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Breaking News! is
predominantly advance "gleanings" from the NEARA Transit,
abstracted by Rob Buchanan, with additional items from Ros
Strong, Susie Thompson and Glenn Kreisberg. The NEARA Transit is
a twice yearly NEARA publication of archaeological news and abstracts.
Suggestions and comments welcome: Email Terry J. Deveau.
Comet Theory Comes Crashing to Earth
An elegant
archaeological hypothesis, under fire for results that can’t be replicated,
may ultimately come undone.
By Rex Dalton
It seemed like such an elegant answer to an age-old
mystery: the disappearance of what are arguably North America’s first people.
A speeding comet nearly 13,000 years ago was the culprit, the theory goes,
spraying ice and rocks across the continent, killing the Clovis people and
the mammoths they fed on, and plunging the region into a deep chill. The idea
so captivated the public that three movies describing the catastrophe were
produced.
But now, four years after the purportedly supportive
evidence was reported, a host of scientific authorities systematically have
made the case that the comet theory is “bogus.” Researchers from multiple
scientific fields are calling the theory one of the most misguided ideas in
the history of modern archaeology, which begs for an independent review so an
accurate record is reflected in the literature. CLICK
HERE FOR THE FULL STORY
Tsunami-hit towns forgot warnings from
ancestors
Modern sea
walls failed to protect coastal towns from Japan’s destructive tsunami last
month. But in the hamlet of Aneyoshi, a single
centuries-old tablet saved the day.
“High dwellings are the
peace and harmony of our descendants,’’ the stone slab reads. “Remember the
calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point.’’
It was advice the dozen
or so households of Aneyoshi heeded, and their
homes emerged unscathed from a disaster that flattened low-lying communities
elsewhere and killed thousands along Japan’s northeastern shore. CLICK
HERE FOR THE FULL STORY
 Pictures:
"The Hammonasset Line'
Along
The 'Hammonasset Line'
Madison
Resident Finding Stone Formations He Believes Native Americans Built Long Ago
To Mark Winter Solstice Sunrise
MADISON — By PETER MARTEKA, pmarteka@courant.com The Hartford
Courant
December
20, 2010
As the summer
solstice approaches each June, a chunk of white rock in a manmade chamber on
the edge of a reservoir here is illuminated by sunlight in the shape of a
dagger.
In another part of town, a 7-acre parcel is filled with stone walls that
align during the solstices with rocks in the shape of
snakes, white quartz boulders, prayer seats and
assorted cairns.
These stone displays are among the thousands discovered by Madison resident
and retired engineer Tom Paul along what he calls the "Hammonasset
Line." Paul believes the solar alignment runs from a Native American
council rock on Long Island, across the Sound, through
Madison and Killingworth, northwest
through Waterbury and the Berkshires into
the Catskills. He said he thinks many of the stone formations date back
thousands of years and were constructed by Native Americans to mark the
sunrise of winter solstice – when the Earth
is farthest from the sun — and the sunset of summer solstice, when the Earth
is closest to the sun. Click
here to Read more...
Multiple burials at Orkney Neolithic site
A stone slab forms the roof of one of the
chambers
Archaeologists
have recovered remains from at least eight people after initial excavation at
a Neolithic tomb site in Orkney discovered in October.
A narrow,
stone-lined passageway leads to five chambers, two of which have been
part-excavated so far.
Fragments of
skull and hipbone have been unearthed, some carefully placed in gaps in the
stones, suggesting the 5,000-year-old site is undisturbed.
Click
here for full story
CNN International Explores the Secrets of
Armenia’s Stonehenge
A stone circle located high in the highlands of Southern Armenia may in
fact be the oldest stone observatory in the world, predating England’s
Stonehenge. According to newly started excavations, the Armenian Stonehenge (Karahunj) has a history of 7500 years. It’s
discovery has sparked a scientific debate in astronomical and astrological
circles. Yerkir Media’s Gayane
Avetisyan reports on the story for CNN World View. Click
here for full story
More Proof That Vikings Were First to
America
By
Lisa
Abend Friday, Nov. 26, 2010
Jack Heretik of the Knights of Columbus portrays the 15th
century Italian explorer Christopher Columbus during a Columbus Day event in
Washington, D.C., on Oct. 11, 2010
Pity poor Leif Ericsson. The Viking explorer may well have been the first
European to reach the Americas, but it is a certain Genoan
sailor who gets all the glory. Thanks to evidence that has
until now consisted only of bare archeological remains and a bunch of
Icelandic legends, Ericsson has long been treated as a footnote in American
history: no holiday, no state capitals named after him, no little ditty to
remind you of the date of his voyage. But a group of Icelandic and Spanish
scientists studying one mysterious genetic sequence — and
one woman who's been dead 1,000 years — may soon change that. Click
here for the full story
First Americans 'reached Europe five
centuries before Columbus discoveries'
Scientists claim first Americans arrived long before Columbus bumped into
an island in the Bahamas in 1492 By Giles Tremlett, Madrid
Tuesday 16 November 2010 17.43 GMT
 Christopher Columbus did not introduce the first
native Americans to Europe, according to new research. Picture: PoodlesRock/Corbis
When Christopher
Columbus paraded his newly discovered American Indians through the streets of
Spanish towns at the end of the 15th century, he was not in fact introducing
the first native Americans to Europe, according to new research. Click
here for full story
World's oldest Copper Age settlement found
Indo-Asian News Service
Belgrade, November 15, 2010
A "sensational" discovery of 75-century-old
copper tools in Serbia is compelling scientists to reconsider existing
theories about where and when man began using metal. Belgrade - axes,
hammers, hooks and needles - were found interspersed with other artefacts from a settlement that burned down some 7000
years ago…Click
here for full story
Digger finds Neolithic tomb
complex
Posted 31 October
2010
Excavations have exposed a complex rock
cut chamber with skulls in it.
Archaeologists on Orkney are investigating what is thought to
be a 5,000-year-old tomb complex.
A local man stumbled on the site while using a mechanical
digger for landscaping.
It appears to contain a central passageway and multiple
chambers excavated from rock.
There is a large neolithic burial
complex nearby called The Tomb of the Eagles where over 300 bodies were
found.
"Potentially these skeletons could tell us so much about
Neolithic people," said Orkney Islands Council archaeologist Julie
Gibson Click
here for full story.
Pseudoscience’s human cost
exposed at Trottier Symposium
Posted on Thursday, October 21, 2010
 James Randi
demonstrates the effectiveness of a so-called "bomb-sniffing"
device at the Trottier Symposium, "Confronting
pseudoscience: a call to action." / Photo Owen Egan
By William Raillant-Clark
There wasn’t a dry eye in the house – not what you would typically expect at
a symposium on science. This year’s Trottier
Symposium was entitled “Confronting Pseudoscience: A Call to Action,” and it
would not be out of order to conclude that many in the audience were
surprised by the emotion on stage, and by extension, in the seats.
How very powerful it is to
hear a researcher’s voice tremble as he describes the needless suffering and
deaths of the victims of quackery. Many facts were presented at the event,
but the most important was clearly that beyond the merchandising of lies,
pseudoscience causes real human suffering every day. Click
here for full story View the full symposium from link at bottom of page
or click here
Smithsonian
does not dispute authenticity of archaeological find in Vero Beach
 By Elliott Jones
Posted October
20, 2010 at 7:35 a.m., updated October 20,
2010 at 3:08 p.m
VERO
BEACH — The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., has found no reason
to dispute the authenticity of an one-of-a-kind archaeological discovery that
might help confirm a human presence here up to 13,000 years ago at the end of
the last Ice Age.
In
early 2009, local fossil collector James Kennedy cleaned off an old bone he
found two years earlier and noticed some lines on it — lines that turned out
to be a clear etching of a walking mammoth with tusks. Click
here for full story
Possible Geoglyphs Spotted in Peru
A huge network of earthworks, or geoglyphs, is
visible in satellite imagery of a large area around Titicaca Lake, a
researcher claims.
- A
researcher used Google maps to spot what she claims are geoglyphs around Titicaca Lake in Peru.
- The
area was heavily landscaped by Andean communities to improve
agriculture.
- Some
argue the shapes are just agricultural projects, not earthworks
An Italian researcher may have discovered a huge network of earthworks
representing birds, snakes and other animals in Peru, according to a study
published on the Cornell University physics
website arXiv.
Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, assistant professor
at the department of physics of Turin's Polytechnic University, used
Google satellite maps and AstroFracTool, an
astronomical image-processing program which she developed, to investigate
over 463 square miles of land around Peru's Titicaca Lake .
Click here for full story.
Author explores legend of the Westford Knight
By Rachel R. Briere,
rbriere@lowellsun.com
Updated: 09/22/2010 07:00:34 AM EDT
WESTFORD -- It's a modern-day knight's tale. For more than five decades,
historians from near and far have been trying to uncover rock-solid evidence
to validate the legend of the Westford knight.
Off Depot Street, a stone's throw from the Abbot School,
is the epicenter of local folklore. A rock, with little prominence other than
a chain, post fence and small plaque, could hold a story more significant
than that other Bay State stone -- Plymouth Rock. And one Massachusetts
native and author has begun a quest to make its presence known. Click here for full story.
Treasure hunter
hopes new law clears path to gold
Province to replace old rules with
Oak Island Act
By BRIAN MEDEL Yarmouth Bureau
Thu. Jul 15 - 4:54 AM
Dan
Blankenship says he’s growing impatient waiting for a green light to resume
exploration for buried treasure on Oak Island.
News
the province plans to repeal the Treasure Trove Act and create an Oak
Island Act is interesting at best, the 87-year-old said Wednesday.
He
and his American partners applied two years ago for a licence
to dig for treasure believed to be buried on Oak Island. And even though
they’re paying "over $30,000 a year in taxes (on property), we can’t get
a treasure trove licence," he said.
He
and his partners own about 78 per cent of Oak Island, including the money
pit, the spot where treasure is said to be hidden. Link to full
story click here
3,350-year-old fragment of text found
July 13th
– Bloomburg News
 Israeli
archeologist Eilat Mazar
of Hebrew University of Jerusalem held a fragment bearing an ancient form of
writing. (Sebastian Scheiner/Associated Press
JERUSALEM — A tiny clay fragment dating from the
14th century BC discovered outside Jerusalem’s Old City walls contains the
oldest written document found in the city, researchers say.
The 3,350-year-old clay fragment was uncovered
during sifting of fill excavated from beneath a 10th-century BC tower, dating
from the period of King Solomon in an area near the southern wall of the Old
City, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said yesterday in an e-mailed
statement. Details of the find appear in the current Israel Exploration
Journal.
Link
to full article click here
Skulls show New World was
settled twice: study
JUNE 14th, 2010
http://www.physorg.com
Paleoanthropologists from Brazil, Chile and
Germany compared the skulls of several dozen Paleoamericans,
dating back to the early days of migration 11,000 years ago, with the more
recent remains of more than 300 Amerindians.
"We
found that the differences between Early and Late Native American groups
match the predictions of a two-migration scenario far better than they do
those of any other hypothesis," they said.
"In
other words, these differences are so large that it is highly improbable that
the earliest inhabitants of the New World were the direct ancestors of recent
Native American populations."
Their
landmark research found differences in the cranial morphology that could only
be explained by the fact that the last common ancestor of
the Early and Late Native American groups came from outside the continent. Link to full
article click here
Who Were the First Americans?
by
STEPHEN FRIED
Parade
June 13, 2010
Who really discovered America? If you think the
earliest Americans were Christopher Columbus and his crew, or even the Native
Americans they met here, you’d be off by thousands of years. The debate over
just how many years—and how people lived after arriving here—is one of the
most important in ancient U.S. history. The hunt for “the American Adam,”
says David Meltzer, a professor of prehistory at Southern Methodist
University, is a “search for insight into how our species adapted to a truly
new world.” Link
to full article Click here
Archaeologist
Dennis Jenkins displays cordage, netting, and basketry from the Paisley Caves
in central Oregon.
A
12,000-year-old find in Keene
By MELANIE PLENDA
Union Leader Correspondent
Thursday, Jun. 10, 2010
KEENE
– Just beyond the grind of machinery and trucks
working to build a state of the art middle school in Keene lays the remnants of
the life that used to be there. Before machines, before planes and cars,
before the first settlers from strange lands, people were here. They built
fires and carved tools, had families, and most of all, existed. Link
to article click here
Sunday, May 9, 2010 at 3:30 a.m.
By Cece Nunn
Cece.Nunn@StarNewsOnline.com
( page all of 4 )
WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH | A local captain and his crew have
discovered a unique rock and nearby artifacts that might help reveal how the
first people came to Southeastern North Carolina thousands of years ago. Click
Here for full article
April 26, 2010
By Mark E. Vogler mvogler@eagletribune.com
LAWRENCE — Al and
Joyce Sunskis think they have proof the Vikings
passed through Tower Hill six centuries ago.
They believe a rock
that sets in the backyard of their Maurice Avenue home next to an ancient
wellspring bears markings that may have been carved or chiseled by Norsemen
who sailed up and down the Merrimack River. Link
to entire article - click here
America's
architectural heritage: Native American mortuary temples
March 24th,
2010
Archaeologists believe that many Native
American cultures were obsessed with death and the hereafter. The most obvious evidence is the abundance
of burial mounds containing human remains with grave openings. However, certain cultures not only built
burial mounds, but also earthen complexes contain burial mounds, geometric
patterns and mounds, which did not contain burials. North of the Southern Highlands, these
ceremonial complexes contain few or no houses. This means that people traveled to these
sites from distant villages in order build, worship, trade
and socialize. There is evidence that
some cultures even brought the remains of their love ones to be treated with
rituals or cremated. Link
to entire article - click here
Why
and how did Native Americans build mounds?
March 7th, 2010
Why and how did Native Americans build mounds?
 When English and Scottish settlers first arrived
in what was to become the United States, they encountered literally thousands
of abandoned earthen and shell mounds that seemed not to be associated with
occupied Indian villages. Full
Article click here.
Oxford
Journal: When Scholarship and Tribal Heritage Face Off Against Commerce March
12th, 2010
When Scholarship and Tribal Heritage Face Off
Against Commerce
OXFORD, Ala. —
Overlooking the Interstate and an outdoor shopping mall here stands a sad
little hill, bald but for four bare trees and a scattering of stones.
That the stones are there is beyond argument. But
everything else about them — whether somebody put them there, how long they
have been there and what should be done with them — became a matter of fierce
debate last summer and has continued to yield surprising twists into recent
weeks.
Full
Article click here
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