Why this 300 million-year-old fossil discovered in Utah has the palaeontology world buzzing
A 300-million-year-old fossil discovered deep in Canyonlands National Park in Utah could belong to an entirely new species, reports Amy Joi O’Donoghue for the Deseret News.
The fossilized critter is an amniote—a land-dwelling vertebrate that lays eggs— and has four legs. It’s most likely an ancient ancestor of reptiles or mammals, though more testing is needed before scientists can definitively label it as a new species, reports Sherry Liang for CNN.
“It’s roughly the size of an iguana and (the fossil) preserves at least the vertebrae, top of the skull, and some of the shoulder girdle and forelimb,” Adam Marsh, the lead palaeontologist at Petrified Forest National Park, tells Mark Price for the Sacramento Bee.
The fossilized remains of a 300 million-year-old specimen were recently unearthed in Utah’s Canyonlands National Park and transferred to the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, where they will be documented and further examined. Such a finding of a fossil from this period are particularly rare, especially in North America, so scientists are excited to learn more.
Around a year ago, a Canyonlands park ranger stumbled across the fossil and reported it to the park. Then, scientists from the Natural History Museum of Utah, Petrified Forest National Park and the University of Southern California teamed up to dig into this discovery.
They filed for a research permit and excavated the fossil last month, reports CNN.
“This is cool because it’s 50 million years older than the oldest dinosaur fossil,” Marsh tells the Deseret. “So it’s kind of cool that it’s from a period in Earth’s history where we just don’t have a lot of fossils from in North America especially.”
This creature existed between the Pennsylvanian Period (323.2 to 298.9 million years ago) and the Permian (298.9 to 251.9 million years ago).
During the Pennsylvanian era, plants started to colonize dry land by way of more evolved seeds; animals did so through the evolution of the amniotic egg, in which the embryo develops inside a shell, like with birds and reptiles.
In the Permian, the planet’s continents started to squish together to form the supercontinent Pangea, and the era ended with the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history.
“It’s a phenomenal specimen. You do not see something like that very often, so it’s really significant for that in itself,” Marsh tells CNN. “But what it indicates is that there’s probably more fossils out there, especially at Canyonlands, in this really important time interval.”
Adding to the excitement, Adam Huttenlocker, a biologist at the University of Southern California, tells CNN that finding fossils of aquatic creatures is common at Canyonlands, but this is the first time he’s heard of the discovery of a land-dwelling vertebrate in the park.
“It really goes to show what kind of fossil resources are hidden in our national parks waiting to be discovered and shared with the public,” Marsh tells the Sacramento Bee.
Archeological dig in Newfoundland unearths what could be Canada’s oldest English coin
Archaeologists in Newfoundland have unearthed what may be the oldest English coin ever found in Canada—and perhaps North America. Working at the site of a former English colony, the team dug up a rare two-penny piece that was minted more than 520 years ago, between 1493 and 1499, reports Chris O’Neill-Yates for CBC News.
Minted in Canterbury between 1493 and 1499, the silver half groat dates to the middle of Henry VII’s reign, when a rebellion led by pretender Perkin Warbeck threatened to unseat the nascent Tudor dynasty.
Known as a half groat, the coin dates to the reign of England’s first Tudor king, Henry VII, who ruled from 1485 to 1509. It was uncovered at Cupids Cove Plantation Provincial Historic Site, where English merchant John Guy established a colony in 1610.
Researchers found the object near what would have been a bastion in the fortified settlement.
“Some artefacts are important for what they tell us about a site, while others are important because they spark the imagination,” says archaeologist William Gilbert, who discovered the site in 1995 and continues to lead excavations there today, in a statement.
“This coin is definitely one of the latter. One can’t help but wonder at the journey it made, and how many hands it must have passed through from the time it was minted … until it was lost in Cupids sometime early in the 17th century.”
A better-preserved example of a Henry VII half-groat.
Gilbert showed the newly unearthed, nickel-sized coin to Paul Berry, a former curator at the Bank of Canada Museum who helped authenticate the piece reports the Canadian Press.
The silver coin was minted in Canterbury around the middle of Henry’s reign when a rebellion led by pretender Perkin Warbeck threatened to unseat the nascent Tudor dynasty.
Previously, the oldest known English coin found in the country was a silver groat minted during the reign of Henry’s granddaughter Elizabeth I, in 1560 or 1561, and discovered at Cupids Cove in 2001.
Other centuries-old English coins found on the continent include a circa 1558 groat buried on Richmond Island in Maine around 1628 and a 1560 silver coin unearthed in Jamestown, Virginia.
Guy, accompanied by a group of 39 English settlers, founded what was then called Cuper’s Cove on Conception Bay in Newfoundland. Within a few years of the settlement’s establishment in 1610, the colonists had built numerous structures, including a fort, sawmill, gristmill and brewhouse, reports Bill Gilbert for BBC News. But the winter of 1612 proved “punishing,” according to the CBC, and most of the settlers—including Guy—eventually abandoned the site. The company that funded the venture went bankrupt in 1631.
Exactly who left the half-groat at the settlement is open to interpretation. Gilbert posits that one of the Cuper’s Cove settlers dropped it when the fort’s bastion was under construction. The half-goat was found within a few feet of a post that was part of the fortification’s foundation.
“My best guess is that it was probably dropped by either John Guy or one of the early colonists when they were building … in the fall of 1610,” the archaeologist tells CBC News. “That’s what I think is most likely.”
Given that the coin is about 60 years older than the Elizabethan groat found on the cove in 2001, it’s also possible that it was lost before the colonists arrived, perhaps by an early explorer of Canada.
“[The] coin was minted around the time John Cabot arrived in England in 1495,” Gilbert tells CBC News. “It’s during the period that Cabot would have been active in England and setting out on his early explorations of the new world.” (Per Royal Museums Greenwich, the Italian explorer landed on Newfoundland—literally a “newfound land”—in 1497, one month after setting sail from Bristol in hopes of discovering a shorter route to Asia.)
Analysis of the coin is ongoing, but researchers hope to display it at the Cupids Cove historical site in time for the 2022 tourist season.
Over the millennia, people in many places across the globe have reported the existence of giants. Some of these alleged giants were supposedly six or seven feet tall, while others were considerably taller – 10 feet or more. However, many of these accounts are considered mythical or legendary. But even if such giants existed, were they simply the result of disease or genetic abnormalities? And were there just a few of them?
The Cardiff Giant
But these sightings have continued into the modern era. Many people in America, for instance, have reported seeing giants – or at least the bones of giants. Given these accounts, one may think there were many thousands, if not millions, of these giants roaming ancient America – a race of giants, in fact. However, most of the evidence is anecdotal rather than scientific. Mistakes could have been made too, especially by people who know little or nothing about science, particularly archaeology or anthropology. Also, there have been plenty of hoaxes through the ages. Some people love to fool others.
So, have giants ever existed in America? Let’s see if we can answer that question. First, this article will provide a recap of the existence of giants through the ages and then finish the investigation with more recent information.
David and Goliath
King Arthur squares off against a giant
Giants in Mythology and Legend
Over the centuries, the existence of giants has been reported in many parts of the world. The word giant comes from the Greek word Gigantes, and of course, in the old days, the Greeks wrote about the existence of giants in much of Greek mythology. For instance, the Olympian gods fought a war with the Gigantomachy, and they weren’t victorious until Heracles decided to join the Olympians. According to Hindu mythology, the Daityas were a race of giants who fought against the Devas, because they were jealous of their Deva half-brothers. Power-hungry people, the Daityas often allied themselves with other races. Supposedly, female Daityas wore jewels as large as boulders.
The Old Testament of the Bible includes tales of giants too. The Book of Genesis mentions the Nephilim, who existed before and after the biblical deluge. And David battled the Philistine giant Goliath, who reportedly was about ten feet tall. Goliath’s brothers were also considered giants.
European Giants
In Norse mythology, most of their various monsters were giants. In the eventual battle of Ragnarök, a kind of end-of-the-world tale, the giants will lay siege to Asgard, which will bring about the destruction of the world. Moreover, the Norse gods are related to giants. The chief god Odin was the great-grandson of the first giant, Ymir.
In medieval folklore, people believed giants were responsible for many ancient civilizations. Their reasoning was that only giants could have built the immense walls, fortifications, temples and statues now attributed to the Greeks, Romans, Celts or Druids. Giants are also mentioned frequently in fairy tales, particularly Jack the Giant Killer, Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon and Young Ronald. In 1890, bone fragments discovered by an anthropologist in France, and dating from the Neolithic period to the Bronze Age, came to be known as the Giant of Castelnau. Judging from the size of these leg and arm bones, it’s been estimated this “giant” was anywhere from 10 to 15 feet tall!
Paul Bunyan
Bigfoot
Skulls found at Lovelock Cave
Artist’s depiction of Cahokia
Monk’s Mound
Creek Mound
Miamisburg Mound
The Case for Giants in America
Most Americans have heard of Paul Bunyan, who, according to American folklore, was a giant lumberjack who was so big and strong he could bat cannonballs with his huge hands. In more recent times, Paul Bunyan has become a cartoon character of note. And then there’s Bigfoot, aka Sasquatch, a hominid-like, ape-man that purportedly lurks in the woods of North America.
But these giants are just silliness, right?
Well, many authors have written about the possible existence of giants in America. Certainly, one of the better books in this genre was penned by Richard J. Dewhurst, who wrote The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America, published in 2014. The following text will pertain to the discoveries Dewhurst writes about in this very interesting book.
Red-Haired Giants Found in Nevada
According to Paiute oral history, red-haired giants known as the Si-Te-Cah (the “tule eaters”) cannibalized people in what is now central Nevada. Eventually, the Paiute tribes rebelled against these giants and eradicated them. Then, in 1911, a group of bat guano miners discovered the remains and artefacts of some of these giants in Lovelock Cave. Certainly, the greatest of these discoveries were some mummies of the Si-Te-Cah, which had been wrapped in elaborate textiles. During subsequent excavations by scientists in Lovelock Cave, numerous artefacts and some human remains were collected, but experts dispute the claim that giants once lived in the cave. Interestingly, archaeological samples taken from some duck decoys found in the cave showed that using a dating technique known as Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, the decoys were from 2,000 to 2,500 years old.
Unfortunately, the mummies of the Si-Te-Cah have been lost; only the skulls of these alleged giants have been kept at the Humboldt Museum in Winnemucca, Nevada.
Mound Builders of America
Throughout Dewhurst’s book, he writes about the discovery of giants interred in burial mounds in parts of the United States. These accounts, dozens of them, in fact, cover a time period from the late 1700s until well into the twentieth century. According to Dewhurst, thousands of these burial mounds were discovered over this time period and many still exist, particularly the larger ones. But the remains of the supposed giants discovered in the burial mounds disintegrated shortly after discovery, were lost, or stored away – without scientific investigation – and then forgotten. A typical account from the book goes like this:
GIANT EIGHT FEET, SEVEN INCHES TALL UNEARTHED
Ohio Science Annual, 1898
A rare archaeological discovery has been made near Reinersville in Morgan County, Ohio. A small knoll, which had always been supposed to be the result of an uprooted tree, was opened recently and discovered to be the work of the mound builders. Just below the surrounding surface, a layer of boulders and pebbles was found. Directly underneath this was found the skeleton of a giant 8 feet, 7 inches in height. Surrounding the skeleton were bones and stone implements, stone hatchets, and other characteristics of the mound builders. The discovery is considered by the scientists as one of the most important ever made in Ohio. The skeleton is now in the possession of a Reinersville collector.
Cahokia, One of America’s Greatest Mound Builder Sites
The Cahokia mound builder site is one of the largest in North America. Located in southwestern Illinois, near Collinsville (across the Mississippi River from St. Louis), the site is near the confluence of three rivers, so the ancient people of the area must have loved this place. About a thousand years ago, Cahokia was a city larger than London, and there were 120 earthen mounds, though only 40 remain today. But the largest still exists, and it’s called Monks Mound, which is comparable in height and surface area to the largest pyramids built by the Egyptians, Maya, Aztecs and Toltecs.
Interestingly, also located near the Cahokia site, is what’s called Woodhenge, a structure that includes 48 wooden posts arranged in a 410-foot diameter circle. Woodhenge has many geological and celestial alignments. At the Cahokia site, built by the Mississippian culture, hundreds of human skeletons have been found, including the bones of many sacrificial victims and, of course, the remains of giants.
Blond-haired Giants of Santa Catalina Island
During the 1920s on Santa Catalina Island, which is off the coast of Southern California (considered one of the Channel Islands), scientists dug up the skeletal remains of more than 3,700 people. Alleged to be from a race of blond-haired giants, one of the skeletons was over nine feet in length, though the average length of the skeletons was about seven feet. In those days, this discovery generated lots of excitement. The ruins of a temple were also found at the Catalina Island site, where the remains of many sacrificial victims were unearthed. Investigated by the Spanish as long ago as the middle 1500s, the people of this civilization worshipped the Sun God. Subsequent radiocarbon dating indicated that at least some of the skeletal remains found on the island were as old as 7,000 years.
Dewhurst claims that most of these skeletons were taken by the University of California and the Smithsonian Institute, though the Smithsonian denied it had the remains for 50 years. However, in 2011, the Smithsonian admitted they had the skeletons in a restricted-access room. Be that as it may, 200 skeletons from the site can be found at UCLA’s Fowler Museum.
Evidence for a Smithsonian Cover-up?
Throughout the book, Dewhurst asserts that the Smithsonian Institute has engaged in a cover-up regarding the existence of a race of giants in America, but he provides no proof in his aforementioned book and, of course, the Smithsonian hasn’t admitted there ever was – or is – such a cover-up. According to the online article, “Big Buried Secrets: Giant Skeletons and the Smithsonian” written by Micah Hanks, if the Smithsonian can be blamed for anything regarding the lost bones of giants, it’s that the Institute’s recordkeeping is not perfect. A quote from the article could summarize this issue:
Of course, the knowledge that such skeletons may indeed have been found at times, paired with the Smithsonian’s apparent inability to keep very good records about their discovery, no doubt helps to fuel the conspiratorial speculation. With all the unknown quantities present here (and whether they are largely fact, or merely fiction), at times it does become difficult to know whether the entire truth is really being told.
Was a Cover-up Ever Needed?
Adrienne Mayor, in her book, Fossil Legends of the First Americans, published in 2007, writes that the existence of giants in America is little more than the subject of persistent rumours. She claims that the presence of bones of large extinct mammals such as mammoths, mastodons, cave bears, sabre-toothed cats and other Ice Age megafauna could have been mistaken as human bones. Moreover, she writes that hair pigment is not stable after death and that atmospheric conditions and different soil types can turn dark hair rusty red or orange.
Robert Wadlow and his father
Conclusion
There’s no incontrovertible evidence that any man or woman has ever been taller than eight feet 11 inches – the height of the world’s tallest human, Robert Wadlow. Other men and women have reached heights of above eight feet. Most, if not all of these people suffered from gigantism or acromegaly, that is, abnormal medical conditions. Moreover, some people, having no recognizable medical abnormality, have become taller than seven feet. (Many of these people play on basketball teams, in fact). Acromegaly affects about 60 out of every one million people, so over the ages there may have been thousands of so-called giants.
This begs the question: How tall is a giant? Is it anybody who suffers from gigantism – or anybody who’s taller than seven or eight feet? Who’s the authority to answer such a query?
Would he or she please step forward!
Anyway, in times past, there may have been quite a few giants, but what evidence is there that an entire race of giants – red-haired, blond-haired or otherwise – existed at some time and place on earth? Perhaps the Smithsonian Institute really has such evidence, but the organization insists that it does not. Without the bones of many such giants, people must assume that a race of giants has never existed on earth. But, in the coming months or years, that conclusion could change – by the author and many other people – so keep your mind open to all possibilities.
Chaco Canyon Polydactyly: A Thousand-Year-Old Foot Fetish?
If you’re a 12-toed guy struggling to make it in this ten-toed world, you may want to find a time machine and travel back about a thousand years to the Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.
According to new research, a group of people once lived there who respected, honoured and exalted those among them with an extra piggy on a foot.
We found that people with six toes, especially, were common and seemed to be associated with important ritual structures and high-status objects like turquoise.
Anthropologist Patricia Crown of the University of New Mexico co-authored a study, published this week in American Antiquity, about a high preponderance of six-toed people – the condition is known as polydactyly – among a prehistoric Pueblo culture in the Chaco Canyon.
Of the 96 skeletons of Chacoan people found at the canyon’s sacred Pueblo Bonito site, 3 of them had an extra toe on the right side of their right foot. That’s 15.5 times the average occurrence of polydactyly among modern Native Americans.
Six-toed imprint on a Pueblo wall
What gave the Chacoans another toenail to trim with a flint? Previous research on polydactyly shows it’s a dominant, non-recessive, hereditary trait that is not caused by inbreeding nor a genetic disease.
Study co-author Kerriann Marden suspects prenatal exposure to something hazardous, either environmental or possibly a food the pregnant mother ate. With the way the extra-toed were treated, perhaps the mothers may have even tried to have polydactyly babies.
The Mayans were known to worship six-toed people (and others with body anomalies) as gods, but the Chacoans weren’t that extreme. Handprints and footprints with extra digits appear on walls in rooms used for rituals and ceremonies.
One skeleton was buried with jewellery on the six-toed foot but nothing on the other one. Special extra-wide sandals were found with space for the extra toe.
Another six-toed wall imprint
The sandals and artwork may be the key to why the extra toes got respect.
The Chacoans art seemed to be focused on hands and feet and they appear to have paid special attention to sandals and footwear in general. Perhaps that fixation made those with two pinkie toes special.
Perhaps it was just because they could step on more ants.
Eerie Lake Erie is home to a giant ship graveyard: Nearly 2,500 sunken vessels
Lurking below the surface of Lake Erie is a ship graveyard that is estimated to include up to 2,500 vessels, with the earliest wreck dating to the 1800s when it was part of the water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the upper Midwest.
Kevin Magee, an engineer at NASA’s Glenn Research Center, said in a statement: ‘Storms and waves are probably the number one reason ships sank in Lake Erie.
‘In fact, we think Lake Erie has a greater density of shipwrecks than virtually anywhere else in the world—even the Bermuda triangle.
The oldest shipwreck lurking below Lake Erie is the Lake Serpent, a 47-foot schooner that was lost in 1829, and then there is the Sir CT Van Straubenzie that is the deepest known wreck in the lake.
The exact number of wrecks in Lake Erie is not known – it could be anywhere from 500 to 2,500 – but explorers and researchers have been able to confirm 277 sunken ships.
The oldest shipwreck lurking below Lake Erie is the Lake Serpent, a 47-foot schooner that was lost in 1829. Pictured is a satellite image showing the outline of the sunken ship
Lake Erie is the fourth largest of the five Great Lakes and spans across the US and Canadian borders, reaching into the Ontario Peninsula, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.
The giant lake became an important route during the fur trade in 1700 to 1800s, which is when many ships disappeared beneath its depths.
Lake Serpent, the oldest wreck, left Cleveland in September 1829 for the 55-mile trip to the Lake Erie Islands – but it never made it back to its return destination, Smithsonian Magazine reports.
Bodies of the crew, Captain Ezera Wright and his brother Robert washed ashore, but the ship was lost until 2018.
The exact number of wrecks in Lake Erie is not known – it could be anywhere from 500 to 2,500 – but explorers and researchers have been able to confirm 277 sunken ships. Red is approximate wreck locations, while black is confirmed locations
Lake Serpent, the oldest wreck, left Cleveland in September 1829 for the 55-mile trip to the Lake Erie Islands – but it never made it back to its return destination
Archaeologists combing the area found remains of a vessel in 2018 that they are sure is the Lake Serpent (pictured)
Archaeologists combing the area found remains of a vessel but were unsure if it was the legendary Lake Serpent.
Looking through historical records of the ship, the team learned that it was carrying mounds of boulders before it went missing and divers identified the payload on the vessel in question.
The final voyage of Edmund Fitzgerald began on November 9, 1975, at the Burlington Northern Railroad Dock No.1, Superior, Wisconsin.
Closer to the shore of Traverse City, Michigan are several ghostly hulls laying on the lake bottom, reports Lake Leen Erz.
The wrecks are in Manitou Passage, which was often a haven for cargo-laden ships travelling through the area during the bustling lumbering industry in the 19th century.
The shipwreck of the James McBride, a 121-foot-long (37-meter-long) brig that was lost in a storm in 1857.
When the water is clear, anyone could spot the sunken ships, which includes the James McBride, a 121-foot-long brig that was lost in a storm in 1857.
The Rising Sun’s resting places can also be seen from the shoreline.
This is a 133-foot-long steamer that sank in 1917. There are hundreds of small hulls littering the lake bottom, but one ship is known for sinking farther than another vessel – the Sir CT Van Straubenzie.
This ship was lost during a collision with a steamer on September 27, 1909 and quickly sank 205 feet into Lake Erie eight miles east of Long Point
This ship was lost during a collision with a steamer on September 27, 1909, and quickly sank 205 feet into Lake Erie eight miles east of Long Point. The Department of Transport reported 3 deaths, including a female cook.
The wire rigged forward mast is still standing, collision damage can be seen on the starboard side and the cabin is collapsed. There is a wheel, and the cast iron bell is in the bow of the wreck – all of which have been taken over by barnacles.
‘One of the remarkable things about Lake Erie and Great Lakes shipwrecks is how well they are preserved due to the cold, freshwater,’ said Magee. ‘Wrecks in saltwater start corroding immediately. In the Great Lakes, you can find old wooden ships that are hundreds of years old that look like they just sank.’
Rare 1,000-year-old canoe found in cenote near Chichén Itzá
A remarkably well-preserved Maya canoe — built for use some 1,100 years ago — has been found in a freshwater pool, or ‘cenote’, in Yucatán, southern Mexico. The wooden artefact — more than five feet in length — was found near the ruined city of Chichen Itza by Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia experts.
The archaeologists believe that the canoe was likely used either to aid in extracting water from the cenote or to help deposit offerings there during rituals.
Alongside the canoe, the pool and adjacent water bodies yielded other finds — including a human and ceramic skeleton, and a hand mural on a rock ceiling. This mural appears to be significantly older than the canoe, dating back to the Maya Late Postclassic Period, which ran from 1200–1500 CE.
A remarkably well-preserved Maya canoe (pictured) — built for use some 1,000 years ago — has been found in a freshwater pool, or ‘cenote’, in the Yucatán, southern Mexico
Additionally, the researchers explained, the discoveries of a sculpted stone stela, ritual knife and 40 broken vessels (like that pictured) indicate that the cenote was long a site for rituals
Additionally, the researchers explained, the discoveries of a sculpted stone stela, ritual knife and 40 broken vessels indicate that the cenote was long a site for rituals.
‘It is evident that this is an area where ceremonies were held,’ said the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia archaeologist Helena Barba Meinecke.
This is discernible, she explained, ‘not only because of the intentionally fragmented pottery but also because of the remains of charcoal that indicate their exposure to fire and the way they placed stones on top of them to cover them.’
Furthermore, Ms Barba Meinecke noted, the fact that the pottery remains come in various different styles dating from different time periods indicates that the site was used for rituals over the course of many centuries.
‘The relevance lies in the fact that it is the first canoe of this type that is complete and so well preserved in the Mayan area,’ she continued.
‘There are also fragments of these boats and oars in Quintana Roo, Guatemala and Belize.’
The canoe dates back to the end of the classic period of Maya history which spanned from 830–950 CE when the civilisation was still at its peak.
The discoveries were made as part of Tren Maya — or ‘Maya Train’ — an initiative from Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to lay a high-speed intercity train line across the heart of the Yucatán peninsula.
The multi-billion-dollar construction effort has attracted a great deal of controversy, not only for its environmental impacts but also for how the line cuts through regions rich in indigenous Maya culture and archaeological sites.
Nevertheless, the program has offered Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia researchers an opportunity to preserve some of the history being uncovered along the Tren Maya route — with hundreds of burials and ceramic vessels already found.
‘The construction of the Mayan Train constitutes an important research opportunity, through archaeological recovery,’ the experts said in a statement.
Such excavations, they said, will allow them to expand our ‘knowledge about the archaeological sites of the regions that the train will travel through.’
‘It is evident that this is an area where ceremonies were held,’ said the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia archaeologist Helena Barba Meinecke. Pictured: the researchers take measurements within the cenote site
The ritual nature of the cenote site is discernible, Ms Barba Meinecke explained, ‘not only because of the intentionally fragmented pottery but also because of the remains of charcoal that indicate their exposure to fire and the way they placed stones on top of them’
‘The relevance lies in the fact that it is the first canoe of this type that is complete and so well preserved in the Mayan area,’ Ms Barba Meinecke continued. ‘There are also fragments of these boats and oars in Quintana Roo, Guatemala and Belize.’ Pictured: an artefact at the site
With their initial study complete, the team will now be collaborating with experts from the Sorbonne University in Paris, France, to more precisely date and analyse the wood making up the canoe.
Alongside this, the researchers have plans to produce a three-dimensional digital model of the vessel based on photographs — one which can be independently analysed and from which replicas might be made for display in museums.
Back at the cenote, the archaeologists are also hoping to drill a borehole in the sediments underneath the site, from which they will be able to determine the nature of the environment at the time the canoe was in use.
Marks of the stone wall of the cenote, the team explained, has indicated that the water level at the site used to be some 16 feet lower than it is today. It was at this depth that the cave containing the canoe was found.
Archaeologists Map Nearly 500 Mesoamerican Sites and See Distinct Design Patterns
Gizmodo reports that lidar technology was used to create 3-D maps of some 30,000 square miles of Mexico, revealing more than 475 archaeological sites dating from 1400 B.C. to A.D. 1000.
A lidar image of the sites of San Lorenzo (left) and Aguada Fénix (right) show striking similarities, with a long rectangular platform and 20 edge platforms.
The 478 sites included in the new research were inhabited from around 1400 BCE to 1000 CE, and the way they were constructed appears to be linked to cosmologies important to the communities that lived there.
Settlements that align with nearby mountain peaks or the Sun’s arc across the sky suggest there may have been symbolic importance to the orientation of the architecture.
The team categorized the sites into five distinct types of architectural arrangements, which they think might correspond to different time periods and indicate more egalitarian societies.
All the sites had rectangular or square features, which the archaeologists say may have been inspired by the famous Olmec site of San Lorenzo, which had a central rectangular space that was likely used as a public plaza. The team’s survey and analysis were published today in Nature Human Behavior.
“The main point of this study is the discovery of nearly 500 standardized complexes across a broad area, many of them having rectangular shapes,” wrote lead author Takeshi Inomata, an archaeologist at the University of Arizona, in an email to Gizmodo. “Until three years ago, we had no idea about the presence of such complexes. They really force us to rethink what was happening during this period.
The team used an aerial scanning technology called lidar to map hidden structures at these sites. With lidar, archaeologists can get precision measurements of ground elevation change, even through dense tree coverage, thanks to lasers that penetrate the surface and then bounce back to a detector.
Lidar is “revolutionary for archaeology,” Robert Rosensweig, an archaeologist at the University of Albany-SUNY who didn’t work on the recent paper, wrote in an accompanying News & Views article for Nature
“The study foreshadows the future for archaeology as lidar reveals ancient architecture at an unprecedented scale that will reach into remote and heavily vegetated regions the world over,” Rosensweig added.
In 2020, Inomata and his colleagues reported their discovery of the monumental site of Aguada Fénix using lidar imaging. Now, they’ve looked at 2,000 years of architecture in the region through aerial lidar surveys.
A lidar-based illustration of the site Buenavista, which appears to be aligned with the sunrise on certain days of the year.
The people who designed these settlements are broadly called the Olmec and Maya, though there are better, more specific names for communities that fall under those labels, such as the Chontal-speaking residents of eastern Tabasco and the Zoke-speaking people of western Tabasco and Veracruz.
The Olmec site maps are particularly handy; the centre of San Lorenzo is the oldest capital in the area (it’s the home of those colossal heads you might be familiar with), and as such, archaeologists believe it may have set the standard for how to layout a settlement.
But San Lorenzo was well known already; part of the value of this new research is highlighting the structures of smaller settlements. “Although this part of Mexico is fairly open and populated, most of those sites were not known before,” Inomata added. “They were literally hiding in plain sight.”
Together, the nearly 500 sites give archaeologists a sense of how communities in the area are organized. Inomata said the research impacts are two-fold: One, archaeologists now have a better idea as to the development of monumental building projects in the region over time. Two, based on the site layouts, it appears that communities didn’t have a highly stratified social hierarchy.
“Traditionally, archaeologists thought large constructions were done by hierarchical societies with elites and rulers,” Inomata said. “But we now see that those large and standardized spaces could be built by people without pronounced inequality.” That determination is in part based on the lack of large permanent residences at many of the sites.
The archaeological team’s next steps are to visit the sites in person, to verify that the patterns represented from the air are the reality on the ground. That’s an extremely important step, as evidenced by a situation in 2016 in which a teenager thought he found a lost city in satellite imagery, only for archaeologists to disagree, saying it was probably a fallow maize field.
So far, only about 20% of the sites the team surveyed have been studied on the ground. While those ground survey results are promising, more data needs to be collected for researchers to know the extent of architectural similarities and differences in the region.
Wreck of US ship that hunted Nazi spies in the Arctic finally discovered
Live Science reports that the wreckage of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear has been found in Canadian waters by the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and other researcher groups.
The US Revenue Cutter Bear was capable of sailing through Arctic ice.
The Bear has a storied history: It started working as a commercial sealer in 1874. Then, because the ship could travel through ice-filled waters, the government purchased it in the 1880s to use for rescue work in the Arctic. It also served as a relief ship during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1919, a floating museum, a film set for a Hollywood movie and an expedition ship on Adm. Richard Byrd’s Antarctic explorations.
It also patrolled Arctic waters for the U.S. Navy in both world wars, and in 1941 it helped capture the Norwegian trawler Buskø, which was being used by the German military intelligence service Abwehr to report on weather conditions in the North Atlantic.
The Bear was decommissioned in 1944 and tied up at a wharf in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It finally sank after a storm in 1963, somewhere south of Nova Scotia and east of Boston, as it was being towed to Philadelphia.
“The Bear has had such an incredible history, and it’s so important in many ways in American and global maritime heritage because of its travels,” said Brad Barr, the mission coordinator for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Maritime Heritage Program, who has led the search for the wreck for several years.
A scan of the wreck is believed to be the Bear.
Historic ship
In the late 1970s, a group started searching for the Bear. It included the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Harold Edgerton, who invented side-scan sonar — a technology widely used today to detect and image objects on the seafloor.
The group tested out the new side-scan technology in 1979, but they didn’t find the wreck — possibly because the location of its sinking had been misreported by its tow ship, Barr told Live Science..
A secret Navy submersible — the nuclear-powered NR-1 —— carried out a second search in 2007, but it too was unsuccessful. Finally, the U.S. Coast Guard and NOAA joined forces with other partners and began another search in 2019.
After mapping 62 square miles (160 square kilometres) of seafloor with sonar, they identified two submerged objects in the search area. In September, they returned on a Coast Guard ship equipped with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to take underwater video and confirm that the largest object is the wreck of Bear, Barr said.
The wreck now lies on the seafloor at a depth of about 200 feet (60 meters), in Canadian waters about 90 nautical miles (167 km) south of Nova Scotia’s Cape Sable. The exact location is being kept confidential in the hopes of deterring technical divers from trying to reach it, Barr said. The search partners are discussing with the Canadian government how the wreck can be protected.
The ageing wooden hull has been badly damaged by nets from fishing trawlers and strong currents on the seafloor. But the researchers identified several distinctive features of the Bear, including the “bow staples” that strengthened its hull to allow the ship to handle heavy ice in polar waters, Barr said.
An image of the wreck taken by a remotely controlled vehicle.
Steamship to diesel
Although the Bear was equipped with three masts for sailing, it was built as a steamship for its role as a sealer in the 1870s. In the 1930s, the boiler was taken out and the steam engine was replaced with a diesel engine as it was refitted for its Antarctic service with Byrd.
As a result, several piles of metal can be seen among the remaining wood of the wreck, which includes sailing-ship technologies, Barr said.
“There’s a pile of metal rubble with a deadeye [a fixed wooden pulley] sticking up out of it,” he said. “These deadeyes have been around since the 1700s, but they were used on the Bear to attach the standing rigging.”
Among the Bear’s most famous exploits was its part in the 1884 rescue fleet for the Greely Expedition to the Arctic, which had become lost in 1881 near Ellesmere Island, northwest of Greenland. Several members of the expedition died of starvation and disease before the Bear rescued Greely and the other survivors.
After serving for many years as a government revenue cutter in Arctic waters — intercepting and inspecting ships at sea, and often rescuing commercial ships trapped in ice — the Bear was transferred to the Navy; it patrolled around Alaska during World War I, and it delivered supplies there during the Spanish flu pandemic.
In 1929, the decommissioned ship was given to the city of Oakland in California, where it became a floating museum and then a film set for the 1930 movie “The Sea-Wolf,” an adaption of a Jack London novel.
The Bear was recommissioned for Arctic patrols during World War II, when it helped capture the Buskø; but it was mostly tied up in Halifax after that until it sank in 1963 on its final voyage to Philadelphia, where it was destined to become a floating restaurant.
“These are incredibly compelling stories,” Barr said. “When you read the details of what the Bear did, how many lives it saved, how many incredible missions it was on — it is really the kind of history that people should be aware of.”
To commemorate its discovery, Barr has compiled years of historical research into several website posts detailing the many exploits of the Bear. “One of the reasons why we wanted to find it is because it allows us to tell all these stories,” he said.
