Man who died of constipation 1,000 years ago ate grasshoppers for months

One of the worst instances of constipation in the annals of medicine was a native American living in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Texas between 1,000 and 1,400 years ago. The man’s intestine swelled to six times its usual size due to an inflammation, which made it impossible to digest normal food properly.

Eventually, this horrible illness, known as ‘megacolon‘, caused the man to die. Centuries later,  his remains, mummified by the arid conditions, were found in a rock shelter close to the junction between the Rio Grande and Pecos Rivers in South Texas.

Yet there is a positive side to this tale as well. Scientists also discovered that, after examining the mummy, during the last two or three months of his life, the man ate a diet of grasshoppers whose legs had been removed.

Since his condition must have made it almost impossible to walk and procure food for himself, it’s likely that the man was fed by somebody else, perhaps family or other members of his community. It’s one of the earliest bits of evidence of hospice care.

“They were taking off the legs,” said Karl Reinhard, a professor in the School of Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. “So they were giving him mostly the fluid-rich body — the squishable part of the grasshopper.

In addition to being high in protein, it was pretty high in moisture. So it would have been easier for him to eat in the early stages of his megacolon experience.”

The Skiles mummy from Texas, named after Guy Skiles, the person who first discovered it in 1937, had been stored in various private and public museums.

More recently, in 2003, Reinhard and colleagues published a study in which they reported that the mummy contained 1,2 kilograms (2.6 pounds) of faeces in its huge colon, along with a large quantity of unprocessed food.

This led the researchers to conclude that the unfortunate man was infected with the parasite-borne Chagas disease and suffered from severe malnourishment due to the fact that his body was unable to process food.

In their new study, Reinhard’s team revisited the Skiles mummy, this time using scanning electron microscopy, which offered new clues about the man’s diet during his twilight days.

The researchers examined phytoliths, tiny plant tissue structures that remain intact even after the rest of the plant decays and which are so robust they normally survive the rough, bumpy ride through the human intestinal tract. But in the case of this mummy, the researchers were astonished by the phytoliths found inside it.

“The phytoliths were split open, crushed. And that means there was incredible pressure that was exerted on a microscopic level in this guy’s intestinal system, which highlights, even more, the pathology that was exhibited here,” Reinhard said. “I think this is unique in the annals of pathology — this level of intestinal blockage and the pressure that’s associated with it.”

This most recent analysis of the Skiles mummy will appear in a forthcoming chapter of “The Handbook of Mummy Studies,” which also includes best practices for preparing and analyzing the contents of mummified intestines.

In the same handbook, Reinhard also described two other mummies who also received special care during their last days.

One of the mummies belongs to a 5 to a 6-year-old child who was buried between 500 and 1,000 years ago in Arizona’s Ventana Cave by the Hohokam people. The third mummy, of an even younger child, was buried roughly 750 years ago in southern Utah.

Mysterious message in a bottle found 126 years later hidden inside the wall of Boston building

A bottle containing a mysterious 126-year-old note was recently found hidden away inside the wall of a building in Boston.

A person living in the Back Bay near Commonwealth Avenue found the bottle tucked into a space between their fireplace flue and an interior wall, according to the Boston Archaeology Program.

Photos shared on Facebook showed a rolled-up piece of paper stuffed inside an old “N. Simons” rye whiskey bottle. The label read, “Importer and Wholesale Liquor Dealer” and had the address “31 & 33 Castle St., Boston” printed on it.

The note inside the bottle had the name “Tom Ford” scrawled on it, along with the phrase “6 on Shea.”

It was dated Sept. 23, 1894.

“We have a mystery for the hive mind this week! A Boston resident found this amazing message in a bottle tucked into the space between their fireplace flue and an interior wall, presumably placed there by past builders,” the social media post read. “Anybody have any ideas about N. Simons, Tom Ford, or “6 on Shea?”

One Facebook user suggested that the note was evidence of secretive “drinking and gambling.”

Another user commented, “There was a (very short-lived) professional football/soccer league in 1894- one of the captains was Dennis Shea.”

As of Wednesday, the origin and meaning behind the note were unclear.

2 Ancient Villages Emerge in Arizona National Park

Archaeologists have uncovered a second ancient village in Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park that is 1,300 years old. The latest basket-maker village dates between 200 A.D. and 700 A.D., based on the types of pottery found, according to Bill Reitze, the park’s archaeologist.

It was discovered in summer, following the first discovery last year of similar slab-lined pit-houses.

These are dwelling structures dug into the ground unique to the Southern Colorado Plateau and found throughout the park, but not often in these high concentrations, Reitze said.

Both of the large basket-maker sites are in neighboring, stabilized sand dunes less than a kilometer apart, Reitze said.

The discoveries were made as part of an expansion project that has doubled the park’s size after Congress passed the Petrified Forest National Park Expansion Act of 2004.

“There are not a lot of national parks that have the opportunity to get bigger like this to protect sites and produce future research,” Reitze told ABC News.

“A lot of archaeology happens in response to development. What makes this unique is new sites are discovered, research [is] being done and all these sites are being protected, all at once.”

The artifacts are primarily stone tools, including spear points, scrapers, and knives, made out of petrified wood, shells, and small early ceramics.

Last year, ruins of a multi-story house were discovered that may have been part of a trade network.

“It’s really interesting because it really allows us to see on a larger scale things we’ve noticed in other areas in the park,” Reitze said.

The park is split between Navajo and Apache counties.

Reitze said he plans to record additional discoveries and date what they’ve found with radiocarbon.

One of Reitze’s colleagues will be conducting an ethnobotanical study to analyze prehistoric sites.

“Because the park is doubling in size, we are finding something every day — certainly not like these sites, but we are finding things every day,” he said.

Ancient Native American burial site blasted for Trump border wall construction

It was alleged that Sacred Native American burial sites in a national monument were blown up to create President Trump’s border wall. Construction teams in southern Arizona began to blast hills at the National Monument of the Organ Pipe Cactus to clear way to the current border wall project.

Crews are bulldozing through Monument Hill to create a 30-foot steel wall along the US-Mexico border without consulting the Native American community whose ancestral land lies on part of the wall’s path, it is claimed.

‘Controlled blasting’ has been carried out for the construction of the wall which is part of a 43-mile project on national monument land about 115 miles west of Tucson, officials said.

A congressman whose district includes the reservation has said the Department of Homeland Security had ‘failed in its legal obligation to consult with the tribes.

Tribal elders told Democratic Rep Raul Grijalva that bodies were buried on the hill after Apache raids, the Arizona Daily Star reported.

Grijalva, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, visited the location ahead of the construction and described the site in a video posted to social media. Monument Hill, where he said explosions are now occurring. 

In a video posted, Grijalva said: ‘Where they were blasting the other day on Monument Hill is the resting place for primarily Apache warriors that had been involved in the battle with the O’odham. 

‘And then the O’odham people in a respectful waylaid them to rest on Monument Hill.  DHS has consistently failed in its legal obligation to consult with the tribes, and this is only the latest example.’

He also sent a letter to the acting head of the Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, to express ‘serious concerns’ about the construction project. Organ Pipe was designated as an International Biosphere Reserve by the United Nations and is part of the national parks system, officials said.

‘The construction contractor has begun controlled blasting, in preparation for new border wall system construction, within the Roosevelt Reservation at Monument Mountain,’ Customs and Border Protection said. 

‘The controlled blasting is targeted and will continue intermittently for the rest of the month.’

Environmental advocates, elected officials and Tohono O’odham Nation leaders have raised concerns about the project, including the destruction of saguaros, the use of water from an underground aquifer, the potential impact on migrating animals and the destruction of land consider sacred by some Native Americans. 

The Army Corps of Engineers reported that the Department of Defense awarded $891 million in contracts to Southwest Valley Constructors in May to build the border wall on Organ Pipe and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.

The US government plans on replacing barriers through 100 miles of the southern border in California and Arizona, including through a national monument and a wildlife refuge, according to documents and environmental advocates.

Barriers will go up at the monument, a vast park named after the unique cactus breed that decorates it, and Cabeza Prieta, which is largely a designed wilderness home to 275 wildlife species. The government will also build new roads and lighting in those areas. 

The Department of Homeland Security last May again waived environmentally and dozens of other laws to build more barriers along the US-Mexico border.

Environmental advocates who have sued to stop the construction of the wall say this latest plan will be detrimental to the wildlife and habitat in those areas.

Dino-mite: N.C. museum gets fossils of dinosaurs that apparently died fighting

Apparently locked in battle on the plains of modern-day Montana, about 66 million years after two dinosaurs died, an unusual fight over who owns the entangled fossils has become a multimillion-dollar issue that depends on the legal definition of “mineral.”

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that the “Dueling Dinosaurs” located on private land are minerals both scientifically and under mineral rights laws.

The fossils belong both to the owners of the property where they were found and two brothers who kept two-thirds of the mineral rights to the land once owned by their father, a three-judge panel said in a split decision.

Eric Edward Nord, an attorney for the property owners, said the case is complex in dealing with who owns what’s on top of land vs. the minerals that make it up and addresses a unique question of mineral rights law related to dinosaur fossils that no court in the country has taken up before.

His clients own part of a ranch in the Hell Creek Formation of eastern Montana that’s rich with prehistoric fossils, including the Dueling Dinosaurs whose value had been appraised at $7 million to $9 million.

Lige and Mary Ann Murray bought it from George Severson, who also transferred part of his interest in the ranch to his sons, Jerry and Robert Severson. In 2005, the brothers sold their surface rights to the Murrays, but retained the mineral rights, court documents said.

At the time, neither side suspected valuable dinosaur fossils were buried on the ranch, court records said. A few months later, amateur palaeontologist Clayton Phipps discovered the carnivore and herbivore apparently locked in battle. Imprints of the dinosaurs’ skin were also in the sediment.

A dispute arose in 2008 when the Seversons learned about the fossils — a 22-foot-long (7-meter-long) theropod and a 28-foot-long (9-meter-long) ceratopsian.

The Murrays sought a court order saying they owned the Dueling Dinosaurs, while the Seversons asked a judge to find that fossils are part of the property’s mineral estate and that they were entitled to partial ownership.

It had wider implications because the ranch is in an area that has numerous prehistoric creatures preserved in layers of clay and sandstone. Palaeontologists have unearthed thousands of specimens now housed in museums and used for research.

But fossils discovered on private land can be privately owned, frustrating palaeontologists who say valuable scientific information is being lost.

During the court case, the Dueling Dinosaurs were put up for auction in New York in November 2013. Bidding topped out at $5.5 million, less than the reserve price of $6 million.

A nearly complete Tyrannosaurus rex found on the property was sold to a Dutch museum for several million dollars in 2014, with the proceeds being held in escrow pending the outcome of the court case.

Other fossils found on the ranch also have been sold, including a triceratops skull that brought in more than $200,000, court records said.

The 9th Circuit decision on Nov. 6 overturned a federal judge’s 2016 opinion that fossils were not included in the ordinary definition of “mineral” because not all fossils with the same mineral composition are considered valuable.

“The composition of minerals found in the fossils does not make them valuable or worthless,” U.S. District Judge Susan Watters of Billings wrote. “Instead, the value turns on characteristics other than mineral composition, such as the completeness of the specimen, the species of dinosaur and how well it is preserved.”

The Severson’s had appealed, arguing previous court cases determined that naturally occurring materials that have some special value meet the definition of minerals.

Attorneys for the Murrays asked the 9th Circuit this week for an extension of a Nov. 21 deadline to petition the judges to reconsider or for a hearing before an 11-judge panel.