CANADA, NORTH AMERICA, WORLD

Armored Dinosaur’s Last Meal Found Preserved in Its Fossilized Belly

Armored Dinosaur’s Last Meal Found Preserved in Its Fossilized Belly

More than 110 million years ago, a lumbering 1,300-kilogram, armour-plated dinosaur ate its last meal, died, and was washed out to sea in what is now northern Alberta. This ancient beast then sank onto its thorny back, churning up mud in the seabed that entombed it — until its fossilized body was discovered in a mine near Fort McMurray in 2011.

Armored Dinosaur’s Last Meal Found Preserved in Its Fossilized Belly
The Borealopelta fossil is on display at the Royal Tyrell Museum in Alberta, Canada.

Since then, researchers at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alta., Brandon University, and the University of Saskatchewan (USask) have been working to unlock the extremely well-preserved nodosaur’s many secrets — including what this large armoured dinosaur (a type of ankylosaur) actually ate for its last meal.

“The finding of the actual preserved stomach contents from a dinosaur is extraordinarily rare, and this stomach recovered from the mummified nodosaur by the museum team is by far the best-preserved dinosaur stomach ever found to date,” said USask geologist Jim Basinger, a member of the team that analyzed the dinosaur’s stomach contents, a distinct mass about the size of a soccer ball.

“When people see this stunning fossil and are told that we know what its last meal was because its stomach was so well preserved inside the skeleton, it will almost bring the beast back to life for them, providing a glimpse of how the animal actually carried out its daily activities, where it lived, and what its preferred food was.”

There has been lots of speculation about what dinosaurs ate, but very little is known. In a just-published article in Royal Society Open Science, the team led by Royal Tyrrell Museum palaeontologist Caleb Brown and Brandon University biologist David Greenwood provides detailed and definitive evidence of the diet of large, plant-eating dinosaurs — something that has not been known conclusively for any herbivorous dinosaur until now.

“This new study changes what we know about the diet of large herbivorous dinosaurs,” said Brown. “Our findings are also remarkable for what they can tell us about the animal’s interaction with its environment, details we don’t usually get just from the dinosaur skeleton.”

Previous studies had shown evidence of seeds and twigs in the gut but these studies offered no information as to the kinds of plants that had been eaten. While tooth and jaw shape, plant availability and digestibility have fuelled considerable speculation, the specific plant’s herbivorous dinosaurs consumed has been largely a mystery.

So what was the last meal of Borealopelta markmitchelli (which means “northern shield” and recognizes Mark Mitchell, the museum technician who spent more than five years carefully exposing the skin and bones of the dinosaur from the fossilized marine rock)?

An illustration of Borealopelta chowing down on some ferns.

“The last meal of our dinosaur was mostly fern leaves — 88 per cent chewed leaf material and seven per cent stems and twigs,” said Greenwood, who is also a USask adjunct professor.

“When we examined thin sections of the stomach contents under a microscope, we were shocked to see beautifully preserved and concentrated plant material. In marine rocks, we almost never see such superb preservation of leaves, including the microscopic, spore-producing sporangia of ferns.”

Team members Basinger, Greenwood and Brandon University graduate student Jessica Kalyniuk compared the stomach contents with food plants known to be available from the study of fossil leaves from the same period in the region. They found that the dinosaur was a picky eater, choosing to eat particular ferns (leptosporangiate, the largest group of ferns today) over others, and not eating many cycad and conifer leaves common to the Early Cretaceous landscape.

Specifically, the team identified 48 palynomorphs (microfossils like pollen and spores) including moss or liverwort, 26 clubmosses and ferns, 13 gymnosperms (mostly conifers), and two angiosperms (flowering plants).

“Also, there is considerable charcoal in the stomach from burnt plant fragments, indicating that the animal was browsing in a recently burned area and was taking advantage of a recent fire and the flush of ferns that frequently emerges on a burned landscape,” said Greenwood.

“This adaptation to a fire ecology is new information. Like large herbivores alive today such as moose and deer, and elephants in Africa, these nodosaurs by their feeding would have shaped the vegetation on the landscape, possibly maintaining more open areas by their grazing.”

The team also found gastroliths, or gizzard stones, generally swallowed by animals such as herbivorous dinosaurs and today’s birds such as geese to aid digestion.

“We also know that based on how well-preserved both the plant fragments and animal itself are, the animal’s death and burial must have followed shortly after the last meal,” said Brown. “Plants give us a much better idea of the season than animals, and they indicate that the last meal and the animal’s death and burial all happened in the late spring to mid-summer.”

“Taken together, these findings enable us to make inferences about the ecology of the animal, including how selective it was in choosing which plants to eat and how it may have exploited forest fire regrowth. It will also assist in the understanding dinosaur digestion and physiology.”

Borealopelta markmitchelli, discovered during mining operations at the Suncor Millennium open-pit mine north of Fort McMurray, has been on display at the Royal Tyrrell Museum since 2017. The main chunk of the stomach mass is on display with the skeleton. Other members of the team include museum scientists Donald Henderson and Dennis Braman, Brandon University research associate and USask alumna Cathy Greenwood.

Research continues on Borealopelta markmitchelli — the best fossil of a nodosaur ever found — to learn more about its environment and behaviour while it was alive. Student Kalyniuk is currently expanding her work on fossil plants of this age to better understand the composition of the forests in which they lived. Many of the fossils she will examine are in Basinger’ collections at USask.

The research was funded by Canada Foundation for Innovation, Research Manitoba, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, National Geographic Society, Royal Tyrrell Museum Cooperating Society, and Suncor Canada, as well as in-kind support from Olympus Canada.

NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

A couple renovating a 115-year-old building discovered two 60-foot-long hidden murals

A couple renovating a 115-year-old building discovered two 60-foot-long hidden murals

What started out as a couple’s renovation project to convert a historic building into a bar has turned into an effort to restore decades-old artwork in a small Washington town.

Nick and Lisa Timm purchased the building in Okanogan, located about four hours east of Seattle, at the end of 2021. This past week, they discovered 60-foot murals painted on canvases along its north and south walls.

“We were about 20 minutes from covering up the walls,” Nick told CNN on Wednesday. “I then was like ‘Well, let’s just look at what’s behind all this plaster.’”

A couple renovating a 115-year-old building discovered two 60-foot-long hidden murals

As the plaster peeled away, they discovered a giant mural — stretching 60 feet long and 20 feet high — depicting a lake, cabins and trees. One crew member threw out the idea that there could be another canvas on the opposite wall. Lo and behold, there was indeed a matching mural.

They found the murals at around 5 p.m. and had been working since 5 a.m., Nick said. But the team stayed for four more hours to uncover the rest of the artwork.

“It was like a lightning bolt of energy,” Nick said. “We were just hooting and hollering and pulling things down.”

Lisa and Nick Timm purchased the historical building at the end of 2021.

The Timms moved back to Okanogan last year to take care of Nick’s father, who was diagnosed with lung cancer. After he died in September, a family friend told the couple about the chance to purchase the building.

“One of our main goals moving back was to reenergize Okanogan and then this happened,” Nick said.

Dating back to around 1907, the building had served as a movie theatre, a pool hall and even a rooster fighting rink, according to Nick. The couple’s plan was to turn the 3,000-square-foot space into a bar and gathering place for the community, building on Nick’s experience running bars and restaurants in Olympia.

“It’s funny how this worked out,” Nick said. “We were going to make it a historical showcase by bringing in a bunch of historical stuff about the area.”

This photo, taken in June 1918, shows the building when it was a theatre.

After the Timms’ big find, the Okanogan County Historical Society was able to dig up a newspaper clipping from 1915 that reveals the original plan for the murals.

A local artist was set to paint the murals for what was the Hub Theatre at that time, according to the clipping, which was provided to CNN by the society.

“The new improvements at the Hub include 120 feet of panoramic landscape scenery in light tans,” the clipping reads.

The murals were discovered on both the north and south walls and span, in total, 120 feet.

Now, that panoramic scenery will be cautiously taken down, refurbished and rehung. Nick said some sections of the murals have extensive water damage that they want to get restored as quickly as possible.

It will likely be a pricey process. The couple has started a GoFundMe page to gain support from the community.

The Timms had hoped to open their renovated bar by the end of March, but it may now take until midsummer to finish work on the murals, Nick said.

The mural will be the centrepiece of the establishment, and the plan still is to fill the rest of the space with other historical items. Nick’s family has lived in the area for centuries, so many of the items have been passed down for generations. Other memorabilia have been donated by others in the community.

And Okanogan’s future gathering place already has a name: the Red Light Bar, an ode to the singular red light in town.

AFRICA, ETHIOPIA, WORLD

Fossils that “clearly foreshadow” modern humans are 30,000 years older than we thought

Fossils that “clearly foreshadow” modern humans are 30,000 years older than we thought

The Omo I and Herto fossils, found in East Africa, are the oldest known Homo sapiens fossils yet discovered in the region — but a new study shows they are tens of thousands of years older than we thought. Older studies had dated the Omo I and Herto fossils to 197,000 years old and between 155,000 to 160,000 years old, respectively. They are, in fact, far older.

“The Omo I and Herto specimens are the oldest Homo Sapiens that have been found so far [in the region], so their discovery and their age are critical to understanding the emergence of our species,” Céline Vidal, lead author on the study and a volcanologist at Fitzwilliam College, tells Inverse.

Vidal and her team use ancient volcanic eruptions to date the human fossils. In a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, they re-examine the Omo I and Herto fossils in Ethiopia. The findings push back the starting point for human history in eastern Africa by some 36,000 years.

Researchers analyzed pumice rock from an ancient volcanic eruption in the area to determine an updated age for the Omo I fossils.

HOW THEY DID IT — In the past, scientists had used the age of the volcanic ash layer beneath the old bones to infer when the fossils were deposited.

But, “there was some uncertainty on the position of this layer relative to the fossil,” Vidal says.

Unfortunately, the sediment layer above the fossils contains a kind of thick volcanic ash known as KHS; the grains of this kind of ash is too small to accurately date using the current technology — so this layer was no help in trying to narrow down the fossils’ true age. Instead, archaeologists have tried to determine the Omo I and Herto fossils’ ages using the signatures of other past volcanic eruptions in the area.

“While studying big eruptions from the Ethiopian Rift, we identified a colossal eruption of Shala volcano, which occurred some 233,000 years ago,” Vidal says. “The age was obtained from pumice rocks found near the volcano.”

In this study, Vidal’s team used a dating method known as “single crystal argon-argon” dating — in this method, the scientists measure the amount of the element argon in volcanic minerals like ash and pumice rock. This signature allows scientists to pinpoint when the magma originally erupted from the Earth’s surface.

Brian Stewart, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan who was not involved in the study, tells Inverse that, generally, “single-crystal argon-argon dating is very well established and reliable,” and is “beautifully suited” to studying fossils in eastern Africa due to the history of volcanic eruptions in the area.

“It is a remarkable method because it can go as far back in time as the age of the Earth,” Vidal says. Or, in the case of Vidal’s work: As far back as the time of the oldest modern human beings.

WHAT THEY FOUND — The researchers obtained a more precise minimum age of the Omo I fossils, specifically that they are likely 233,000 years old. It’s worth keeping in mind that the margin of error is pretty significant: Plus or minus 22,000 years — so they may be even older or younger.

“The error margin associated with this new date is obviously very large, and at its upper — younger — margin does not massively change the previous age estimate of the Omo I finds, perhaps moving it back in time by 10-15,000 years,” Stewart says.

If their true age is closer to the median estimated date of 233,000 years — or even older — then the finding is “definitely significant” Stewart adds.

Either way, the Omo I fossil specimens — the oldest known Homo sapiens in eastern Africa — have officially become much, much older. Since some archaeologists believe early modern humans may have originated in this region, that makes the findings all the more significant.

“Our findings push the age of the oldest Homo sapiens to later than 200,000 years,” Vidal says.

Did humans originate in eastern Africa? The updated findings on the date of the Omo I fossils could shift how we think about the evolution of humans on the continent.

WHY IT MATTERS — For too long, the official archaeological date — the age of the oldest known fossils of Homo sapiens from eastern Africa — hasn’t matched up with evolutionary models of human history. Evolutionary models suggest our species arose some 300,000 years ago. The oldest ever Homo sapiens fossils were discovered in Morocco — it is some 300,000 years old.

“The Omo I fossils exhibit traits that much more clearly foreshadow later Homo sapiens than those displayed by what has been proposed as the very earliest specimens in the sapiens lineage: the 300,000-year-old fossil skulls from Jebel Irhoud in Morocco,” Stewart says. The discovery puts the archaeological date of the Omo I fossils in closer proximity to this evolutionary timeline for Homo sapiens.

“This new age constraint is congruent with most models for the evolution of modern humans, which estimate the origin of H. sapiens and its divergence from archaic humans at about 350–200 thousand years ago,” Vidal says.

The findings could help settle another longstanding archaeological debate: Did our species originate in a single area in eastern Africa, or from multiple areas of the continent?

“Current opinions of our species’ origins have shifted away from a single-region African model and towards a multiregional African model,” Stewart says. The updated timeline of the Omo I fossils could shift the thinking about where and how humans evolved in Africa once more, Stewart explains:

“If the more modern-looking Omo specimens turn out to fall squarely within that time envelope, we may need think twice before we toss out a single origin model altogether, especially one that sees our species evolving across a single interconnected region that was much larger than previously imagined.”

WHAT’S NEXT — For now, Vidal and her team are clear: This is far from a definitive conclusion on the origins of humanity. While the study provides an updated “minimum age” for these fossil specimens in eastern Africa, the “maximum age” — i.e., the oldest age of the Omo I humans — is still a mystery.

Also, further research is needed to provide a more accurate age for the Herto fossils — the other significant site of ancient Homo sapiens found in the region.

“We can only date humanity based on the fossils that we have, so it’s impossible to say that this is the definitive age of our species,” Vidal says.

Future fossil findings could very well push the timeline of modern Homo sapiens “even further back in time.”

“The study of human evolution is always in motion; boundaries and timelines change as our understanding improves,” Vidal says.

Abstract: Efforts to date the oldest modern human fossils in eastern Africa, from Omo-Kibish1–3 and Herto4,5 in Ethiopia, have drawn on a variety of chronometric evidence, including 40Ar/39Ar ages of stratigraphically associated tuffs. The ages that are generally reported for these fossils are around 197 thousand years (kyr) for the Kibish Omo I3,6,7, and around 160–155 kyr for the Herto hominins5,8. However, the stratigraphic relationships and tephra correlations that underpin these estimates have been challenged6,8. Here we report geochemical analyses that link the Kamoya’s Hominid Site (KHS) Tuff9, which conclusively overlies the member of the Kibish Formation that contains Omo I, with a major explosive eruption of Shala volcano in the Main Ethiopian Rift. By dating the proximal deposits of this eruption, we obtain a new minimum age for the Omo fossils of 233 ± 22 kyr. Contrary to previous arguments6,8, we also show that the KHS Tuff does not correlate with another widespread tephra layer, the Waidedo Vitric Tuff, and therefore cannot anchor a minimum age for the Herto fossils. Shifting the age of the oldest known Homo sapiens fossils in eastern Africa to before around 200 thousand years ago is consistent with independent evidence for greater antiquity of the modern human lineage.

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

An Archaeologist Found The Ancient Tomb of The God Osiris?! – Right Under The Sphinx

An Archaeologist Found The Ancient Tomb of The God Osiris?! – Right Under The Sphinx

Every culture has its legends and its myths. Most of us are familiar with the legend of King Arthur, the greatest king in British legends, and his queen Guinevere. Likewise, the mythology surrounding Osiris is one of the most prominent tales to come out of Egypt.

The main chamber. You can see the statue of Osiris at the back, with the stairs and central shaft going down.

Osiris is the ancient Egyptian god of the dead and the ruler of the underworld. As is true of many religions, the myths surrounding this figure are complex and varied.

He was the god of immortality; he was supposed to judge the dead, only allowing the morally worth into his afterlife; he was seen as a god of regeneration and rebirth, and he held a number of other roles that varied according to the cult.

But regardless of how he was seen, he was widely regarded as one of the more powerful Gods. And now, archaeologists have discovered an ancient tomb that appears to be directly modelled according to the mythical Tomb of Osiris.

This find was made by a Spanish-Italian archaeological team, in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities.

This tomb was described by Egyptian lore in the necropolis of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, a  funerary complex that is part of the Deir el-Bahari (the Northern Monastery) that is located on the West Bank at Thebes.

The tomb was initially uncovered back in 1887 by Philippe Virey. And in the 20th century there were some cursory efforts to map the main structure; however, Tomb Kampp -327, which you can see marked in red below, was never outlined.

The newly identified Osiris complex includes a shaft that connects to multiple chambers that hold a number of interesting artefacts.

One such area has a wall relief that shows a series of demons holding knives, which were placed there in order to protect the bodies of the dead.

Another chamber (the central vaulted chapel) has an emerald skinned deity sitting and facing a staircase with a 29.5-foot (9-meter) shaft in it.

The shaft connects to another room with a second shaft that goes down for 19.6 feet (6 meters) into two rooms. It’s a little bit like a maze, as you can see below.

The exact date of this structure’s creation is not known; however, researchers believe the tomb complex dates back to the 25th dynasty (760 – 656 BC) or the 26th dynasty (672 – 525 BC), based on a comparison to similar tombs that contain Osirian elements.

Drawing of the tomb’s architecture made by Raffaella Carrera, of the Min Project.
EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

Archaeometry also confirms that the Curia Pompeia in Rome was built in several phases

Archaeometry also confirms that the Curia Pompeia in Rome was built in several phases

The Curia of Pompey was one of the great meeting rooms of profound historical importance during the Roman Republic. Located on the eastern flank of the ancient Portico of Pompey, within its walls the senators of ancient Rome discussed weighty political affairs in private meetings.

What is now a visible site for pedestrians who circulate through the Roman square of Largo Argentina, was actually constructed in several phases, ranging from the time of Pompey himself to the medieval era.

This is, at least, what has been corroborated by a study carried out by an Italian/Spanish research team on which the University of Córdoba participated.

Recreation of the Curia in its phase II

This fact had already been ascertained by stratigraphic studies carried out by the Spanish team that worked on the site between 2013 and 2017.

Now, these conclusions have been ratified from the point of view of archaeometry, a different scientific discipline used in Archeology that applies physical and chemical analysis techniques to archaeological materials.

Specifically, the work analyzed samples of mortar from the monument; that is, the conglomerate that was used to prepare the different construction elements. The results made it possible to establish an indirect dating method confirming that Pompey’s Curia did, in fact, feature several different construction phases.

Archaeometry also confirms that the Curia Pompeia in Rome was built in several phases
The site of the Curia of Pompey.

The first of them, according to the results of the study, was during the time of Pompey himself, around 55 BC. The samples analyzed indicate that the monument also had the second phase of construction, which must have been around 19 BC, under Augustus, the first Roman emperor.

Finally, a last stage of construction during the early medieval period has also been documented.

Tell me where you are from and I’ll tell you when

The dating of these stages was established indirectly thanks to the knowledge of the origins of the materials with which the monument was built. Analysis of the compositions of the samples analyzed allowed the authors, F. Marra, E. D´Ambrosio, M. Gaeta and A. Monterroso-Checa to ascertain the quarries from which they were extracted.

The compositions and dates of removal from the quarries revealed that there were different chronological phases in the use of these construction materials.

All of this is evident because there is a clear distinction between the composition of the samples attributable to the first construction phase and those of the Augustan and medieval ones.

For example, while in the initial stage of the monument’s construction a material known as pink pozzolana, extracted from volcanic deposits in the interior of Rome, was exclusively used, in the samples linked to the second phase of construction volcanic glass is found, which is characteristic of a different kind ofpink pozzolana that, due to the expansion of urban planning, was extracted from areas further away from the city’s monumental center.

In this way, the work, published in the University of Oxford’s prestigious journal Archaeometry, confirms, from a different perspective, the different construction phases of the building where Julius Caesar, one of history’s most important politicians and soldiers, died, a fact pertinent not only to Archeology but also to Roman History.

The study benefitted from collaboration with the Sovrintendenza Capitolina, the site’s managing body, the University of Cordoba, the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology of Italy, and Sapienza University in Rome.

It was financed by two projects: HAR 2011 25705 and HAR2013 41818P, under the Spanish Science & Innovation Ministry’s National R&D Plan.

NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

The Ant People legend of the Hopi Native Americans and connections to the Anunnaki

The Ant People legend of the Hopi Native Americans and connections to the Anunnaki

The more you look at ancient texts and stories from around the world, you can’t help but see surprising patterns. Some are so glaring that it takes real effort to ignore them, but that’s what many people do. One example is from the Hopi Native American tribe and their beliefs in “Ant People.” The Hopi of the American Southwest is sometimes referred to as “the oldest of people” by other Native American tribes.

Once you learn about the Ant People, you can’t help but compare them to the ancient Sumerian texts of the Anunnaki. Why? Let’s take a simplified look, respecting the truth that only members of the Hope tribe could fully explain.

In ancient cultures, there is a common thread of worshipping extraterrestrial beings from the stars who will one day return. Animals symbolic of these beliefs appear frequently in ancient art.

The Hopi have a reverence for ants, similar to the way the Egyptians Sumerians and other cultures had a special reverence for cows. The cows may have represented our Milky Way galaxy, and in the case of the ants, they described beings from the stars known as the Ant People.

The Hopi words for the Ant People or Ant Friends (Anu Sinom) create a direct link to the stories of the Anunnaki. It could be coincidental, but it is quite striking. The Babylonian sky god was named Anu, which is the Hopi word for ant. The word, Naki translates to “friends.” Thus, Anu-Naki translates to “ant friends” in Hopi. In both languages, they are describing extraterrestrial beings, but the Hopi say these Ant People came from under the ground.

Another strikingly similar word is the Hopi word Sohu, meaning “star,” and the Egyptian word sahu means “stars of Orion.” This constellation is seen repeatedly across the globe. Ancient Astronaut theorists observe Orion and other systems such as the Pleiades appearing over and over in the layout of the pyramids and ancient structures. Another coincidence?

In the Hopi legend, these Ant People were their saviours, taking them underground and teaching them how to survive two extreme cataclysms. Once again, we see stories of a great flood like that described in Sumerian texts and the Bible.

Surviving underground with the Ant People, the Hopi ancestors learned how to grow food with little water and build dwellings in the rocks. They learned about the stars and mathematics and would put those skills to use when they founded a new civilization.

When it was safe to return to the surface, the Ant People instructed the building of incredibly complex habitations such as what is seen today at Chaco Canyon. From above, they might appear like a giant ant mound. The structures included Kivas, a Hopi word for round semi-subterranean ceremonial rooms that were entered by ladders from above.

According to the National Park Service:

“During ceremonies today, the ritual emergence of participants from the kiva into the plaza above represents the original emergence by Puebloan groups from the underworld into the current world.”

Petroglyphs depicting the Ant People appear still appear today, and the Hopi continue to tell the story in dances and rituals.

Below are some intriguing images of Hopi ceremonies taking place inside the kivas.

Priests of the Two-Horn Society via Wikipedia, Photograph of two “priests” of the Two-Horn Society sitting inside a kiva. Photograph by H.R. Voth, as seen in Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters, New York: Penguin, 1963.
Two-Horn Society image via U.S. History, Fewkes, Walter. “Fire Worship of the Hopi Indians.” Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institute. Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1920.

Ancient Origins elaborates on the legend:

“One of the most intriguing Hopi legends involves the Ant People, who were crucial to the survival of the Hopi—not just once but twice. The so-called “First World” (or world-age) was apparently destroyed by fire—possibly some sort of volcanism, asteroid strike, or coronal mass ejection from the sun. The Second World was destroyed by ice—Ice Age glaciers or a pole shift. During these two global cataclysms, the virtuous members of the Hopi tribe were guided by an odd-shaped cloud during the day and a moving star at night that led them to the sky god named Sotuknang, who finally took them to the Ant People—in Hopi, Anu Sinom . The Ant People then escorted the Hopi into subterranean caves where they found refuge and sustenance.”

Stories that giants and other strange beings have lived deep inside the Earth are seen around the globe. In the Hopi legend, these beings were benevolent and helped the tribe even to their own detriment.

“In this legend, the Ant People are portrayed as generous and industrious, giving the Hopi food when supplies ran short and teaching them the merits of food storage. In fact, another legend says that the reason why the ants have such thin waists today is because they once deprived themselves of provisions in order to feed the Hopi.”

The thin waisted ants with their elongated heads and antennae resemble some of the ancient petroglyphs. Across the globe, an African species of Ant called the Pharaoh Ant to remind some of a tiny version of Pharoah Akhenaten, famous for his strange alien appearance.

Pharoah Ant, Monomorium pharaonis

The History Channel’s Ancient Aliens series covers this subject in Series 4, episode 9 (See a clip below). In addition to depictions of the Ant, People are wall paintings that show an unmistakable similarity to cuneiform symbols from ancient Sumeria. These symbols are associated with the “WingMakers,” according to the show.


Just as in ancient Egypt, there were matriarchal dynasties, DNA findings from Chaco Canyon show a possible maternal dynasty that ruled for hundreds of years between A.D. 800 and 1250. Scientific American published a story on this in 2017 after researchers examined the remains of 14 people found a burial crypt that ended up at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.


The Chaco Canyon settlement had thousands of Anasazi inhabitants, who believed in protecting Mother Earth. However, the ancient Puebloans mysteriously disappeared, along with any signs of the Ant People. Today researchers believe that climate change drove them away as the growing population couldn’t sustain itself.

The Anasazi integrated with tribes like the Hopi, Zuni, and Rio Grande Pueblo. As the modern world faces extreme challenges from climate change today, the teachings of these tribes are more important than ever. Can we learn to respect the natural world and live in harmony with Mother Earth? Or are we headed for inevitable disasters, like those described in the Hopi legends?

Ancient Astronaut theorists often speculate if extraterrestrial beings could play a part in helping humans overcome impending future disasters. In the case of the Hopi legends, it appears they did just that. Could the Ant People return from deep in the Earth or from their home in the stars in our time of need?

ASIA, EUROPE, RUSSIA, WORLD

24,000-Year-Old Animal Found Alive After Being Preserved in Siberian Permafrost

24,000-Year-Old Animal Found Alive After Being Preserved in Siberian Permafrost

During the Upper Paleolithic era, a multicellular organism was frozen almost the time in history when humans first set foot into North America. About 24,000 years later, it has been found alive after sleeping for millennia. 

(FILES) In this file photo taken on April 12, 2019, Melting permafrost tundra at the town of Quinhagak on the Yukon Delta in Alaska. – As far back as he can remember, Willard Church Jr. has gone out ice fishing well into the month of April, chopping holes that were easily four feet deep into the Kanektok River near his home. But the waterway that runs along with the village of Quinhagak, in southwest Alaska, barely freezes now, a testament to the warming temperatures wreaking havoc on the state’s indigenous people and their subsistence way of life.

This turned out to be a very huge discovery and might have changed the theory of how long organisms and perhaps humans can be preserved for generations.

Discovery of Bdelloid Rotifer 

Bdelloid rotifer – a freshwater creature – is too tiny to see with the naked eye, measuring around 150 and 700 μm. The microorganism can be found in waters around the world. This animal survived being frozen for many years through a remarkable means of cloning itself multiple times through an asexual reproduction form called parthenogenesis, according to Accuweather.

This discovery, therefore, brought about questions on the reversible standstill lack of life theory or mechanism of the cryptobiosis.

These findings were done by researchers from the Soil Cryology Laboratory in Pushchino, Russia. It was discovered from a soil sample collected from permafrost in northeastern Siberian.

This age discovery was really surprising to the researcher as it felt really unbelievable that the animal was alive and doing well.

The permafrost sample of this creature was collected from the Alazeya River, which flows from Siberia into the Arctic. Researchers also confirmed that there was no movement of the bdelloid rotifer due to the icy nature of the ground.

Research Findings

“The takeaway is that a multicellular organism can be frozen and stored as such for thousands of years and then return back to life – a dream of many fiction writers,” Malvin, an author on this study stated.

He further talked about how big this discovery was and how it has totally changed the ideology of organism preservation.

This discovery might have been revolutionary and has added to the small number of organisms that have been found to be able to survive such extraordinary timespans but more are still yet to be uncovered.

The more complex an organism becomes, the more difficult it is to preserve alive, like in mammals, as per Smithsonian Magazine.

24,000-Year-Old Animal Found Alive After Being Preserved in Siberian Permafrost
The frozen carcass of a 39,000-year-old female woolly mammoth named Yuka from the Siberian permafrost is displayed for an exhibition in Yokohama, suburban Tokyo, at a press preview before the opening. The carcass will be shown to the public during an exhibition at Pacifico Yokohama.

Other Organisms That Survived Extraordinary Timespans

In Russia, a pair of prehistoric nematodes, also called roundworms, were discovered and successfully revived, it is said to have been between 30,000 and 42,000 years old.

Studies have shown that over the years, a lot of organisms have been revived from their frozen state but what makes this new discovery more interesting is that none of these past organisms is as complex as the bdelloid rotifer.

Additionally, there have been discoveries on the dead but frozen larger species like the 20,000-year-old woolly rhino that was discovered by a Siberian farmer in the area of Yakutia in 2021 and the 57,000-year-old Pleistocene grey wolf puppy, the most perfectly preserved animal of its kind.

More research is still to be made on this study. The hope is that insights from these tiny animals will offer clues as to how better to cryo-preserve the cells, tissues, and organs of other animals, including humans.

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Ice Age humans in Israel lived the good life while contemporaries starved — study

Ice Age humans in Israel lived the good life while contemporaries starved — study

Researchers in Israel recently uncovered remains that revealed the life of ancient humans that lived near the Sea of Galilee about 23,000 years ago. With this new discovery, experts were able to figure out how these residents managed to thrive amid the Ice Age.

A gazelle in southern Israel, July 14, 2017. Ice Age humans feasted on gazelle, along with smaller prey animals, according to a new Hebrew University study.

One of Israel’s leading academic institutions, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU), and its Institute of Archeology team and colleagues worked together to figure out how these ancient tribes thrived.

About Israel’s Ohalo II 

According to their research of the animal remains, the team found that ice age survivors lived a good life while most of their contemporaries were facing hunger and starvation. This is mainly because of the extremely cold temperatures on Earth at the time of their existence.

The Israeli site of Ohalo II was inhabited between 23,500 and 22,500 years ago, during the conclusion of the last Ice Age (“Last Glacial Maximum”). The brush huts and plant relics at Ohalo II have been preserved to an exceptional degree.

Excavation of the site by Prof. Dani Nadel of the University of Haifa in conjunction with HU Professor Rivka Rabinovich and HU doctoral student Tikvah Steiner allowed the researchers to learn more about the ancient occupants’ eating habits and widespread use of animal parts. 

Many parts of North America, Northern Europe and Asia were blanketed by ice sheets during the Last Glacial Maximum, as per Phys.org.

This caused severe drought, desertification and a significant drop in sea levels. Ohalo II was discovered in 1989 when the water level of the Sea of Galilee was reduced by several meters due to drought. There were two sets of excavations: one in 1989-1991 and the other in 1998-2001. 

About 9 kilometres south of Tiberias, on the southernmost part of the contemporary Sea of Galilee, lies this sprawling 2000-meter-long archaeological complex. An adult male’s burial and the ruins of six oval-shaped brush houses are among the many artefacts found on the site, as are a variety of other structures and piles of rubbish.

Fisher-hunter-gatherers’ lifestyles throughout that time period can be gleaned from the abundance of organic and inorganic elements. 

Animal Bones Discovered at the Site

Cut marks on ancient gazelle bones found at the Ohalo II archaeological site.

In addition to a large number and variety of animal bones found at the site (including gazelles, deer, hares, and foxes), the team also examined other evidence, such as charred plant remains and flint tools, to draw the conclusion that Ohalo II presents a distinct picture of subsistence from most other early Epipaleolithic sites in the area. 

These individuals were able to take advantage of a wide range of edible plants, animals and reptiles as well as birds and fish in the Upper Jordan Valley at Ohalo II during the Last Glacial Maximum, according to The Times of Israel.

With the ability to hunt large creatures, these occupants also had the means and time necessary to fully exploit animal carcasses down to the marrow, said Steiner. 

Identification of the Animal Species 

An investigation into the three distinct occupants of one of the huts revealed the presence of reptile, bird, and mammal remains. Bone sizes were measured and spectroscopic analysis of bone surfaces was performed to detect evidence of cutting and wear as part of the study’s identification and quantification.

Additionally, Dr. Rebecca Biton, a herpetology expert and post-doctoral student at Hebrew University, found that the turtles were all the same size, which could indicate that the hunters deliberately selected a specific size of the turtle shell. 

Rather than showing a decrease in food availability, Steiner and her colleagues feel that the site’s data show an increase in the variety of food sources. At the beginning of the Epipaleolithic period, Ohalo II is a remarkable example of a truly broad-spectrum economy.

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