Category Archives: ASIA

ASIA, WORLD

Anthropologists confirm the existence of specialized sheep-hunting camp in prehistoric Lebanon

Anthropologists confirm the existence of specialized sheep-hunting camp in prehistoric Lebanon

Anthropologists confirm the existence of specialized sheep-hunting camp in prehistoric Lebanon
A view of excavations in the Nachcharini Cave taken at end of the season in the summer of 1974

The presence of a hunting camp, currently situated in north-eastern Lebanon, over 10,000 years old, has been confirmed by anthropologists at the University of Toronto – one that straddles the period marking the transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural settlements at the onset of the last stone age.

The study of decades-old, collected from the Nachcharini Cave high in anti-Lebanon mountains that form the modern-day border between Lebanon and Syria, shows the site as a short-term hunting camp that served as a temporary outpost to emerging and more substantial villages elsewhere in the region, and that sheep were the primary game.

The finding confirms the hypothesis of retired U of T archeologist Bruce Schroeder, who excavated the site on several occasions beginning in 1972, but who had to discontinue his work when the Lebanese Civil War began in 1975.

“The site represents the best evidence of a special-purpose camp – not a village or settlement – in the region,” said Stephen Rhodes, a Ph.D. candidate in the department of anthropology in the Faculty of Arts & Science and lead author of a study published this week in PLOS ONE.

“The cave was a contemporary of larger settlements further south in the Jordan Valley, and is the first site of its kind to show the predominance of sheep among the animals hunted by its temporary inhabitants.”

The view of looking out of the cave in northeastern Lebanon where U of T researchers confirmed the existence of a more than 10,000-year-old hunting camp

Radiocarbon dating of animal bones recovered from the site shows that it dates to an era known as the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), a period from about 10,000-8,000 BCE during which the cultivation of crops, the construction of mud-brick dwellings and other practices of domestication began to emerge. The stone tools found at the sites are mostly tiny arrowheads used for hunting.  

The new dates place the main deposits at the cave securely in the PPNA.

“Previous dates established in the 1970s were problematic and far too recent for unknown reasons, possibly due to contamination or incorrect processing,” said Rhodes, who coauthored the study with Edward Banning and Michael Chazan, both professors in U of T’s department of anthropology. 

“The results highlight the fact that people in the PPNA took advantage of a wide variety of habitats in a complex system of subsistence practices.”

It was already known that sheep hunting was practiced in this region throughout periods that preceded the PPNA, and the evidence found at Nachcharini Cave reinforces that understanding.

According to Rhodes, it consolidates our knowledge of the natural range of sheep, which pertains to a potential beginning of domestication in later years.

“We are not saying that hunters at Nachcharini were engaged in early stages of this domestication,” he said. “But the evidence of a local tradition makes this area a possible center of sheep domestication later on.”

ASIA, MYANMAR, WORLD

Spider-Like Creature With a Tail Was Just Found in 100 Million-Year-Old Amber

Spider-Like Creature With a Tail Was Just Found in 100 Million-Year-Old Amber

Amber mined for centuries in Myanmar for jewelry is a treasure trove for understanding the evolution of spiders and their other arachnid relatives.

This week, two independent teams describe four 100-million-year-old specimens encased in amber that look like a cross between a spider and a scorpion.

The discovery, “could help close major gaps in our understanding of spider evolution,” says Prashant Sharma, an evolutionary developmental biologist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison who was not involved in the work.

Arachnids are a group of eight-legged invertebrates that includes scorpions, ticks, and spiders. Spiders, which crawled into existence some 300 million years ago, are known for their spinnerets—modified “legs” that produce silk and control its extrusion from tiny pores called spigots.

Male spiders have also evolved another modified “leg” between their fangs and the back four pairs of legs that inserts sperm into the female.

All but the most primitive spiders have smooth backs, unlike the segmented abdomens of scorpions, which are believed to have diverged from an ancestral arachnid more than 430 million years ago.

But in 1989, researchers discovered a suspicious, spigot-bearing fossil that was 100 million years older than the earliest known spider.

By 2008, paleobiologists realized that this ancient silk producer was just a spider relative, perhaps a stepping stone to true spiders.

Researchers put it into the group Uraraneida, which was thought to have thrived between 400 million and 250 million years ago. That left unanswered many questions about when spinnerets and other spider traits first evolved.

Then, several years ago, amber fossil dealers independently approached two paleobiologists at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology in China with what looked like 5-millimeter-long Uraraneida encased in amber.

One of them, Wang Bo, pulled together a team to look at his two specimens, which they eventually named Chimerachne yingi (“chimera spider” in Latin). The other paleobiologist, Huang Diying, assembled a second team that examined a different pair of these fossils.

The two groups say they didn’t know about each other until after they submitted their results to the same journal. But, despite some differences, “they draw the same conclusion—that fossil uraraneids, as this group is called, are the closest extinct relatives of spiders,” says Greg Edgecombe, a paleobiologist at the Natural History Museum in London, who was not involved with the work.

Amber preserved in exquisite detail these 100-million-year-old close relatives to spiders.

One group’s specimens give a really clear view of the top of this organism and the other, a great look at the underside, spinnerets and all, Huang and his colleagues report today in Nature Ecology and Evolution.

“The degree of preservation is exquisite, and the fossils’ anatomy is easy to interpret,” Sharma says. The presence of the spinnerets, he adds, means they must have originated “very early” in arachnid evolution. The male specimens also have the special appendages for inserting sperm into the female.

Yet they also have a segmented abdomen and a long tail, like a whip scorpion’s whip, Wang and his colleagues report today in the same journal. “These things appear to be essentially spiders with tails!” says Jason Bond, an evolutionary biologist at Auburn University in Alabama who was not involved with the work.

This means that early arachnids had a mix of all these traits, which were selectively lost in their descendants, giving rise to the array of arachnids seen today.

And what is even more amazing, says Bond, is that the amber is only 100 million years old. So these spider relatives hunted side by side with spiders for 200 million years.

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

Archaeologists discover fossil of ancient turtle species that never grew a shell

Archaeologists discover fossil of ancient turtle species that never grew a shell

A fossil freshly discovered turtle, that lived 228 million years ago, illustrates how modern turtles have developed these traits. It had a beak, but while its body was Frisbee-shaped, its wide ribs hadn’t grown to form a shell-like we see in turtles today.

“This reptile was more than six feet long and with a curious body and a long tail and its anterior part became this strange beak,” says Olivier Rieppel, a paleontologist at Chicago’s Field Museum and one of the authors of a new paper in Nature. “It probably lived in shallow water and dug in the mud for food.”

The new species has been christened Eorhynchochelys Sinensis — a mouthful, but with a straightforward meaning.

Eorhynchochelys (“Ay-oh-rink-oh-keel-is”) means “dawn beak turtle” — essentially, the first turtle with a beak — while Sinensis, meaning “from China,” refers to the place where it was found by the study’s lead author, Li Chun of China’s Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.

Eorhynchochelys isn’t the only kind of early turtle that scientists have discovered — there is another early turtle with a partial shell but no beak.

Until now, it’s been unclear how they all fit into the reptile family tree. “The origin of turtles has been an unsolved problem in paleontology for many decades,” says Rieppel. “Now with Eorhynchochelys, how turtles evolved has become a lot clearer.”

The fact that Eorhynchochelys developed a beak before other early turtles but didn’t have a shell is evidence of mosaic evolution — the idea that traits can evolve independently from each other and at a different rate, and that not every ancestral species has the same combination of these traits.

Modern turtles have both shells and beaks, but the path evolution took to get there wasn’t a straight line. Instead, some turtle relatives got partial shells while others got beaks, and eventually, the genetic mutations that create these traits occurred in the same animal.

“This impressively large fossil is a very exciting discovery giving us another piece in the puzzle of turtle evolution,” says Nick Fraser, an author of the study from National Museums Scotland.

“It shows that early turtle evolution was not a straightforward, step-by-step accumulation of unique traits but was a much more complex series of events that we are only just beginning to unravel.”

Fine details in the skull of Eorhynchochelys solved another turtle evolution mystery.

For years, scientists weren’t sure if turtle ancestors were part of the same reptile group as modern lizards and snakes — diapsids, which early in their evolution had two holes on the sides of their skulls — or if they were anapsids that lack these openings. Eorhynchochelys’s skull shows signs that it was a diapsid.

“With Eorhynchochelys’s diapsid skull, we know that turtles are not related to the early anapsid reptiles, but are instead related to evolutionarily more advanced diapsid reptiles. This is cemented, the debate is over,” says Rieppel.

The study’s authors say that their findings, both about how and when turtles developed shells and their status as diapsids, will change how scientists think about this branch of animals.

“I was surprised myself,” says Rieppel. “Eorhynchochelys makes the turtle family tree make sense. Until I saw this fossil, I didn’t buy some of its relatives as turtles. Now, I do.”

This study was contributed to by the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, the CAS Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, National Museums Scotland, the Field Museum, and the Canadian Museum of Nature.

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

Ancient Viruses Buried in Tibetan Glaciers for 15,000 Years Discovered by Scientists

Ancient Viruses Buried in Tibetan Glaciers for 15,000 Years Discovered by Scientists

In the Tibetan plateau of China the Earth’s oldest glacial ice is found. It is home to a group of frozen viruses for more than 15,000 years, most of them until now unknown.

Scientists have now pointed out that viruses and have warned that more and more infections could also appear as climate change continues to melt more and more ice

Two Tibetan glacier ice cores were studied by the team and unveiling the presence of 28 previously unknown virus groups. Investigating them will be key to learn which viruses have developed in different climates over time, researchers argued in their paper on server bioRxiv.

Ancient Viruses Buried in Tibetan Glaciers for 15,000 Years Discovered by Scientists

“The microbes differed significantly across the two ice cores, presumably representing the very different climate conditions at the time of deposition that is similar to findings in other cores,” the researchers wrote, claiming the experiment will help to establish a baseline for glacier viruses.

Sampling ice cores is no easy feat. You not only have to do it in the right conditions to ensure that the ice is unaffected, but you also have to ensure that no contamination is caused.

The team created a protocol for ultraclean microbial and viral sampling, applying it to two preserved ice core samples from 1992 and 2015.

These cores were not handled in a way that prevents contamination during drilling, handling, and transportation — which means that the exterior of the ice was most likely contaminated. In order to avoid this effect, researchers only analyzed the inside of the core, which was presumed to be unaffected.

The team worked in a cold room at minus 5 degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit) to access the inner part of the cores, using a saw to cut 0.2 inches (0.5 centimeters) of ice from the outside later.

Then, the team used ethanol to wash and melt another 0.2 inches of ice and then sterile water to wash another 0.2 inches. This allowed them to access the inner layer to do their study, having in total shaved off about 0.6 inches or 1.5 centimeters of ice of the sample.

A total of 33 groups of viruses were found in the ice cores, of which 28 were completely new to science. “The microbes differed significantly across the two ice cores,” the researchers wrote, “presumably representing the very different climate conditions at the time of deposition.”

The growing temperatures of the world because of climate change is melting glaciers across the planet, so these viral archives could soon be lost, the researchers said. But that’s not the only bad news, as the ice melt could challenge our ability to stay safe from them.

“At a minimum, [ice melt] could lead to the loss of microbial and viral archives that could be diagnostic and informative of past Earth climate regimes,” they wrote. “However, in a worst-case scenario, this ice melt could release pathogens into the environment.”

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Misplaced 2,000-year-old ring unearthed in Jerusalem’s City of David

Misplaced 2,000-year-old ring unearthed in Jerusalem’s City of David

Some 2,000 years ago, a Jewish penitent misplaced a bronze ring during his climb of a 600-meter-long (about 2,000 feet) pilgrims’ thoroughfare leading to the Temple Mount.

While the recently recovered ring is today heavily corroded, its central blue semi-precious stone still sparkles.

The ring was recently discovered at the City of David’s Sifting Project in Emek HaTsurim, in a bucket of dirt excavated from a structure on the side of the broad 7.5-meter (24-feet) -a wide road that is thought to have housed a ritual bath, or mikveh. 

According to the City of David archaeologists, the worshiper likely lost the ring when fresh from ritual purification prior to his ascent to the Temple Mount.

For the past seven years at the City of David National Park in Jerusalem, archaeologists have been excavating a now-subterranean stairway that once served as a main artery to the Temple Mount, beginning at the intersection of the Kidron and Ben Hinnom Valleys.

“Every step on this street brought the pilgrims closer to the Temple,” said City of David archaeologist Nahshon Szanton, in a recent video tour of the site.

“Imagine to yourselves the joy, the songs, the prayers, the spiritual journey that these people experience when they know they are just meters away from reaching the gates of the Temple,” he added while climbing the monumental staircase.

The pilgrims’ road, which ascends from the Pool of Siloam to the Jewish Temple, dates to no earlier than 30-31 CE, during the time of the notorious Roman governor Pontius Pilate. In the short video, Szanton emphasized that this was the period when Jesus was sentenced to death.

According to the City of David, the Herodian road was lined with shops and businesses to serve the thousands of pilgrims to Jerusalem on the major holidays.

The broad road is a monumental achievement: Szanton estimates that some 10,000 tons of quarried rock were used in its construction.

The road was built above a complex drainage system, which rebels hid in 40 years after the Pilgrims’ Path’s construction as the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

A 2,000-year-old bronze ring with a solitaire gemstone was uncovered in archaeological excavations in the City of David National Park in Jerusalem.

The drainage channel “was essentially a manmade tunnel,” according to the City of David, and was built underneath the Herodian Road. Its ceiling is made of the rectangular paving stones of the pilgrim’s road above.

The ring is perhaps a testament to a final period of peace, in which pilgrims could still safely climb the path to the Temple Mount and freely worship.

In a statement released by the City of David, archaeologists Szanton, Moran Hajbi, Ari Levy, and Dr. Joe Uziel said, “Just like today, it would appear that in the past, rings and jewelry were removed before bathing, and sometimes forgotten. This phenomenon, perhaps, is behind the discovery of the ring in what appears to be a ritual bath.”

The ring is a very human reminder of the people who ascended the path prior to the temple’s destruction, said the archaeologists.

“This ring allows us to personally connect with an individual’s personal story from 2,000 years ago. The ring, along with other finds, can shed light and expose the lives of people during the Second Temple period,” they said.

ASIA, BIBLICAL, ISRAEL, WORLD

Archaeologists have uncovered a stunning 1,600-year-old biblical mosaic in northern Israel.

Mind-blowing 1,600-year-old biblical mosaics paint a new picture of Galilean life

The spectacular biblical mosaic of 1600 years old found in Northern Israel was discovered by archaeologists.

On the site of a Synagogue in Huqoq from the fifth century, the mosaic was discovered, which depicts a scene in the book of Exodus.

Director of Excavation Jodi Magness, Professor in Chapel Hill at the University of North Carolina, said the mosaic was the first depiction of the episode of Elim from Exodus 15:27 ever found in ancient Jewish art.

“Elim is where the Israelites camped after leaving Egypt and wandering in the wilderness without water,” she explained in a statement, noting that the mosaic is separated into three registers or horizontal strips.

One register showed clusters of dates being harvested by loincloth-clad agricultural workers while another showed a row of wells and date palms, she explained.

“On the left side of the panel, a man in a short tunic is carrying a water jar and entering the arched gate of a city flanked by crenellated towers. An inscription above the gate reads, ‘And they came to Elim’,” Magness added.

Archaeologists also discovered mosaics depicting four beasts described in Chapter 7 of the Book of Daniel. The beasts represented four kingdoms preceding the end of days.

A detail from the Elim mosaic.

“The Daniel panel is interesting because it points to eschatological, or end of the day, expectations among this congregation,” said Magness, in the statement.

“The Elim panel is interesting as it is generally considered a fairly minor episode in the Israelites’ desert wanderings ­­– which raises the question of why it was significant to this Jewish congregation in Lower Galilee.”

The mosaics have been removed from the site for conservation.

Magness and the archaeological team during the summer 2019 dig at Huqoq.
Magness and the archaeological team during the summer dig at Huqoq.

The excavation marked the ninth year of digs at the Huqoq site. The first mosaics were discovered in 2012. Between 2014 and 2017, archaeologists discovered mosaics depicting Noah’s Ark, the parting of the Red Sea, Jonah and the fish and the Tower of Babel, painting a fascinating picture of life at the ancient site.

In 2018 researchers also announced the discovery of a stunning mosaic depicting a biblical scene from Numbers 13:23. Labeled “a pole between two,” the panel showed two spies sent by Moses to explore the biblical land of Canaan.

Another mosaic discovered at Huqoq includes a depiction of Samson. There also has been an ongoing debate about whether a mosaic uncovered in 2016 portrays Alexander the Great.

The purported Alexander the Great mosaic was the first non-biblical story ever found decorating an ancient synagogue.

A mosaic depicting the building of the Tower of Babel.

Experts said the wealth of mosaics show that Jewish life in the surrounding village flourished during Christian rule in the fifth century. This challenges a widely held view that Jewish settlement in the area declined during that period.

“Our work sheds light on a period when our only written sources about Judaism are rabbinic literature from the Jewish sages of this period and references in early Christian literature,” said Magness, who noted it showed only the viewpoint of the men who wrote it. Additionally, early Christian literature generally was hostile to Jews and Judaism.

The parting of the Red Sea mosaic.

“So, archaeology fills this gap by shedding light on aspects of Judaism between the fourth to sixth centuries CE – about which we would know nothing otherwise,” Magness explained. “Our discoveries indicate Judaism continued to be diverse and dynamic long after the destruction of the second Jerusalem temple in 70 CE.”

A mosaic depicting Jonah being swallowed by a fish.

The Huqoq Excavation Project has involved experts from a host of universities, including Baylor University, Brigham Young University and the University of Toronto, as well as the Israel Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University.

ASIA, CAMBODIA, WORLD

Sixth-Century Statue Discovered in Cambodia

Sixth-Century Statue Discovered in Cambodia

Officials and historians from the Siem Reap Provincial Department of Environment conducting research on a large Makara animal statue carved on a rock at the Phnom Kulen National Park in Siem Reap province’s Svay Loeu district.

Sun Kong, the Provincial Environmental Department director said yesterday that a resident discovered the head section of the broken statue and officials visited the site on Sunday.

He added that the statue was made of sandstone during the sixth century and the body was broken into pieces, noting that officials found 13 pieces of the body nearby the site.

Environmental officials inspect the ancient statue.

Mr Kong said: “According to the experts, this Makara animal statue is one that we have never seen before. It is approximately 2.14 meters in length and about 0.97 meters high.

We have not yet moved the body parts or excavated the head from the site and have told park rangers in the area to guard it in order for officials from relevant ministries and institutions to come and study in detail about the site’s history and reconstruct the pieces.”

He noted that experts have not found a foundation of any temple at the site and believe it was just carved out on the rock.

Chhim Samrithy, 38, a craftsman from the province who discovered the statue, said yesterday he spotted it on Saturday while searching for bamboo.

“I usually walk in the forest to look for some unique and sacred objects and suddenly spotted this rare statue,” he said. “After seeing it, I took environmental officials and archaeologists to the site and also helped to find some of the missing pieces of the statue.”

Long Kosal, Apsara Authority spokesman, said that the authorities’ archeologists visited the site yesterday and will conduct additional studies to add it to the records.

He said: “The Kulen National Park area is rich in ancient artifacts, both above and below the ground. Therefore,  I urge people, especially those living in the area, to avoid excavating or clearing archeological sites. If they find ancient objects, please report to the authorities for research to be done to preserve them for future generations.”

ASIA, INDONESIA, WORLD

Fossilized Insect Discovered Not in Amber, But in Opal

Fossilized Insect Discovered Not in Amber, But in Opal

A piece of opal from Java Island, Indonesia,  holds some remarkable cargo: a stunningly preserved insect that may be at least four to seven million years old.

Amber has long been prized for not only its lush, fiery hues but its elaborate contributions to Earth’s fossil record. As Vasika Udurawane writes for Earth Archives, the petrified tree resin starts out as a viscous liquid, slowly hardening over millions of years and preserving the entrapped remains of creatures that find themselves caught up in the process.

Up to now, scientists have collected amber fossils featuring such lively scenes as a spider attacking a wasp, an ant beleaguered by a parasitic mite and even a lizard seemingly suspended in mid-air—or rather mid-amber.

To date, most scientists believe that such high-quality fossil specimens are unique to amber, Gizmodo’s Ryan F. Mandelbaum reports. But an intriguing find by gemologist Brian Berger could upend this notion, proving that the slow-forming gemstone opal is also capable of preserving the remains of ancient animals.

A precious opal discovered on the island of Java in Indonesia includes what appears to be a complete insect encased inside. While insects encased in amber are well-known, a second, much rarer, the process of opalization can also occur while still preserving the insect inclusion, which is believed to be the provenance of this specimen.

Writing in a blog post for Entomology Today, Berger explains that he recently purchased an opal originating from the Indonesian island of Java.

Dotted with a rainbow of colors—from amber-Esque shades of yellow and red to neon green and dark blue—the gemstone is impressive in and of itself. Add in the insect seemingly entombed within, however, and the opal transforms from a precious stone into a significant scientific discovery.

“You can see what appears to be a complete insect encased beautifully inside,” Berger notes. “… The insect appears to have an open mouth and to be very well preserved, with even fibrous structures extending from the appendages.”

According to Gizmodo’s Mandelbaum, it’s possible the bug was trapped in amber that then underwent a process known as opalization. Much like fossilization turns bone into stone, opalization can render organic specimens opals’ hapless prisoners.

Michelle Starr of Science Alert points out that researchers currently have a limited understanding of opal formation. Right now, the dominant theory involves silica-laden water, which flows across sediment and fills cracks and cavities in its path. As the water evaporates, it leaves behind silica deposits, starting a process that repeats until an opal finally forms.

In Indonesia, home of Berger’s specimen, opalization takes on an added twist. Volcanic fluid, rather than simply water, races over the Earth and fills faults. As the fluid cools down, water contained within leaves behind silica deposits, launching the lengthy journey of opal formation.

It’s worth noting, according to Starr, that opalization appears to require a hollow cavity. Amber, however, does not fit these parameters, leaving scientists puzzled over how the opal in question if it indeed started out as amber, came to be.

Ben McHenry, senior collection manager of Earth sciences at the South Australian Museum, tells Starr that the specimen could share similarities with opalized wood, which is a common occurrence in Indonesia.

In an interview with Gizmodo’s Mandelbaum, Ryan McKellar, curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada, adds that Berger’s opal reminds him of a specimen featuring wood partially embedded in resin.

The section of the wood covered in amber was preserved much like a fossilized insect, but the other side, exposed to the natural environment, transformed into petrified wood.

Moving forward, Berger hopes to recruit an entomologist or paleontologist better equipped to study the unusual opal and its insect resident.

As Science Alert’s Starr notes, the gemologist has already submitted the stone to the Gemological Institute of America, which issued a report authenticating the specimen as “unaltered, untampered precious opal, with a genuine insect inclusion.”

Reflecting on the find’s potential significance in an interview with Starr, Berger concludes, “If the process of formation is correct, from tree sap with an insect through a sedimentary process, to copal, to amber, to opal it could mean the insect has the possibility to be one of the oldest ever discovered.”