Category Archives: WORLD

WORLD

World’s Oldest Stone Tools Were Made By Ape-Like Hominid 3.3 Million Years Ago

World’s Oldest Stone Tools Were Made By Ape-Like Hominid 3.3 Million Years Ago

In the opening sequence of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, an ape-like hominin is depicted as the inventor of the first-ever primitive tool, changing the course of human history forever.

World's Oldest Stone Tools Were Made By Ape-Like Hominid 3.3 Million Years Ago
The earliest stone tools ever used are known as the Oldowan toolkit.

Half a century after the film’s release, scientists confirmed that the earliest stone implements were indeed manufactured by a species that predated the Homo lineage, which means humans weren’t the first to create tools.

Nicknamed “Handy Man”, the ancient human species Homo habilis is renowned for its extensive use of the so-called Oldowan toolkit, which consists of basic knapped flakes that could be used as blades. For a while, the extinct hominid was credited with inventing this primitive technology, yet recent discoveries have drastically changed that narrative.

For instance, in 2011, researchers in Kenya stumbled upon a collection of knapped flakes at a site called Lomekwi 3. Dated to 3.3 million years ago, the tools were created about a million years before our Handy ancestor made its entrance and half a million years before the appearance of the genus Homo. 

Exactly which pre-human species created these tools is unknown, although fossils belonging to the ancient hominin Kenyanthropus platyops have been found near to the site.

The region was also home to the species Australopithecus afarensis – of which the iconic Lucy was a member – around the time that the tools were made.

Based on their ape-like characteristics, both of these species are generally thought to have been relatively dim-witted. However, the possibility that they may have invented the first-ever stone tools challenges that assumption and implies they may have actually been pretty smart. 

To date, researchers have not been able to confirm whether the tools were made by either K. platyops or A. afarensis, although for what it’s worth (which isn’t much), there’s a pretty striking resemblance between Lucy and Kubrick’s tool-making hominids.

Back to the actual science, researchers recently found another set of surprisingly ancient stone flakes in Kenya.

Dated to around 2.9 million years ago, the assemblage is more representative of the Oldowan toolkit than the Lomekwi artifacts. 

Amazingly, these tools were found alongside butchered hippopotamus bones, indicating that they were once used to carve up large prey. Nearby, researchers also uncovered the oldest ever tooth belonging to the ancient hominid genus Paranthropus, which was somewhat similar to Australopithecus.

As with the Lomekwi assemblage, this second set of ancient tools cannot be definitively attributed to a known manufacturer, although Paranthropus is certainly a strong candidate. Given their age, though, it’s likely that whoever made the flakes was not human.

Let’s just hope Kubrick wasn’t right about the future of artificial intelligence, too.

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

Archaeologists Are Too Terrified To Look Inside Tomb Of China’s First Emperor

Archaeologists Are Too Terrified To Look Inside Tomb Of China’s First Emperor

In 1974, farmers stumbled across one of the most important archaeological discoveries of all time in an unassuming field in the Shaanxi province of China.

Archaeologists Are Too Terrified To Look Inside Tomb Of China's First Emperor
The Terracotta Army was buried near the tomb of Qin Shi Huang to protect him in his afterlife.

While digging, they found fragments of a human figure made out of clay. This was just the tip of the iceberg. Archaeological excavations revealed the field was sitting above a number of pits that were jam-packed with thousands of life-size terracotta models of soldiers and war horses, not to mention acrobats, esteemed officials, and other animals.

It appears that the mission of this Terracotta Army was to guard the nearby mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, the formidable first emperor of the Qin dynasty who ruled from 221 to 210 BCE.

While large parts of the necropolis surrounding the mausoleum have been explored, the emperor’s tomb itself has never been opened despite the huge amount of intrigue that surrounds it. Eyes have perhaps not peered inside this tomb for over 2,000 years, when the feared emperor was sealed inside. 

A prime reason behind this hesitancy is that archaeologists are concerned about how the excavation might damage the tomb, losing vital historical information. Currently, only invasive archaeological techniques could be used to enter the tomb, running a high risk of causing irreparable damage. 

One of the clearest examples of this comes from the excavations of the city of Troy in the 1870s by Heinrich Schliemann. In his hastiness and naivety, his work managed to destroy almost all traces of the very city he’d set out to uncover. Archaeologists are certain they don’t want to be impatient and make these same mistakes again.

Scientists have floated the idea of using certain non-invasive techniques to look inside the tomb. One idea is to utilize muons, the subatomic product of cosmic rays colliding with atoms in the Earth’s atmosphere, which can peer through structures like an advanced X-ray. However, it looks like most of these proposals have been slow to get off the ground. 

Tomb of the First Emperor Qin Shi Huang Di, Xi’an, China.

Cracking open the tomb could come with much more immediate and deadly dangers too. In an account written by ancient Chinese historian Sima Qian around 100 years after Qin Shi Huang’s death, he explains that the tomb is hooked up to booby traps that were designed to kill any intruder. 

“Palaces and scenic towers for a hundred officials were constructed, and the tomb was filled with rare artifacts and wonderful treasure. Craftsmen were ordered to make crossbows and arrows primed to shoot at anyone who enters the tomb.

Mercury was used to simulate the hundred rivers, the Yangtze and Yellow River, and the great sea, and set to flow mechanically,” it reads. 

Even if the 2,000-year-old bow weapons fail, this account suggests a flood of toxic liquid mercury could wash across the gravediggers. That might sound like an empty threat, but scientific studies have looked at mercury concentrations around the tomb and found significantly higher levels than they’d expect in a typical piece of land. 

“Highly volatile mercury may be escaping through cracks, which developed in the structure over time, and our investigation supports ancient chronicle records on the tomb, which is believed never to have been opened/looted,” the authors of one 2020 paper conclude. 

For the time being, the tomb of Qin Shi Huang remains sealed and unseen, but not forgotten. When the time is right, however, it’s possible that scientific advancements could finally delve into the secrets that have been lying here undisturbed for some 2,200 years. 

An earlier version of this story was published in January 2023.

EUROPE, GERMANY, WORLD

Beautifully Complete 150-Million-Year-Old Turtle Fossil Discovered In Germany

Beautifully Complete 150-Million-Year-Old Turtle Fossil Discovered In Germany

An incredibly well-preserved fossil of an ancient Jurassic sea turtle has been uncovered in Germany, the first to have a complete skull, shell, and all four limbs.

Beautifully Complete 150-Million-Year-Old Turtle Fossil Discovered In Germany
This flat pancake of a fossil has tortoise a lot about the environment where the turtle would have lived.

The marine turtle had a massive head and would have swum through the shallows of a tropical sea that once covered Europe 150 million years ago. 

Across the world, there are some extremely important fossil sites that have provided scientists with an array of specimens that help determine all sorts of information about the way ancient creatures once roamed across the land and seas of ancient Earth.

The Torleite Formation near Painten in southeastern Germany is such a place; an active quarry, it’s also home to hundreds of fossil Jurassic marine creatures such as turtles, crocodilians, fish, and even giant marine reptiles like ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. 

It was here in 2014 scientists uncovered a new specimen of the turtle species Solnhofia parsonsi, dating back around 150 million years. This area is known as the Franconian Alb and contains large amounts of marine sedimentary rocks from the Lower and Upper Jurassic.

The specific area in which the turtle specimen was found had only begun to be investigated in the last 20 years and has provided a wealth of specimens in different taxonomic groups.

The variation in specimens led scientists to suggest that this area would have been once connected to the open sea. 

The fossil reveals more about the ecology of this ancient turtle species.

The new specimen is exceptionally well preserved with a complete skull and skeleton visible. “Compared to the size of the carapace, the skull is very large, reaching approximately 40% of the carapace (shell) length,” the authors write in the study.

 However, it can only be looked at from the top of the shell down. This is the first fossil with a complete skull, shell, and nearly complete limbs, and only the second of this species found with the head and rear limbs in their natural positions, which helps the team understand more about the turtles’ behavior.

The team thinks that the way the turtle’s paddles differed from the stiff flippers of deep-sea turtles suggests that it did not have a fully pelagic (open sea) lifestyle and so did not spend large amounts of time on the open sea. Instead, they reason that the paddle formation along with a difference in tail length suggests that this turtle’s ecology was more suited to being a shallow-water coastal marine species. 

The study is published in PLOS ONE.

NORTH AMERICA, UAE, WORLD

The Mystery Of The Modern “London Hammer” Found Encased In Ancient Rock

The Mystery Of The Modern “London Hammer” Found Encased In Ancient Rock

While walking along Red Creek, London, Texas, in June 1936, Emma Zadie Hahn and her husband Max Edmond Hahn made an unusual discovery: a piece of wood poking out of what appeared to be an ancient rock formation.

The story goes that ten-ish years later, their son, who was clearly born with the merest hint of curiosity that they lacked, smashed open the rock to see what was inside. What he found was a hammer. Where it gets weirder is that it was clearly a modern(ish) hammer.

The hammer attracted the unhelpful attention of Young Earth Creationist Carl Baugh, who claimed that the rock around the hammer was from the Cretaceous period.

When they split it open, this is what they found.

This would mean that whoever dropped the hammer of 19th-century design did so while (e.g.) running away from a triceratops.

For Baugh, who was himself incorrect, this was evidence that evolution theory was incorrect.

“If the artifact is truly from the Cretaceous time frame, where does this leave evolutionary theory, since man was not supposed to have evolved for another 100-million years or so?” Baugh asked. “If the artifact is relatively recent, that means that the Cretaceous Hensell Sand formation from which it came is relatively young… Again, where does that leave evolutionary theory with its traditional dates for the Cretaceous formations?”

The answer, of course, was that the hammer was modern, but it had become encased in the rock by geological processes not known to Baugh.

“The stone is real, and it looks impressive to someone unfamiliar with geological processes.

How could a modern artifact be stuck in Ordovician rock?” investigator Glen J. Kuban asked in a 1997 paper on the hammer, published in Paleo.

“The answer is that the concretion itself is not Ordovician.

Minerals in solution can harden around an intrusive object dropped in a crack or simply left on the ground if the source rock (in this case, reportedly Ordovician) is chemically soluble.”

While an extremely cool find, the rock formation is not as ancient as it appears.

Likely, a miner dropped the hammer a century ago, or perhaps a touch earlier, after which the rock formed around it. It was not, repeat, not, proof of The Flintstones.

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

A rare 2,500-year-old marble disc, designed to protect ancient ships and ward off the evil eye discovered near Palmachim Beach

A rare 2,500-year-old marble disc, designed to protect ancient ships and ward off the evil eye discovered near Palmachim Beach

A rare 2,500-year-old marble disc designed to protect ancient ships and ward off the evil eye was discovered by a lifeguard diving at sea and turned over to the Israel Antiquities Authority.

A rare 2,500-year-old marble disc, designed to protect ancient ships and ward off the evil eye discovered near Palmachim Beach

The Israel Antiquities Authority announced from social media on July 18 that the object the lifeguard turned over was a 2,500-year-old, eye-shaped marble disc that was attached to ships to ward off the evil eye.

Experts say the relic, found during a dive by lifeguard David Shalom at the Yavne-Yam archaeological site near Palmachim Beach, dates back to the 5th to 4th centuries BC.

Yaakov Sharvit, Director of the Marine Archaeology Unit at the Israel Antiquities Authority, explains: “From drawings on pottery, mosaics, and ancient coins, as well as from historical sources from the 5th century BCE, we learn that this design was common on ships’ bows and served to protect against the evil eye and envy, aided navigation, and acted as a pair of eyes looking ahead and warning of danger.

This decoration is still common today on modern ships in Portugal, Malta, Greece, and the far east.”

The large white marble disc, 20 cm in diameter, is flat on one side and curved on the other, and it has a central cavity with traces of paint appearing as two circles around the center.

It is identified as an eye motif, in Greek “ophtalmoi,” and such discs adorned the bows of ancient warships and merchant’s vessels.

Lead or bronze nails attached the center of the disc to the ship’s hull. Archaeologists have turned up a wealth of artifacts in the same area.

Although this artifact was once common and one would expect to find many similar artifacts, it is, in fact, rare. So far, only four similar ancient items have been discovered in the Mediterranean: two from the wreck of an ancient merchant ship found at the Tektaş Burnu site off the western coast of Turkey, between the islands of Samos and Kios, dating to 440–425 BCE, and two on the Mediterranean coast of Israel—one from the Carmel Beach and the other, just discovered, on the Yavneh-Yam coast.

In water surveys conducted by the Marine Archaeology Unit of the Israel Antiquities Authority since the 1980s, finds from shipwrecked ships testifying to extensive commercial activity at the site were discovered.

EUROPE, FRANCE, WORLD

Meganeura: The largest insect ever to exist was a giant dragonfly

Meganeura: The largest insect ever to exist was a giant dragonfly

Meganeura is a genus of extinct insects from the Carboniferous period (approximately 300 million years ago), which resembled and are related to the present-day dragonflies.

Its wingspans from 65 cm (25.6 in) to more than 70 cm (28 in), M.Monyi is one of the largest known species of flying insects. Meganeura was predatory and their diet consisted mainly of other insects.

Fossils were discovered in the French Stephanian Coal Measures of Commentry in 1880.

Meganeura: The largest insect ever to exist was a giant dragonfly
Fossil of a Meganeuridae The largest insect that ever existed was a dragonfly.

In 1885, French paleontologist Charles Brongniart described and named the fossil “Meganeura” (large-nerved), which refers to the network of veins on the insect’s wings. Another fine fossil specimen was found in 1979 at Bolsover in Derbyshire.

The holotype is housed in the National Museum of Natural History, in Paris.

Oxygen levels and atmospheric density

The way in which oxygen is diffused through the body of the insect through its tracheal respiration system puts an upper limit on body size, which ancient insects seem to have far surpassed.

Harlé (1911) originally suggested that Meganeura could only fly because at that time the atmosphere provided more oxygen than the present 20 per cent.

This theory was initially rejected by fellow #oxygen but was more recently approved through further analysis of the relationship between the availability of gigantism and oxygen.

If this hypothesis is correct, these insects would have been vulnerable to declining oxygen levels and, in our current atmosphere, could probably not survive. Some research suggests that insects breathe with “rapid cycles of compression and expansion of the trachea.”

A recent analysis of modern insects and birds ‘ flight energetics suggests that both the oxygen levels and air density provide an upper bound on size.

In the case of the giant dragonflies, the presence of very large Meganeuridae with wing spans rivaling those of Meganeura during the Permian, when the atmospheric oxygen content was already much lower than in the Carboniferous, presented a problem for the oxygen-related explanations.

However, despite the fact that Meganeurids had the largest known wing spans, their bodies were not very heavy, being less colossal than those of many living Coleoptera; therefore, they were not true giant insects, only giant in comparison with their living relatives.

Lack of predators

Other explanations for the large size of Meganeurids compared to living relatives are warranted.

Bechly (2004) suggested that the lack of aerial vertebrate predators allowed terygote insects to evolve to maximum sizes during the Carboniferous and Permian periods, perhaps accelerated by an evolutionary “arms race” for an increase in body size between plant-feeding Palaeodictyoptera and Meganisoptera as their predators.

EUROPE, WORLD

Man finds 8,000-year-old dolphin bones in back garden

Man finds 8,000-year-old dolphin bones in the back garden

Man finds 8,000-year-old dolphin bones in the back garden
Paul McDonald was building a rectangular pool for his kids when he came across the bones

A man has discovered 8,000-year-old dolphin bones while digging in his back garden. Paul McDonald, 44, was digging a swimming pool for his children when he struck a bone of the 10ft foot mammal with his digger.

The bottlenose dolphin is thought to have washed up on an ancient shoreline after the last Ice Age. Archaeologists have described the prehistoric discovery in Causewayhead, Stirling, as “the find of a lifetime”.

The father-of-four said he recognized the dolphin’s skull by its long snout, rows of teeth, and unmistakable shape. The bones were preserved in clay, around 80cm below the current ground level, for what is thought to have been up to 8,000 years.

With them was a broken tool made from deer antlers, which would have been used to carve the meat.

It is thought the dolphin was made into a meal by local hunter-gatherers.

Mr. McDonald, a medical rep in orthopedics, who works with bones himself, said: “I was digging away in the swimming pool when I caught something unusual. I rolled it back and came down and pulled it out.

“I saw the roundness of the skull and then saw the snout and teeth and I knew right away it was a dolphin.

The bones date back up to 8,000 years ago

“I googled bottlenose and thought ‘wow’. Stuck in clay at that depth I knew it must be old. Now a tool has been found that tells us more about what was going on, it’s mind-blowing.

“We bought the house six years ago and I’ve found a few interesting things, like old bottles and coins, but I’ve always wanted to find something like this.”

The skull has been removed by experts from the National Museums Scotland (NMS) so it can be analyzed, while the rest of the skeleton will be fully excavated.

Stirling archaeologist Dr. Murray Cook said the discovery could be the first of its kind in Scotland in over a century.

The last whale bones found near Stirling were in 1897 but there are no recent records of dolphin discoveries.

Dr. Cook said: “It is the find of a lifetime. I don’t think one of these has ever been subject to modern excavation.

“After the Ice Age, following the retreat of the ice, this area was a vast inland sea teeming with life.

“Our earliest ancestors would have been walking the shoreline every day for food such as seaweed and shellfish and if a seal, a whale, or a dolphin washed up it would be carved into almost immediately.

“The tool made from antler tine means that they were hacking into the dolphin and that’s tremendously exciting. The tip has broken off – we still hope to find it – and they’ve discarded it.”

Paul McDonald (left) and Dr Murray Cook (right) were delighted to find the mammal’s bones

Andrew Kitchener, principal curator of vertebrates at NMS, said: “I’ve been at the museum for 35 years and this is the first time something has emerged from the clay like this. It is a really interesting and important find.

“It seems like it’s a stranded animal that’s just sunk into the clay and been preserved all this time until Paul uncovered it, which is kind of a miracle really.”

Mr. Kitchener said there was lots of analysis to be done, but after they get the bones radiocarbon dated, they can work out the age.

“It’s fairly small so possibly a female, and its teeth are fairly worn which suggests it’s an older animal.

“We’re only at the beginning. It’s just exciting to see it emerging from the clay.”

The bones in isolation are owned by Mr. McDonald, but the antler tool could be declared Treasure Trove, which may mean he could win a reward as the finder.

He said: “I’m just happy to find it and make sure it’s looked after and people get to see it.”

EUROPE, SWEDEN, WORLD

17th-Century Warship Pulled From Icy Baltic Sea Is Almost Perfectly Preserved

17th-Century Warship Pulled From Icy Baltic Sea Is Almost Perfectly Preserved

In the 1620s, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden ordered the construction of a new warship to protect his citizens. The warship was named Vasa and its construction was hurried as the Swedes waged war in those years with the now-historic bi-confederation entity reigned by one monarch–the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Vasa’s port bow.

After its creation, with several superlatives, the Vasa warship was described as being the largest and most capable battleship at the disposal of the Swedish navy.

The ship came to symbolize Sweden’s Great Power Period, in which the Nordic country controlled most of the Baltic Sea and forged its status as one of Europe’s most powerful kingdoms.

Warship in Vasa museum in Stockholm

The ship’s appearance was stunning, measuring 226 feet in length, 164 feet in height, and weighing more than 1,200 tons. With some 64 cannons installed on it, it promised whoever tried to mess with Vasa would face serious consequences. As it turned out, it never came to that.

The ship, against everyone’s expectations, proved to be fallible and faced an end that might easily remind people of the story of the RMS Titanic. Vasa did not hit an iceberg but still ignominiously sunk on its very first journey.

It was an embarrassing incident, overseen by crowds of Swedes who had gathered at the port of Stockholm from where the ship set sails towards the open seas for the very first and last time on August 10, 1628.

There were also prominent guests in the onlooking crowd, including royals and ambassadors from other countries. Having not sailed even one nautical mile, the mighty warship suddenly plunged into the water. Accounts point to errors happening during construction.

The vessel was the work of a Dutch shipbuilder. The contract was signed early in the year 1625 and Vasa was one of four vessels agreed on the list with shipbuilder Henrik Hybertsson.

The original arrangement was to have two smaller and two bigger vessels. Hybertsson died shortly after undertaking the project, and the construction effort was taken over by his assistant, Hein Jakobsson.

Illustration from a treatise on salvaging from 1734, showing the traditional method of raising a wreck with the help of anchors and ships or hulks as pontoons, basically the same method that was used to raise Vasa in the 20th century.

Construction plans were obviously modified, as Vasa, which was supposed to be one of the two smaller ships, appeared to be fitting the pair of two bigger ships upon completion. The ship came out much heavier than planned. It also carried extra weights such as hundreds of sculptures and at least 100 tons of ballast.

More evidence shows that the Swedes had the warship tested and noticed something was wrong with it, but under the pushy demands of the king, Vasa was prematurely sailed into the open sea and towards its premature doom.

The preserved Vasa in the main hall of Vasa Museum seen from above the bow.

A strong gust of wind was enough to overturn the vessel. When the water began to enter, all it took was a few minutes for it to sink 105 feet below the surface.

The Swedes were quick to dismiss and forget Vasa. This was to be their new favourite war toy and national pride and joy, yet it now lay sunk on the bottom of the ocean on its maiden voyage. It was a scandal that hurt the reputation of the kingdom, as well as having huge economic repercussions. Vasa had costed a fortune.

While an investigation was ushered in immediately after the ship sank, little could be done. The main shipbuilder had already been dead for over a year.

Illustration of a Swedish Emperors: Gustav Vasa, Gustav Adolf, Dronning Christine, A. Oxenstierna, Charles Gustav, Charles IX, Torstenson

There were efforts to recover Vasa from the seafloor immediately, but the task seemed impossible with the limited technology of the time. By the 1660s, a group of divers was able to retrieve the cannons, using an early model of the diving bell. The shipwreck was eventually left abandoned and forgotten…until the mid-20th-century.

In 1961, a few years after the shipwreck was rediscovered and identified as the lost 17th-century Vasa vessel, Sweden finally managed to recover it. Although Vasa had for centuries remained submerged in the sea, upon its reappearance it seemed positively in pristine condition.

The underwater position where it had sunk was key. The water was dark enough to stop ultraviolet light from protruding and affecting the ship’s wood. The chilly temperature of the Baltic was also soothing, preventing any rapid deterioration processes.

The inside of the lower gun deck looking toward the bow.

Having sunk close enough to the harbour, there was enough pollution in the water to bleach most parasites that may have wanted to feast on the wood of the wreck.

But some decaying issues began once the ship was taken out of the water.  Vasa underwent restoration at that point and was treated with substances to protect the wood, however, lab research later confirmed that the wood of the ship was struggling with extremely slow, ongoing fibre degradation.

Vasa warship canon hatches detail

There is no threat of immediate collapse, but this has remained a major occupation for conservationists who are still looking for the best way to stop the risky process.

Should the Vasa museum where the shipwreck is famously displayed in Stockholm allow its prime exhibit to perish for the second time, it would be a huge national loss. The Vasa goes a long way and has a special history with the Swedes as well as being one of the best-preserved historical ships in all of the world.