ASIA, EUROPE, RUSSIA, WORLD

50,000-Year-Old Needle Discovered By Researchers Excavating Siberian Cave

50,000-Year-Old Needle Discovered By Researchers Excavating Siberian Cave

Researchers excavating a Siberian cave have made yet another fascinating discovery as they have found a 50,000-year-old needle that was not made by Homo Sapiens.

In previous excavations, archaeologists excavated a bracelet which dates back some 40,000 years made with a precision worthy of the best jewellers today. The 7-centimetre-long needle was excavated in the Denisova Cave located in the Altai Mountains in Siberia. The enigmatic needle is believed to have belonged to our long-extinct Denisovan ancestors.

The enigmatic needle is believed to have belonged to our long-extinct Denisovan ancestors. It seems that ancient people had in their possession much more advanced technologies than what we ever imagined.

Blue Eyes Originated 10,000 Years Ago In The Black Sea Region

The discovery was made during the annual summer archaeological dig.

The Denisova cave is considered by many as an archaeological gold mine that holds the secrets of mankind’s origins. Strangely, even though the needle was created over 50,000 years ago it’s in excellent condition and still usable TODAY.

Speaking in an interview with the Siberian Time, Professor Mikhail Shunkov, head of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography in Novosibirsk said:

“It is a unique find of this season, which can even be called sensational. It is a needle made of bone. As of today, it is the most ancient needle in the world. It is about 50,000 years old.”

Interestingly, before the 50,000-year-old needle was excavated in the Denisova Cave, the oldest known needle was discovered in Potok Cave in the Eastern Karavanke, Slovenia, and is believed to have been created some 47,000 years ago.

Artefacts recovered from the Denisova cave indicate that the ancient Denisovans were far more advanced than researchers thought possible.

Previously, researchers uncovered fragments of jewellery and a fascinating modern-looking bracelet made of chlorite.

After analysis, researchers concluded that one of the holes seen in the bracelet was made with such precision that it could only have been created with a high-rotation drill similar to what we use today.

According to researchers, the newly discovered needle predates the bracelet by some 10,000 years.

You can read more about the bracelet HERE.

Professor Shunkov added:

“We can confidently say that Altai was one of the cultural centres, where the modern human was formed.”

The piece of jewellery has been catalogued as the oldest piece of jewellery ever found on Earth. The bracelet was found with other objects such as extinct animal bones and another artefact that according to researchers, date back 125.000 years.

READ ALSO: IN A SIBERIAN CAVE, A 60,000-YEAR-OLD NEANDERTHAL ‘SWISS ARMY KNIFE’ WAS DISCOVERED

This incredible item was discovered in 2008, and after extensive analysis and tests, experts have been able to confirm its age. Speaking about the bracelet previously discovered, researchers said that:

“The skills of its creator were perfect. Initially, we thought that it was made by Neanderthals or modern humans, but it turned out that the master was Denisovan.”

The enigmatic cave is believed to have been inhabited by different ancestors including Homo Sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans. Experts estimate that the cave is at least 288,000 years old.

Dr Maksim Kozlikin, head of the excavations at Denisova cave: ‘It is the longest needle found in Denisova cave.’ Picture: Vera Salnitskaya

Dr. Maksim Kozlikin, head of the excavations at Denisova Cave said in an interview with the Siberian Times:

“It is the longest needle found in Denisova cave. We have found needles, but in younger (archeological) layers.”

MEXICO, U.S.A, WORLD

Mexican Archaeologists Find Over 2,500 Rare Wooden Aztec Artifacts!

Mexican Archaeologists Find Over 2,500 Rare Wooden Aztec Artifacts!

Archaeologists have recovered as many as 2,550 wooden objects from the Templo Mayor in the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan in Mexico City. The rescued objects have survived more than 500 years submerged in water, some completely flooded.

As explained on AncientPages.com earlier, the “most important sacred temple complex of the Aztecs – the Main Temple (in Spanish: Templo Mayor) was built in the centre of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlán.

According to Aztec chronicles, the first temple (later followed by its twin temple) was built after 1325 and enlarged several times over the course of the 14th and 15th centuries.

Mural by Diego Rivera of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan and life in Aztec times.

The twin temples were dedicated to the god of rain and fertility, Tlaloc (“the one who makes sprout”), and Huitzilopochtli, god of war and sun.

Aztec chronicles confirm that both gods were frequently appeased with human sacrifices and other public rituals that took place in the temple.”

Scientists report the extraordinary offerings found at the foot of the Great Temple of old Tenochtitlan to include darts, dart throwers, pectorals, earrings, masks, ornaments, earmuffs, sceptres, jars, headdresses, a representation of a flower and another of bone, all found in the ritual deposits made by the priests to consecrate a building or make a request to the Aztec gods.

A high and constant level of humidity, little oxygen, and light, as well as minimal temperature fluctuations, contributed to the preservation of the organic remains to this day.

However, due to their natural vulnerability, the rescued objects must be handled with proper care.

Experience has taught scientists how easy such artefacts can be destroyed. In the 1960s, a wooden mask was recovered from the Templo Mayor site. The ancient object was brought to the INAH laboratories and after a few hours, it fell to dust.

Today, scientists have gathered knowledge to take care of objects that are so vulnerable.

Mexican Archaeologists Find Over 2,500 Rare Wooden Aztec Artifacts!

“Currently, the restorers María Barajas Rocha and Adriana Sanromán Peyrón are applying a very innovative conservation technique. Thanks to it, the wood does not melt in our hands. They are extremely delicate objects; when we extract them from the offerings they come out as if they were pork rinds in green sauce.

[That of the Templo Mayor] is a collection, I would dare to say, unique in its kind. It is one of the richest in all of Mesoamerica. First, because of its state of conservation. These types of objects normally do not survive to this day, among other things, because this was an island surrounded by a lake. The conditions caused these objects to survive well over 500 years; another is the collection’s richness and diversity. And, on a symbolic level, it is exceptional, because we are in the capital of the Mexica empire. The materials we have here are spectacular because we are in the heart of an empire. That explains, in part, why we have found not only wood but rubber, flowers, crocodiles, starfish… It is a unique place in the sense that you have three superimposed capitals. Mexico, the capital of 21 million inhabitants.

Then the capital of New Spain, the most important European city overseas, with 170,000 inhabitants; Further down, you have Mexico-Tenochtitlan, with about 200,000 inhabitants. We are excavating in a privileged place such as Jerusalem, Istanbul; Alexandria, in Egypt or Rome itself”, INAH’s López Lujan told to the El Pais.

INAH archaeologists report several of the objects were found inside 7 excavation units and 14 offerings from old Tenochtitlan, were made from softwood obtained from different species of pine. The use of white cedar, cypress, ahuehuete, aile and tepozán has also been identified.

El Pais reports, “the artefacts were found complete or almost complete, and many even preserve traces of polychromy on their surfaces: blue, red, black and white; typical colours used by the Mexica culture. Blue, for example, is associated with the god of rain. Black and white were used to outline figures, for example, to mark closed eyes on masks.

According to Víctor Cortés Meléndez, archaeologist of the Templo Mayor Project, the stories of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún mention that in the Mexica era carpenters and carvers were specialized craftsmen who made use of the existing trees and plants in the Basin of Mexico. “

“Trees in Mesoamerica, especially some species, were considered axis Mundi, they were sacred. There were pieces adorned with wood by Mexica priests, for example, copal figurines, basalt braziers and flint knives. To the flint knife they put his earmuffs and his serpentine sceptre, one of the attributes of Tlaloc,” the archaeologist told El Pais.

“Most of the wooden pieces are miniature representations of pitchers, deer-shaped or serpentine scepters; miniature and pectoral masks; darts, throwing darts (atlatl) and mallets, with which they adorned the protagonist animals of the offerings of the Great Temple.

Scientists explain the discovery of the monolith of the goddess Tlaltecuhtli, the unique monumental sculpture that represents the earth, on the property that was previously occupied by the Mayorazgo of Nava Chávez , has motivated the team of specialists from the Templo Mayor Project, led by archaeologist Leonardo López Lujánto to excavate at the site. If everything goes well we may soon be able to learn more about the discoveries made at this historical site.

EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

Turkish hilltop where civilization began

Turkish hilltop where civilization began

Where exactly did our civilization emerge? Some will say our modern civilization emerged in Mesopotamia. Others will say there are underwater ruins much older and predate the Sumerian civilizations. Yet, another group will argue the first traces of civilization can be found in entirely different places.

Turkish hilltop where civilization began
Göbekli Tepe.

Is it really possible to say where civilization started? A team of scientists is confident a  hilltop in Turkey is arguably the most important archaeological site on Earth and the place where civilization began. Known as Gobekli Tepe, which means “Potbelly Hill” in Turkish this place is home to the world’s oldest known religious sanctuary that is slowly giving up its secrets. Thousands of our prehistoric ancestors gathered around its highly-decorated T-shaped megalith pillars to worship more than 7,000 years before Stonehenge or the earliest Egyptian pyramids.

“Its significance is hard to overstate,” Sean Lawrence, assistant professor of history at West Virginia University, told AFP.

Some years ago, scientists discovered evidence of a mysterious 12,000-year-old skull cult at Göbekli Tepe. As previously reported on AncientPages.com, “three odd early Stone Age skulls carry artificial modifications of a type so far unknown from contemporaneous sites. The discovery now raises the question of whether inhabitants of Göbekli Tepe were involved in religious rituals related to death, midsummer, or midwinter. The carved skulls deepen the mystery surrounding the ancient site.”

As reported by AFP, ”academics believe the history of human settlement began in these hills close to the Syrian border some 12,000 years ago when groups of Stone Age hunter-gatherers came together to construct these sites. Gobekli Tepe, which some experts believe was never actually inhabited—may be part of a vast sacred landscape that encompasses other nearby hilltop sites that archaeologists believe maybe even older.

None of which anyone would have guessed before the German archaeologist and pre-historian Klaus Schmidt began to bring the first discoveries to the surface in 1995. German and Turkish archaeologists have been labouring in the sun there since, with lengthening queues of tourists now joining them to ponder its many mysteries.

When exactly it all began is even unclear.

“Exact years are nearly impossible to verify,” Lawrence said.

“However, the oldest Egyptian monument, the Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara, was built around 2700 BCE,” more than seven millennia after Gobekli Tepe.

“This was the end of what is often thought of as Stone Age hunter-gatherer societies and the beginning of settled societies,” Lawrence added.

“There remain endless mysteries surrounding the site, including how labour was organized and how the sites were used,” he said.

Gobekli Tepe has even inspired the Netflix sci-fi psychological thriller series “The Gift”, which turns on one of the ancient inscriptions on its pillars.

Schmidt—who often wore a white traditional turban on the dig—puzzled over the megaliths carved with the images of foxes, bears, ducks, lizards and a leopard for over two decades until his early death at the age of 61 in 2014.

‘Zero point in time’

The site was initially believed to be purely ritual in nature. But according to Clare, there is now “good evidence” for the beginning of settled life with some buildings similar to those of the same age found in northern Syria. Turkey—which in the past has not been renowned for making the best of its vast archaeological heritage—has wholeheartedly embraced the discoveries.

The items excavated from Gobekli Tepe are shown in the impressive archaeological museum in the nearest city, Sanliurfa, which is itself so ancient that Abraham is believed to have been born there. Indeed its new museum built in 2015 boasts “the most extensive collection of the neolithic era in the world,” according to its director Celal Uludag. “All of the portable artefacts from Gobekli Tepe are exhibited here.”

“This is a journey to civilization, (to the) zero point in time,” said Aydin Aslan, head of Sanliurfa Culture and Tourism Directorate.

“Gobekli Tepe sheds light on pre-history, that’s why it’s a common heritage of humanity,” he said proudly.

‘Go deeper

Last year Turkey’s culture ministry boosted funding for further excavations in the region as a part of its “Stone Hills” project, including cash for the Karahan Tepe hilltop site—around 35 kilometres from Gobekli Tepe—which some suspect is even older.

Reproduction of the central pillars of Enclosure D.

“We will now go deeper because Gobekli Tepe is not the one and only,” Culture Minister Nuri Ersoy said last year. The extra funding “gives us a fantastic opportunity to compare our results from Gobekli Tepe with new sites in the Sanliurfa region of the same age,” Clare said.

Gobekli Tepe has also breathed life back into a poor and long-neglected region, which has been further hit by the civil war just across the border. Syrian refugees now make up a quarter of Sanliurfa’s population. Over one million tourists visited Sanliurfa in 2019 and the city expects to reach pre-pandemic levels this year.

“Today Gobekli Tepe has started directly touching the economy of the city,” Aslan said, who hopes that its glorious past could be a key part of the city’s future.”

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Medieval Prayer Beads Discovered on England’s Holy Island

Medieval Prayer Beads Discovered on England’s Holy Island

The first-ever example of prayer beads from medieval Britain has been discovered on the island of Lindisfarne, one of Britain’s most historic ancient sites, to the excitement of archaeologists.

Medieval Prayer Beads Discovered on England’s Holy Island
These are the oldest prayer beads ever found in England, which were recently unearthed on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne as part of an ongoing crowdfunded archaeological project.

Dating from the 8th to 9th century AD, they were made from salmon vertebrae. Fish an important symbol of early Christianity were clustered around the neck of one of the earliest skeletons – possibly one of the monks buried within the famous early medieval monastery.

Archaeologists are seeking to unearth the lost history of Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island, off the coast of Northumberland. It was established by the Kings of Northumbria in the 7th century as an important religious centre and became the scene of the first major Viking raid on Britain in the 8th century.

It was there that monks created the Lindisfarne Gospels – the most spectacular manuscript to survive from Anglo-Saxon England – but there have been few tangible finds at the site.

Dr David Petts, the project co-director and a Durham University specialist in early Christianity, told The Telegraph that the fish vertebrae appear to be prayer beads for personal devotion: “We think of the grand ceremonial side of early medieval life in the monasteries and great works like the Lindisfarne Gospels. But what we’ve got here is something which talks to a much more personal side of early Christianity.”

© Provided by The Telegraph Lindisfarne Castle on Holy Island in Northumberland – Brian A Jackson/Brian A Jackson
The Lindisfarne Priory is viewed from above.

He paid tribute to Marina Chorro Giner, a zooarchaeologist, for recognising the significance of the vertebrae: “This bright, eagle-eyed researcher looked at them and said, actually these aren’t just fish bones, they’ve been modified and turned into something.”

Discussing the significance of fish and the sea to the island’s medieval inhabitants, he referred to a monk called Cuthbert, who joined Lindisfarne in the 670s and went on to become the most important saint in northern England in the Middle Ages: “We also have the stories of Christ and the Apostles being fishermen and going on the Sea of Galilee and calming storms. We see in Bede’s Life of St Cuthbert, that Cuthbert calming storms. So the sea is symbolically important.”

The beads offer significant information for understanding how people in the past lived and expressed their beliefs through objects.

Their position around the neck suggested that they had been strung like a necklace. The naturally-occurring hole through the centre of salmon vertebrae had been widened, either before threading or through wear.

The discovery follows ongoing excavations at Lindisfarne by DigVentures, an archaeology social enterprise in which volunteers work alongside professionals, as well as Durham University.

‘Remarkable find’

Lisa Westcott Wilkins of DigVentures described it as “a remarkable find”: “Clearly it was important enough that this person was buried with it. This is the only artefact from within a grave on Lindisfarne, so it’s a significant item. As far as we’re aware, it’s the first example of prayer beads found anywhere in medieval Britain.”

She added: “We believe these beads were used as a personal object of faith, especially given that our modern word bead comes from the Old English gebed, meaning ‘prayer’.”

READ ALSO: ANCIENT CHRISTIAN SETTLEMENT DISCOVERED IN EGYPT’S BAHARIYA OASIS

Such is the enormity of the site that the team will continue their excavations for another four years. Other finds have included runic namestones, coins and copper rings.

Mrs Westcott Wilkins said that they are now focussed on the earliest layer within a cemetery that lies next to the ruins of the 12th-century priory: “There are just so many human remains.”

In 1997, at the nearby medieval chapel at Chevington, Northumberland, fish vertebrae were found with similar modifications. But they were from Atlantic cod, among other fish, and that burial dated from the 13th or 14th century, whereas this is so much earlier.

EUROPE, SLOVAKIA, WORLD

Axe from Early Bronze Age found in Skalica

Axe from Early Bronze Age found in Skalica

The Skalica district in Slovakia is a well-known archaeological site where scientists have previously unearthed many interesting ancient objects.

“According to archaeological discoveries Skalica, as part of the region Záhorie, was populated 3,500 years ago. The area’s development was conditioned by the flow of the River Moravia.

The territory on the left bank of the river became known as the Amber Road.

The Amber Road was an ancient route used for transferring amber from the costs of the North and Baltic Seas. This could be seen as a sign of the importance of this area since prehistoric times.

As regards its Slavic population, it presumably settled in this territory between the sixth and eighth century.” 1

The Skalica archaeological site needs an increase in its protection, and while conducting work at the site, scientists unearthed a rare axe from the Early Bronze Age.

Axe from Early Bronze Age found in Skalica

“So far, it is the oldest metal object from this researched site, Monuments Board Trnava informed. The research was carried out by archaeologists of the Monuments Board Trnava and enthusiasts of archaeology from civic associations.

The smaller axe is 9.5 cm long and has an enlarged fan-shaped cutting part, shallowly-grooved flat sides with hints of the side rails and a pointed tulle. It belongs to the so-called Saxon-type axe, the oldest specimens of which were still made of copper.

READ ALSO: BRONZE DAGGER DISCOVERED IN SLOVAKIA

Similar axes were found in several locations in Slovakia, especially in Central Germany and Saxony. They are often part of a larger collection but also as individual objects as well,” the Slovak Spectator reports.

Recently, two other unique but accidental finds from older sections of the Bronze Age have been found in the Trnava region, both in the territory of Hlohovec. In 2017, a bronze blade from a so-called dagger on a club and in 2021 a short sword (long dagger).

NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

Map of the Lost Lizard City under Los Angeles

Map of the Lost Lizard City under Los Angeles

This map is an essential ingredient of a story that has ‘Indiana Jones’ written all over it: secret caves, a lost civilisation and above all, a treasure trove of gold in unimaginable quantities. And all this is in the ground below the present-day metropolis of Los Angeles.

Map of the Lost Lizard City under Los Angeles

Below are two extracts from the LA Times of 29 January 1934, in the first of which reporter Jean Bosquet details the incredible story of G. Warren Shufelt, a mining engineer, who had been told of the underground city and its treasures by a wise old Indian, had consequently located it via ‘radio X-ray’ and at the time was sinking shafts into the ground to reach it.

The second extract explains the whereabouts of the putative underground city on the map and provides the legends for a few photos showing Shufelt’s hard work.

Needless to say, no such city has ever been found. Whether fully intentional or not, the hoax did leave us with this strange map of the supposed underground city, its tunnels vaguely laid out in the shape of a lizard.

Interestingly, this article on Skeptoid, a website providing critical analysis of pop phenomena, raises the possibility that Mr Bosquet’s story may be the original source for the later conspiracy theories about humanoid reptilians controlling the world. Indiana Jones has fathered David Icke…

LIZARD PEOPLE’S CATACOMB CITY HUNTED

Engineer Sinks Shaft Under Fort Moore Hill to Find Maze of Tunnels and Priceless Treasures of Legendary Inhabitants

(LA Times, 29 Jan 1934)

By Jean Bosquet

Busy Los Angeles, although little realizing it in the hustle and bustle of modern existence, stands above a lost city of catacombs filled with incalculable treasure and imperishable records of a race of humans further advanced intellectually and scientifically than even the highest type of present-day peoples, in the belief of G. Warren Shufelt, a geophysical engineer now engaged in an attempt to wrest from the lost city deep in the earth below Fort Moore Hill the secrets of the Lizard People of legendary fame in the medicine lodges of the American Indian.

So firmly do Shufelt and a little staff of assistants believe that a maze of catacombs and priceless golden tablets are to be found beneath downtown Los Angeles that the engineer and his aides have already driven a shaft 250 feet into the ground, the mouth of the shaft being on the old Banning property on North Hill street overlooking Sunset Boulevard, Spring Street and North Broadway.

LEGEND SUPPLIES CLEW (sic)

Shufelt learned of the legend of the Lizard People after his radio X-ray had led him hither and yon, over an area extending from the Public Library on West Fifth street to the Southwest Museum, on Museum Drive, at the foot of Mt. Washington.

“I knew I was over a pattern of tunnels,” the engineer explained yesterday, “and I had mapped out the course of the tunnels, the position of large rooms scattered along the tunnel route, as well as the position of deposits of gold, but I couldn’t understand the meaning of it.”

FIRE DESTROYS ALL

According to the legend, as imparted to Shufelt by Macklin, the radio X-ray has revealed the location of one of three lost cities on the Pacific Coast, the local one having been dug by the Lizzard People after the “great catastrophe” which occurred about 5000 years ago. This legendary catastrophe was in the form of a huge tongue of fire that “came out of the Southwest, destroying all life in its path,” the path being “several hundred miles wide.” The city underground was dug as a means of escaping future fires.

The lost city, dug with powerful chemicals by the Lizard People instead of pick and shovel, was drained into the ocean, where its tunnels began, according to the legend. The tide passing daily in and out of the lower tunnel portals and forcing air into the upper tunnels, provided ventilation and “cleansed and sanitized the lower tunnels,” the legend states.

Large rooms in the domes of the hills above the city of labyrinths housed 1000 families “in the manner of tall buildings” and imperishable food supplies of the herb variety were stored in the catacombs to provide sustenance for the lizard folk for great lengths of time as the next fire swept over the earth.

CITY LAID OUT LIKE LIZARD

The Lizard People, the legend has it, regarded the lizard as the symbol of long life. Their city is laid out like a lizard, according to the legend, its tail to the southwest, far below Fifth and Hope streets, it’s head to the northeast, at Lookout and Marda streets. The city’s key room is situated directly under South Broadway, near Second street, according to Shufelt and the legend.

This key room is the directory to all parts of the city and to all record tablets, the legend states. All records were kept on gold tablets, four feet long and fourteen inches wide. On these tablets of gold, gold having been the symbol of life to the legendary Lizard People will be found the recorded history of the Mayans on one particular tablet, the southwest corner of which will be missing, is to be found the “record of the origin of the human race.”

TABLETS PHOTOGRAPHED

Shufelt stated he has taken “X-ray pictures” of thirty-seven such tablets, three of which have their southwest corners cut off.

“My radio X-ray pictures of tunnels and rooms, which are sub-surface voids, and of gold pictures with perfect corners, sides and ends, are scientific proof of their existence,” Shufelt said. “However, the legendary story must remain speculative until unearthed by excavation.”

The Lizard people according to Macklin were of a much higher type intellectually than modern human beings. The intellectual accomplishments of their 9-year-old children were equal to those of present-day college graduates, he said. So greatly advanced scientifically were these people that, in addition to perfecting a chemical solution by which they bored underground without removing earth and rock, they also developed a cement far stronger and better than any in use in modern times with which they lined their tunnels and rooms.

HILLS INCLOSE CITY

Macklin said legendary advice to American Indians was to seek the lost city in an area within a chain of hills forming “the frog of a horse’s hoof.” The contour of hills surrounding this region forms such a design, substantiating Shufelt’s findings, he said.

Shufelt’s radio device consists chiefly of a cylindrical glass case inside of which a plummet attached to a copper wire held by the engineer sways continually, pointing, he asserts, toward minerals or tunnels below the surface of the ground, and then revolves when over the mineral or swings in prolongation of the tunnel when above the excavation.

He has used the instrument extensively in mining fields, he said.

DID STRANGE PEOPLE LIVE UNDER THE SITE OF LOS ANGELES 5000 YEARS AGO?

An amazing labyrinth of underground passages and caverns hundreds of feet below the surface of Fort Moore Hill is revealed in maps – all rights to which have been reserved – prepared by G. Warren Shufelt, local mining engineer, who explains his topographical endeavours as being based on results obtained from a radio X-ray perfected by him. In this elaborate system of tunnels and rooms, according to a legend furnished by Shufelt by an Indian authority, a tribe of human beings called the Lizard People, lived, 5000 years ago.

The network of tunnels formed what Indians call the lost Lizard City, according to Shufelt and the legend. Gold tablets on which are written the origin of the human race and other priceless documents are to be found in the tunnels, according to the legend. Shufelt declares his radio X-ray has located the gold. The engineer has dug a shaft 250 feet deep on North Hill street, overlooking North Broadway, Sunset and Spring streets, and intends to dig to 1000 feet in an effort to strike the lost city.

The Upper right-hand corner inset is Times Staff Artist Ewing’s conception of the Lizard People at work. Lower left, upper inset shows Shufelt and crew at top of the shaft, bailing water out of their deep excavation. The lower left inset shows Shufelt operating his radio X-ray device.

EUROPE, POLAND, WORLD

41,500-Year-Old Mammoth Ivory Pendant Found in Poland

41,500-Year-Old Mammoth Ivory Pendant Found in Poland

The ancient pendant made from mammoth bone was found in 2010 along with a horse-bone tool known as an awl. This piece of jewellery shows the great creativity and extraordinary manual skills of members of the group of Homo sapiens that occupied the site, said Dr. Wioletta Nowaczewska, a researcher at Wrocław University.

41,500-Year-Old Mammoth Ivory Pendant Found in Poland
Dorsal views of the 41,500-year-old decorated ivory pendant from Stajnia Cave, Poland.

“The thickness of the plate is about 3.7 mm showing an astonishing precision on carving the punctures and the two holes for wearing it.”

Using advanced methods of radiocarbon dating, Dr. Nowaczewska and colleagues dated the pendant, awl and bone fragments from Stajnia Cave to the Early Upper Paleolithic.

The objects are the earliest known evidence of humans decorating jewellery in Eurasia and the emergence of symbolic behaviour in human evolution.

The decoration of the pendant included patterns of over 50 puncture marks in an irregular looping curve and two complete holes.

The researchers suggest that the pattern of indentations, similar to later jewellery found in Europe, could represent hunting tallies (a mathematical counting system) or lunar notations which correspond to the monthly cycle of the Moon or Sun.

“If the Stajnia pendant’s looping curve indicates a lunar analemma or kill scores will remain an open question,” said Dr. Adam Nadachowski, a researcher in the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals at the Polish Academy of Sciences.

“However, it is fascinating that similar decorations appeared independently across Europe.”

The presence of animal bones alongside the pendant and bone awl may indicate that humans were beginning to produce small and transportable art 41,500 years ago as they spread across Eurasia.

“Determining the exact age of this jewellery was fundamental for its cultural attribution, and we are thrilled with the result,” said Dr. Sahra Talamo, director of the BRAVHO Lab in the Department of Chemistry Giacomo Ciamician’ at Bologna University.

“This work demonstrates that using the most recent methodological advances in the radiocarbon method enables us to minimise the amount of sampling and achieve highly precise dates with a very small error range.”

“If we want to seriously solve the debate on when mobile art emerged in Paleolithic groups, we need to radiocarbon date these ornaments, especially those found during past fieldwork or in complex stratigraphic sequences.”

“The ages of the ivory pendant and the bone awl found at Stajnia Cave finally demonstrate that the dispersal of Homo sapiens in Poland took place as early as in Central and Western Europe,” added Dr. Andrea Picin, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

“This remarkable result will change the perspective on how adaptable these early groups were and call into question the monocentric model of diffusion of the artistic innovation in the Aurignacian.”

The team’s paper was published in the journal Scientific Reports.

AFRICA, SOUTH AFRICA, WORLD

Fossils in the ‘Cradle of Humankind’ may be more than a million years older than previously thought

Fossils in the ‘Cradle of Humankind’ may be more than a million years older than previously thought

A group of Australopithecus afarensis.

The ‘Cradle of Humankind’ is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in South Africa that comprises a variety of fossil-bearing cave deposits, including Sterkfontein Caves. Sterkfontein was made famous by the discovery of the first adult Australopithecus in 1936.

Since then, hundreds of Australopithecus fossils have been found there, including the well-known Mrs. Ples and the nearly complete skeleton known as Little Foot.

“Sterkfontein has more Australopithecus fossils than anywhere else in the world. But it’s hard to get a good date on them,” said Purdue University’s Professor Darryl Granger.

“People have looked at the animal fossils found near them and compared the ages of cave features like flowstones and gotten a range of different dates.”

“What our data does is resolve these controversies. It shows that these fossils are old — much older than we originally thought.”

Forensic facial reconstruction of Australopithecus afarensis.

To determine the age of the Australopithecus-bearing sediments at Sterkfontein, the researchers measured radioactive cosmogenic nuclides — aluminium-26 and beryllium-10 — in the mineral quartz.

“Cosmogenic nuclides are extremely rare isotopes produced by cosmic rays — high-energy particles that constantly bombard the Earth,” they explained.

“These incoming cosmic rays have enough energy to cause nuclear reactions inside rocks at the ground surface, creating new, radioactive isotopes within the mineral crystals.”

“An example is aluminum-26: aluminium that is missing a neutron and slowly decays to turn into magnesium over a period of millions of years.”

“Since aluminum-26 is formed when a rock is exposed at the surface, but not after it has been deeply buried in a cave, we can date cave sediments — and the fossils within them — by measuring levels of aluminium-26 in tandem with another cosmogenic nuclide, beryllium-10.”

Life reconstruction of Australopithecus sediba commissioned by the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History.

The team’s results show that the entire Australopithecus assemblage at Sterkfontein dates to 3.4-3.7 million years ago.

These australopiths were thus early representatives of the genus, overlapping in age with a morphologically diverse range of mid-Pliocene hominins, including Australopithecus afarensis and Australopithecus deyiremeda at Burtele, Australopithecus bahrelgazali in Chad, Kenyanthropus platyops at Lake Turkana, and Australopithecus anamensis at Woranso-Mille.

“The Sterkfontein hominins predate Paranthropus, Homo, and Australopithecus sediba at nearby sites in the Cradle of Humankind by over a million years,” the authors said.

In addition to the new dates at Sterkfontein based on cosmogenic nuclides, they made careful maps of the cave deposits and showed how animal fossils of different ages would have been mixed together during excavations in the 1930s and 1940s, leading to decades of confusion about the previous ages.

“What I hope is that this convinces people that this dating method gives reliable results,” Dr. Granger said.

“Using this method, we can more accurately place ancient humans and their relatives in the correct time periods, in Africa, and elsewhere across the world.”

The results were published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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