organization website to learn more.
________________
References:
BBC News. 2012. "Mary Rose skeletons studied by Swansea sports scientists". BBC News. Posted: Available online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17309665
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Mystery of Anglo-Saxon teen buried in bed with gold cross
One of the earliest Anglo-Saxon Christian burial sites in Britain has been discovered in a village outside Cambridge. The grave of a teenage girl from the mid 7th century AD has an extraordinary combination of two extremely rare finds: a ‘bed burial’ and an early Christian artefact in the form of a stunning gold and garnet cross.
Buried on an ornamental bed
The girl, aged around 16, was buried on an ornamental bed – a very limited Anglo-Saxon practice of the mid to later 7th century – with a pectoral Christian cross on her chest, that had probably been sewn onto her clothing. Fashioned from gold and intricately set with cut garnets, only the fifth of its kind ever to be found, the artefact dates this grave to the very early years of the English Church, probably between 650 and 680 AD.
In 597 AD, the pope dispatched St Augustine to England on a mission to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxon kings; a process that was not completed for many decades. Using the latest scientific techniques to analyse this exceptional find could result in a greater understanding of this pivotal period in British history, and the spread of Christianity in eastern England in the Anglo-Saxon period.
Who was she?
Was this teenage girl an early Christian convert, a standard-bearer for the new God? “Christian conversion began at the top and percolated down,” says Dr Sam Lucy, a specialist in Anglo-Saxon burial from Newnham College, Cambridge.
“To be buried in this elaborate way with such a valuable artefact tells us that this girl was undoubtedly high status, probably nobility or even royalty. This cross is the kind of material culture that was in circulation at the highest level of society. The best known example of the pectoral cross was that found in the coffin of St Cuthbert now in Durham Cathedral.”
“That this is a bed burial is remarkable in itself – the fifteenth ever uncovered in the UK, and only the fourth in the last twenty years – add to that a beautifully made Christian cross and you have a truly astonishing discovery,” says Alison Dickens, who led the excavation for the University’s Archaeological Unit.
“We think there’s only been one other bed burial combined with a Christian pectoral cross ever found – at Ixworth nearby in Suffolk in the 19th century; the records of this find are unclear, however. The fact that we will be able to apply modern techniques to thoroughly investigate the site is a thrilling prospect.”
The bed consisted of a wooden frame held together by metal brackets, with further pieces of looped metal fixing the cross-slats to create a suspended bed base, similar to modern beds, but with a straw mattress. The body was then placed on the bed, probably when it was already in the grave.
The mystery of bed burials
Dr Richard Dance, an expert on Old English at the University, has pointed out that the Anglo-Saxon word ‘leger’ can mean either ‘bed’ or ‘grave’. “Etymologically, the word means ‘place where one lies’, but there are examples of this meaning both bed and grave in literature of the time,” says Dr Dance. A clue to the possible symbolism of bed burials perhaps? But why only a chosen few were buried in their beds remains a mystery.
“Bed burials were never widespread, but there is a little cluster around the Cambridge area and another in Wessex, with a solitary very high status example in Teeside” says Dr Lucy. “Where we do find them they seem to be predominantly burials of females, and date to the mid to later 7th century; most have indications of high status such as fine jewellery or burial under a barrow.
The gold and garnet construction of the Trumpington cross also tends to be used for female associated items, although the recently discovered Staffordshire Hoard, as well as the slightly earlier famous ship burial at Sutton Hoo, show that such material was also used in high status weapon fittings throughout the 7th century. It is interesting that the same decorative techniques are seen both in overtly pagan and overtly Christian settings.”
The cross
The cross itself – 3 and a half centimetres in diameter – is only the fifth pectoral cross to be discovered in the UK. As well as the examples from Ixworth and Durham, one example was picked up as a stray find in Holderness, East Yorkshire, and another was a 19th-century find from Wilton in Norfolk. These other crosses are pendants designed to hang suspended on a necklace, whereas the Trumpington cross has a loop on the reverse of each arm, so that it could be stitched directly onto clothing.
“You can tell from the shiny look of three of these loops, where they have rubbed against fabric, that this item was worn in daily life, most likely as a symbol of social status as well as religious affiliation,” says Dickens.
Studying the graves
The excavations at Trumpington Meadows on the southern city limits of Cambridge, funded by the property developers Grosvenor, have unearthed significant findings from the Neolithic and Iron Ages, as well as material from a contemporary Anglo-Saxon settlement. The Christian girl was in one of a very small group of four graves, along with an unsexed individual in his or her twenties and two other slightly younger women.
The graves are thought to be broadly contemporary with each other, although the team are only at the very beginning of the investigative process. This will include radiocarbon dating of each of the bodies (to establish their date of burial) and isotopic analysis of their bones and teeth, to help determine both their diet and hopefully to establish where they had lived in childhood.
Detailed study of their skeletons will be able to tell, in addition to their sex and age, their stature, health and any visible medical conditions. Analysis of the gold and garnets in the cross will also reveal further details about its place of manufacture; garnets in this period were probably imported from the Black Sea or even further afield, from Asia.
The teenager’s grave also contained other items. An iron knife and a chatelaine (a chain that would have hung from the waist) were found in the girl’s grave, along with some glass beads which seemed to have been kept in a purse on the end of the chain. Preserved textile on the iron knife and chain offers the possibility of reconstructing her burial costume.
“The custom of grave goods was long-established in the pagan period, but it doesn’t mean that the burials at Trumpington weren’t Christian” states Dr Lucy. “The church never issued any edicts against the use of grave goods, but it’s something that does seem to fade away by the 8th century, just at the point where Christianity was becoming the dominant religion. There is, though, a time through the second half of the 7th century, where clearly Christian people were still making use of a limited range of goods within their burials, and these often carried explicitly Christian symbolism, such as the cross here.
“The Trumpington bed burial does seem to belong at that transition between the two religions. Did she have a formal role in the church? The site is just behind the village church, which is first documented over 400 years later. Perhaps there was a monastery – even a nunnery – there before that we don’t know about. This is certainly something worth looking into.”
A small number of structures associated with the burials seem to represent part of a settlement that was in use at the same time. Analysis of the finds from these will help to determine the nature and function of that settlement; initial assessment of the pottery has suggested the presence of some high status imports, of a type usually only associated with high status ecclesiastical centres.
There may even be a possible link to the founding of the first monastery in Ely at around the same time. St Æthelthryth (or Etheldreda), daughter of King Anna of East Anglia, established the female-headed house at Ely in 673 AD. A cemetery found in Ely by the CAU in 2006 also contained a later 7th-century burial of a 10-12 year-old with a delicate gold cross pendant, who was thought to have been associated with the monastery. The parallels between this site and Trumpington are intriguing, and suggest a more interesting origin for the village than has previously been thought.
____________
References:
Past Horizons. 2012. "Mystery of Anglo-Saxon teen buried in bed with gold cross". Past Horizons. Posted: March 15, 2012Available Online: http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/03/2012/mystery-of-anglo-saxon-teen-buried-in-bed-with-gold-cross
Buried on an ornamental bed
The girl, aged around 16, was buried on an ornamental bed – a very limited Anglo-Saxon practice of the mid to later 7th century – with a pectoral Christian cross on her chest, that had probably been sewn onto her clothing. Fashioned from gold and intricately set with cut garnets, only the fifth of its kind ever to be found, the artefact dates this grave to the very early years of the English Church, probably between 650 and 680 AD.
In 597 AD, the pope dispatched St Augustine to England on a mission to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxon kings; a process that was not completed for many decades. Using the latest scientific techniques to analyse this exceptional find could result in a greater understanding of this pivotal period in British history, and the spread of Christianity in eastern England in the Anglo-Saxon period.
Who was she?
Was this teenage girl an early Christian convert, a standard-bearer for the new God? “Christian conversion began at the top and percolated down,” says Dr Sam Lucy, a specialist in Anglo-Saxon burial from Newnham College, Cambridge.
“To be buried in this elaborate way with such a valuable artefact tells us that this girl was undoubtedly high status, probably nobility or even royalty. This cross is the kind of material culture that was in circulation at the highest level of society. The best known example of the pectoral cross was that found in the coffin of St Cuthbert now in Durham Cathedral.”
“That this is a bed burial is remarkable in itself – the fifteenth ever uncovered in the UK, and only the fourth in the last twenty years – add to that a beautifully made Christian cross and you have a truly astonishing discovery,” says Alison Dickens, who led the excavation for the University’s Archaeological Unit.
“We think there’s only been one other bed burial combined with a Christian pectoral cross ever found – at Ixworth nearby in Suffolk in the 19th century; the records of this find are unclear, however. The fact that we will be able to apply modern techniques to thoroughly investigate the site is a thrilling prospect.”
The bed consisted of a wooden frame held together by metal brackets, with further pieces of looped metal fixing the cross-slats to create a suspended bed base, similar to modern beds, but with a straw mattress. The body was then placed on the bed, probably when it was already in the grave.
The mystery of bed burials
Dr Richard Dance, an expert on Old English at the University, has pointed out that the Anglo-Saxon word ‘leger’ can mean either ‘bed’ or ‘grave’. “Etymologically, the word means ‘place where one lies’, but there are examples of this meaning both bed and grave in literature of the time,” says Dr Dance. A clue to the possible symbolism of bed burials perhaps? But why only a chosen few were buried in their beds remains a mystery.
“Bed burials were never widespread, but there is a little cluster around the Cambridge area and another in Wessex, with a solitary very high status example in Teeside” says Dr Lucy. “Where we do find them they seem to be predominantly burials of females, and date to the mid to later 7th century; most have indications of high status such as fine jewellery or burial under a barrow.
The gold and garnet construction of the Trumpington cross also tends to be used for female associated items, although the recently discovered Staffordshire Hoard, as well as the slightly earlier famous ship burial at Sutton Hoo, show that such material was also used in high status weapon fittings throughout the 7th century. It is interesting that the same decorative techniques are seen both in overtly pagan and overtly Christian settings.”
The cross
The cross itself – 3 and a half centimetres in diameter – is only the fifth pectoral cross to be discovered in the UK. As well as the examples from Ixworth and Durham, one example was picked up as a stray find in Holderness, East Yorkshire, and another was a 19th-century find from Wilton in Norfolk. These other crosses are pendants designed to hang suspended on a necklace, whereas the Trumpington cross has a loop on the reverse of each arm, so that it could be stitched directly onto clothing.
“You can tell from the shiny look of three of these loops, where they have rubbed against fabric, that this item was worn in daily life, most likely as a symbol of social status as well as religious affiliation,” says Dickens.
Studying the graves
The excavations at Trumpington Meadows on the southern city limits of Cambridge, funded by the property developers Grosvenor, have unearthed significant findings from the Neolithic and Iron Ages, as well as material from a contemporary Anglo-Saxon settlement. The Christian girl was in one of a very small group of four graves, along with an unsexed individual in his or her twenties and two other slightly younger women.
The graves are thought to be broadly contemporary with each other, although the team are only at the very beginning of the investigative process. This will include radiocarbon dating of each of the bodies (to establish their date of burial) and isotopic analysis of their bones and teeth, to help determine both their diet and hopefully to establish where they had lived in childhood.
Detailed study of their skeletons will be able to tell, in addition to their sex and age, their stature, health and any visible medical conditions. Analysis of the gold and garnets in the cross will also reveal further details about its place of manufacture; garnets in this period were probably imported from the Black Sea or even further afield, from Asia.
The teenager’s grave also contained other items. An iron knife and a chatelaine (a chain that would have hung from the waist) were found in the girl’s grave, along with some glass beads which seemed to have been kept in a purse on the end of the chain. Preserved textile on the iron knife and chain offers the possibility of reconstructing her burial costume.
“The custom of grave goods was long-established in the pagan period, but it doesn’t mean that the burials at Trumpington weren’t Christian” states Dr Lucy. “The church never issued any edicts against the use of grave goods, but it’s something that does seem to fade away by the 8th century, just at the point where Christianity was becoming the dominant religion. There is, though, a time through the second half of the 7th century, where clearly Christian people were still making use of a limited range of goods within their burials, and these often carried explicitly Christian symbolism, such as the cross here.
“The Trumpington bed burial does seem to belong at that transition between the two religions. Did she have a formal role in the church? The site is just behind the village church, which is first documented over 400 years later. Perhaps there was a monastery – even a nunnery – there before that we don’t know about. This is certainly something worth looking into.”
A small number of structures associated with the burials seem to represent part of a settlement that was in use at the same time. Analysis of the finds from these will help to determine the nature and function of that settlement; initial assessment of the pottery has suggested the presence of some high status imports, of a type usually only associated with high status ecclesiastical centres.
There may even be a possible link to the founding of the first monastery in Ely at around the same time. St Æthelthryth (or Etheldreda), daughter of King Anna of East Anglia, established the female-headed house at Ely in 673 AD. A cemetery found in Ely by the CAU in 2006 also contained a later 7th-century burial of a 10-12 year-old with a delicate gold cross pendant, who was thought to have been associated with the monastery. The parallels between this site and Trumpington are intriguing, and suggest a more interesting origin for the village than has previously been thought.
____________
References:
Past Horizons. 2012. "Mystery of Anglo-Saxon teen buried in bed with gold cross". Past Horizons. Posted: March 15, 2012Available Online: http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/03/2012/mystery-of-anglo-saxon-teen-buried-in-bed-with-gold-cross
Saturday, March 31, 2012
'World's Oldest Temple' May Have Been Cosmopolitan Center
Ancient blades made of volcanic rock that were discovered at what may be the world's oldest temple suggest that the site in Turkey was the hub of a pilgrimage that attracted a cosmopolitan group of people some 11,000 years ago.
The researchers matched up about 130 of the blades, which would have been used as tools, with their source volcanoes, finding people would have come from far and wide to congregate at the ancient temple site, Göbekli Tepe, in southern Turkey. The blades are made of obsidian, a volcanic glass rich with silica, which forms when lava cools quickly.
The research was presented in February at the 7th International Conference on the Chipped and Ground Stone Industries of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic in Barcelona, Spain.
_____________
References:
Jarus, Owen. 2012. "'World's Oldest Temple' May Have Been Cosmopolitan Center
". Live Science. Posted: March 15, 2012. Available online: http://www.livescience.com/19085-world-oldest-temple-tools-pilgrimage.html
The researchers matched up about 130 of the blades, which would have been used as tools, with their source volcanoes, finding people would have come from far and wide to congregate at the ancient temple site, Göbekli Tepe, in southern Turkey. The blades are made of obsidian, a volcanic glass rich with silica, which forms when lava cools quickly.
The research was presented in February at the 7th International Conference on the Chipped and Ground Stone Industries of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic in Barcelona, Spain.
_____________
References:
Jarus, Owen. 2012. "'World's Oldest Temple' May Have Been Cosmopolitan Center
". Live Science. Posted: March 15, 2012. Available online: http://www.livescience.com/19085-world-oldest-temple-tools-pilgrimage.html
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