Scientists uncover 20,000-year-old Ice Age woolly rhino in Russia

Scientists uncover 20,000-year-old Ice Age woolly rhino in Russia

During a search in Russia’s permafrost, an animal dating back at least 20,000 years was discovered and it is over 80% preserved and straight-up wild to see. The woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) was once a common species throughout Europe and Northern Asia.

On average, they were between 9.8 to 12.5 ft from head to tail and would weigh between 4,000 and 6,000 pounds once fully grown. Their closest living genetic relative is the Sumatran rhinoceros but looking at a picture of them they almost appear as if a unicorn made babies with an American buffalo.

These Wooly Rhinos had two horns, one big and one small(er). The bigger horn would measure up to 4.6 feet and the horn itself would weigh over 33 pounds.

As you can tell, I’m learning all of this on the fly because I’ve only ever heard of this species once before today. It’s not like this is one of those animals they taught us about in elementary school.

Well, according to the Siberian Times, archaeologists found a juvenile (estimate 3 to 5 years old) wooly rhino ‘in permafrost deposits by river Tirekhtyakh in the Abyisky ulus (district) of the Republic of Sakha.’ I did a quick search on Google Maps of that location and it’s in eastern Russia almost straight north of North Korea.

It is a little grizzly. After all, it’s a 20,000+ year old animal and not a newborn bunny. But it’s crazy to see how intact it is:

Scientists uncover 20,000-year-old Ice Age woolly rhino in Russia
It is the best preserved to date juvenile woolly rhino ever found in Yakutia, with a lot of its internal organs – including its teeth, part of the intestines, a lump of fat and tissues – kept intact for thousands of years in permafrost

The juvenile rhino with thick hazel-colored hair and the horn, found next to the carcass was discovered in the middle of August in permafrost deposits by river Tirekhtyakh in the Abyisky ulus (district) of the Republic of Sakha.

The sensational discovery is still in the Arctic Yakutia waiting for ice roads to form so that it can be delivered to scientists in the republic’s capital Yakutsk.

It is the best-preserved to date juvenile woolly rhino ever found in Yakutia, with a lot of its internal organs – including its teeth, part of the intestines, a lump of fat and tissues – kept intact for thousands of years in permafrost.

‘The young rhino was between three and four years old and lived separately from its mother when it died, most likely by drowning’, said Dr. Valery Plotnikov from the Academy of Sciences who has been to the discovery site and made the first description of the find.

‘The gender of the animal is still unknown. We are waiting for the radiocarbon analyses to define when it lived, the most likely range of dates is between 20,000 and 50,000 years ago.

The rhino has a very thick short underfur, very likely it died in summer’, Dr. Plotnikov said. (via Siberian Times)

It’s absolutely wild that its last meal was intact in its stomach too. They are waiting on analysis of the contents from the rhino’s stomach and internal organs to try and determine what exactly it was eating.

Despite its awesome horns that I would’ve assumed was for picking up monkeys out of trees, the woolly rhinoceros primarily ate grass and sedges. Due to their massive sizes, they had to eat A LOT of grass to sustain themselves which wasn’t exactly easy during an ice age.

To read more about this fascinating discovery, you can head on over to the Siberian Times which has a lot of information about this discovery along with a few other rare discoveries from this year including two extinct cave lion cubs.

Using Ancient Farming Technique, an African Man Who Stopped a Desert

Using Ancient Farming Technique, an African Man Who Stopped a Desert

Yacouba Sawadogo, a farmer from Burkina Faso, stopped desertification in his village by working together with his family to plant trees that have now grown into a vast forest. This in response to a long dry spell that, coupled with over-farming, over-grazing and over-population were plaguing the northern part of the country.

Initially, farmers in his community ridiculed him and thought he was going mad.

Reviving the forest with ancient techniques

With no access to modern tools and lack of education, he started using an ancient African farming practice called Zai, which leads to forest growth and improved soil quality.

Yacouba Sawadogo, the farmer from Burkina Faso who stopped the advance of desertification by reviving the forest using the ancient African practice of Zai

Gradually, the barren land was transformed into a forty-hectare forest containing over 96 tree and 66 plant species, many of which edible and medicinal, as well as a number of animals.

Thomas Sankara (who was President of Burkina Faso between 1983 and 1987, editor’s note) launched an appeal to develop initiatives to stop the advancement of the desert – Sawadogo recounts – and when he came to see my work, he asked me what technique I was using and I told him it was Zai. That’s why I’m also known as Yacoub Zai”.

Two Farming Techniques

Zaï is a farming technique that has been used traditionally in the western part of the Sahel, which includes Burkina Faso. In essence, this technique involves the digging of holes in the soil that is not very permeable, so that runoff can be collected.

These holes have a depth that ranges from 5 to 15 cm (1.97-5.91 inches), and a diameter of between 15 and 50 cm (5.91-19.69 inches). Fertilizers or compost may be placed in the holes to increase the number of nutrients in the soil.

Crops may then be planted in these holes. The advantages of this technique are many. For instance, this is a simple and cheap technique that may be utilized by any farmer. It is, however, a labor-intensive technique, and therefore, the cost is higher in terms of manpower. In addition, farmers need to monitor and maintain their Zaï holes. Nevertheless, the efficacy of Zaï is evident, as its use has resulted in increased crop yield.

Another traditional technique employed by Sawadogo is known as cordons pierreux. Like Zaï, this technique is aimed at using runoff to combat desertification. Whilst the Zaï holes collect runoff, the cordons pierreux prevent the runoff from going to waste by slowing its flow.

This technique uses small blocks of rubble or stones that are arranged in a thin line across the field, which slows down the flow of runoff, thus allowing more time for the water to penetrate the earth.

Zaï farming technique.

The Man Who Stopped the Desert, the documentary

After embarking on such ground-breaking work in the semi-arid African desert, Sawadogo was featured in a 2010 documentary, The Man Who Stopped the Desert, becoming famous around the world.

In addition, he has conferred the Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the “alternative Nobel Prize” in 2018, “for turning barren land into forest and demonstrating how farmers can regenerate their soil with innovative use of indigenous and local knowledge”.

The Man Who Stopped The Desert (documentary)

Partners coming on board

The technique he utilizes, Zai, has also spread to neighboring Mali, and he teaches it to the many people who come to learn from him.

“I want to design a training program that will be the starting point for many fruitful exchanges across the region and there are so many farmers from neighboring villages that visit me for advice on good quality seeds to plant,” Sawadogo says. “I’ve chosen not to keep my farming methods as secrets to myself”.

Even the Centre on International Cooperation (CIC), a foreign policy think tank based in New York University, proposes to encourage millions of Western African farmers to invest in trees.

This will help them improve their food security and climate change adaptation, according to natural resources management specialist Chris Reji.

Threats to the forest haven’t stopped hope

Today, Sawadogo is facing serious problems from several quarters. Northern Burkina Faso has become increasingly volatile due to incursions by jihadist groups and inter-communal conflict, which have brought insurgent attacks and social unrest.

An expansion project in the area has taken up a considerable portion of the forest he spent years growing: homes have been built on his land, with little compensation being offered. In addition, the entire family is on guard to protect the area from people wanting to steal wood.

However, the farmer’s message about the future of the environment and conservation remains profound. “If you cut down ten trees a day and fail to plant even once a year, we’re headed for destruction”.

A 5,000-year-old relic from the Great Pyramid discovered in a cigar box in Scotland

A 5,000-year-old relic from the Great Pyramid discovered in a cigar box in Scotland

A ‘chance discovery’ at the University of Aberdeen could shed new light on the Great Pyramid with museum staff uncovering a ‘lost’ artifact – one of only three objects ever recovered from inside the Wonder of the Ancient World.

In 1872 the engineer Waynman Dixon discovered a trio of items inside the pyramid’s Queen’s Chamber, which became known as the ‘Dixon relics’.

Two of them – a ball and hook – are now housed in the British Museum however the third, a fragment of wood, has been missing for more than 70 years.

The box was found among the Asia archives at the University of Aberdeen
The box was found among the Asia archives at the University of Aberdeen

The lost piece of cedar has generated many theories about its purpose and date and holds particular significance because of the potential for radiocarbon dating. Some have speculated that it was part of a measuring rule which could reveal clues regarding the pyramid’s construction.

In 2001 a record was identified which indicated the wood fragment may have been donated to the University of Aberdeen’s museum collections as a result of a connection between Dixon and James Grant, who was born in Methlick in 1840.

Grant studied medicine at the university and in the mid-1860s went to Egypt to help with an outbreak of cholera where he befriended Dixon and went on to assist him with the exploration of the Great Pyramid, where together they discovered the relics.

A 5,000-year-old relic from the Great Pyramid discovered in a cigar box in Scotland
The cigar box with wooden fragments had been added to the museum’s Asia collection, but actually housed the Egyptian relics.

The finding was widely reported at the time, with a British newspaper, ‘The Graphic’, carrying a story on the important discovery in December 1872 which stated: ‘Although they possess a remarkable interest, not alone on account of their vast antiquity, from the evidence they are likely to afford as to the correctness of the many theories formed by Sir Isaac Newton and others as to the weights and measures in use by the builders of the pyramids. The position in which they have left shows that they must have been left there whilst the work was going on, and at an early period of its construction’.

Following Grant’s death in 1895, his collections were bequeathed to the University, while the ‘five-inch piece of cedar’ was donated by his daughter in 1946. However, it was never classified and despite an extensive search, could not be located.

Then at the end of last year, curatorial assistant Abeer Eladany was conducting a review of items housed in the University’s Asia collection.

Abeer Eladany with the cigar box and pieces of wood.

Abeer, who is originally from Egypt and spent 10 years working in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, was immediately intrigued and, noting that the item had the country’s former flag on the top and did not seem to belong in the Asian collection, cross-referenced it with other records. It was then that she realized just what she was holding.

It may be just a small fragment of wood, which is now in several pieces, but it is hugely significant given that it is one of only three items ever to be recovered from inside the Great Pyramid”

Abeer Eladany

“Once I looked into the numbers in our Egypt records, I instantly knew what it was and that it had effectively been hidden in plain sight in the wrong collection,” she said. “I’m an archaeologist and have worked on digs in Egypt but I never imagined it would be here in north-east Scotland that I’d find something so important to the heritage of my own country.

“It may be just a small fragment of wood, which is now in several pieces, but it is hugely significant given that it is one of only three items ever to be recovered from inside the Great Pyramid.

“The University’s collections are vast – running to hundreds of thousands of items – so looking for it has been like finding a needle in a haystack. I couldn’t believe it when I realized what was inside this innocuous-looking cigar tin.”

Covid restrictions delayed the dating of the ‘lost’ cedar fragment which originally belonged to a much larger piece of wood, which was most recently seen in a 1993 exploration of the interior of the pyramid by a robotic camera is hidden and now unreachable voids.

Results have recently been returned and show that the wood can be dated to somewhere in the period 3341-3094BC – some 500 years earlier than historical records which date the Great Pyramid to the reign of the Pharaoh Khufu in 2580-2560BC.

This supports the idea that – whatever their use – the Dixon Relics were original to the construction of the Great Pyramid and not later artifacts left behind by those exploring the chambers.

Neil Curtis, Head of Museums and Special Collections at the University of Aberdeen, said: “Finding the missing Dixon Relic was a surprise but the carbon dating has also been quite a revelation.

“It is even older than we had imagined. This may be because the date relates to the age of the wood, maybe from the center of a long-lived tree. Alternatively, it could be because of the rarity of trees in ancient Egypt, which meant that wood was scarce, treasured, and recycled or cared for over many years.

“It will now be for scholars to debate its use and whether it was deliberately deposited, as happened later during the New Kingdom when pharaohs tried to emphasize continuity with the past by having antiquities buried with them.

“This discovery will certainly reignite interest in the Dixon Relics and how they can shed light on the Great Pyramid.”

The Nine Mile Canyon in the Utah desert is the world’s longest & oldest ‘art gallery’

The Nine Mile Canyon in the Utah desert is the world’s longest & oldest ‘art gallery’

Situated in the desert of eastern Utah, The Nine Mile Canyon is the world’s longest art gallery. This canyon is home to tens of thousands of petroglyphs and pictographs over a 40-mile stretch.

The canyon’s art was created by the culture of Fremont and the people of Ute and depicts everything from local wildlife to cultural displays and beliefs.

This site of over 10,000 pictures, as you can imagine, is a treasure trove of information for archaeologists and an opportunity for visitors to step back in time a thousand years ago. In the 1880s, this canyon was used to transport goods through the eastern Utah mountains.

Nine Mile Canyon Petroglyphs

A road was constructed through the canyon in 1886 to connect Fort Duchesne to the railroad line located in Price, Utah. However, today the canyon is primarily visited by tourists interested in learning more about the Ute and Fremont people.

The area is currently being appraised for the natural gas that lies within the Tavaputs Plateau. Development of this natural gas resource could impact local art, causing ongoing debates on how best to proceed.

The canyon formed from the small Nine Mile Creek, a tributary of the larger Green River which empties into Desolation Canyon. Although the creek is not a major body of water, it is one of the few year-round and reliable sources of water in an otherwise desert climate.

The Nine Mile Canyon consists of interbedded sandstone, mudstone and shallow water limestone. The changes in rock type record changes in the expansion and contraction of the ancient Lake Uinta.

The Green River Formation, which sits higher than the sandstone units used for petroglyphs is an Eocene sedimentary group. The formation is located in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah in the location of Nine Mile Canyon.

The Green River Formation is the largest oil shale in the world with an estimated reserve of up to 3 trillion barrels of oil. This is larger than the entire oil resource in Saudi Arabia and holds a significant portion of the United States oil resources.

Why, then, have you likely never heard of the Green River Formation and oil and gas development therein? The hydrocarbons in the Green River Formation are in a solid form (as opposed to liquid or gaseous for most hydrocarbon development), which poses significant issues with development.

In order to unlock the oil one must heat the shale and essentially “cook” out the hydrocarbons, an incredibly expensive process.

In total, there are 10,000 individual images within Nine Mile Canyon located at over 1,000 archaeological sites. Many of the depictions were produced by the Fremont from 950 to 1250 AD.

The Fremont, advanced for their time, practised established agriculture, growing crops of corn and squash in the canyon floor. The Fremont build irrigation ditches along the canyon edges as a way to divert water to crop areas.

Nine Mile Canyon lies in eastern Utah

As we step forward to the 16th century the Utes dominated the region and added to the rock art that was previously created by the Fremont.

Several hundred years later in the late 19th century, there is the first mention of the Nine Mile Canyon in journals of American fur traders.

The petroglyphs and pictographs are carved and painted on an easily weathered sandstone, making the depictions vulnerable to destruction. The walls of the canyon are adorned with hunting scenes and a wide array of animals including birds, sheep, bison and lizards.

In 2004 the Nine Mile Canyon included on the National Trust for Historic Preservation list of America’s Most Endangered Places. This was largely due to increased natural gas development in the area and tourist activity.

99-Million-Year-Old Fossil Flower Found Encased in Burmese Amber

99-Million-Year-Old Fossil Flower Found Encased in Burmese Amber

Oregon State University researchers have identified a spectacular new genus and species of flower from the mid-Cretaceous period, a male specimen whose sunburst-like reach for the heavens was frozen in time by Burmese amber.

“This isn’t quite a Christmas flower but it is a beauty, especially considering it was part of a forest that existed 100 million years ago,” said George Poinar Jr., professor emeritus in the OSU College of Science.

Findings were published in the Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas.

Valviloculus pleristaminis, flower in lateral view.

“The male flower is tiny, about 2 millimetres across, but it has some 50 stamens arranged like a spiral, with anthers pointing toward the sky,” said Poinar, an international expert in using plant and animal life forms preserved in amber to learn more about the biology and ecology of the distant past.

A stamen consists of an anther — the pollen-producing head — and a filament, the stalk that connects the anther to the flower.

“Despite being so small, the detail still remaining is amazing,” Poinar said. “Our specimen was probably part of a cluster on the plant that contained many similar flowers, some possibly female.”

Valviloculus pleristaminis, center of flower in apical view.

The new discovery has an egg-shaped, hollow floral cup — the part of the flower from which the stamens emanate; an outer layer consisting of six petal-like components known as tepals; and two-chamber anthers, with pollen sacs that split open via laterally hinged valves.

Poinar and collaborators at OSU and the U.S. Department of Agriculture named the new flower Valviloculus pleristaminis. Valva is the Latin term for the leaf on a folding door, loculus means compartment, plerus refers to many, and staminis reflects the flower’s dozens of male sex organs.

The flower became encased in amber on the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana and rafted on a continental plate some 4,000 miles across the ocean from Australia to Southeast Asia, Poinar said.

Geologists have been debating just when this chunk of land — known as the West Burma Block — broke away from Gondwana. Some believe it was 200 million years ago; others claim it was more like 500 million years ago.

Numerous angiosperm flowers have been discovered in Burmese amber, the majority of which have been described by Poinar and a colleague at Oregon State, Kenton Chambers, who also collaborated on this research.

Angiosperms are vascular plants with stems, roots and leaves, with eggs that are fertilized and develop inside the flower.

Since angiosperms only evolved and diversified about 100 million years ago, the West Burma Block could not have broken off from Gondwana before then, Poinar said, which is much later than dates that have been suggested by geologists.

Joining Poinar and Chambers, a botany and plant pathology researcher in the OSU College of Agricultural Sciences, on the paper were Oregon State’s Urszula Iwaniec and the USDA’s Fernando Vega.

Iwaniec is a researcher in the Skeletal Biology Laboratory in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences and Vega works in the Sustainable Perennial Crops Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland.

Traces of Possible Neolithic Tsunami Found in Israel

Traces of Possible Neolithic Tsunami Found in Israel

Prehistoric tsunami disasters had a significant impact on coastal societies,” said lead author Dr Gilad Shtienberg from the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues at the Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology.”

“6,000 years of historical records and geological data show that tsunamis are a common phenomenon affecting the eastern Mediterranean coastline, occurring at a rate of around 8 events per century in the Aegean region over the past 2,000 years and approximately 10 per century over the past 3,000 years in the Levant basin.”

“Most of these events are small and have only local impacts.”

In the study, the researchers found a large paleo-tsunami deposit (between 9,910 to 9,290 years ago) at the archaeological site of Tel Dor in northwest Israel.

“Tel Dor, located along the Carmel coast of northwest Israel, is a maritime city-mound that has been occupied from the Middle Bronze II period (2000 to 1550 BCE) throughout the Roman period (3rd century CE) while Byzantine and Crusader remains are also found on the tel,” they said.

“The local environment of Dor is characterized by a series of unique embayments/pocket beaches that stand out from the linear morphology of the southeastern Mediterranean littoral shoreface.”

To conduct their analysis, the scientists used photogrammetric remote sensing techniques to create a digital model of the Tel Dor site, combined with underwater excavation and terrestrial borehole drilling to a depth of 9 m (29.5 feet).

In their samples, they found an abrupt layer of seashells and sand, dated to between 9,910 and 9,290 years ago, in the middle wetland layers deposited 15,000 to 7,800 years ago.

They estimate that the ancient tsunami had a run-up of at least 16 m and travelled between 3.5 to 1.5 km inland from the paleo-coastline.

The near absence of Pre-Pottery Neolithic A-B archaeological sites (11,700-9,800 years ago) suggest these sites were removed by the tsunami, whereas younger, late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B-C (9,250-8,350 years ago) and later Pottery-Neolithic sites (8,250-7,800 years ago) indicate resettlement following the event.

“We can’t know for sure why people weren’t living there, in a place otherwise abundant with evidence of early human habitation and the beginnings of village life in the Holy Land,” said Professor Thomas Levy, a researcher in the Department of Anthropology and the Levant and Cyber-Archaeology Laboratory in the Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology at the University of California, San Diego.

“Was the environment too altered to support life? Was the tsunami part of their cultural knowledge — did they tell stories of this destructive event and stay away? We can only imagine.”

“Our project focuses on reconstructing ancient climate and environmental change over the past 12,000 years along the Israeli coast, and we never dreamed of finding evidence of a prehistoric tsunami in Israel,” Dr Shtienberg said.

“Scholars know that at the beginning of the Neolithic, around 10,000 years ago, the seashore was 4 km (2.5 miles) from where it is today.”

“When we cut the cores open in San Diego and started seeing a marine shell layer embedded in the dry Neolithic landscape, we knew we hit the jackpot.”

Mosaics From The Roman Era Were Just Uncovered In Lebanon

Mosaics From The Roman Era Were Just Uncovered In Lebanon

Arab News reports that a six-foot section of Roman mosaic dated to between 60 B.C. and A.D. 300 was uncovered in the city of Baalbek, which is located in eastern Lebanon, during work to install sewage pipes.

The two-meter-long artefact was uncovered under a municipality building by a team of workers from the Lebanese Organization for Studies and Training who were carrying out excavations to extend a drainage network.

A technical team from the Directorate General of Antiquities in Baalbek protected the coloured mosaic with sand and special geotextile covering.

City Mayor Fouad Blog said: “Baalbek is one of the most important cities in Lebanon and, indeed, the world because of its archaeological monuments and riches dating back to the Phoenician, Roman, Greek, Byzantine, Arabic and Islamic eras.”

He called on state authorities “to give Baalbek more care and attention, and to meet our vision with a strategic plan to search for lost treasures, and highlight the cultural, human and civilizational value of the city.”

Baalbek was famous throughout the ages due to its location at the intersection of several major trading routes.

The Romans built huge temples, the ruins of which are still perched on the edge of the city after an earthquake around 600 A.D. destroyed many landmarks. The Temple of Jupiter, one of the most imposing Roman sites, has only six of its original 54 columns remaining.

Dr Jaafar Fadlallah, professor of archaeology, told Arab News: “The Lebanese should not be surprised by the antiquities that can be found in Baalbek.

The extent of the ancient city is not known yet. No one knows where the graveyards of that era are located.”

He added: “The coloured mosaic found on Tuesday indicates that the place was a huge hall within a Roman palace. Roman Baalbek was inhabited by many emperors, and it is rich with the distinctive architecture that surrounded the ancient temples.”

Fadlallah said that during the second half of the 20th century, the Department of Antiquities failed to stop people from building on land that could be rich in antiquities.

During the civil war in the 1970s, people built on archaeological sites in violation of the law. Any excavation work “could reveal buried monuments,” he added.

Archaeologists uncover ancient street food shop in Pompeii

Archaeologists uncover ancient street food shop in Pompeii

Archaeologists in Pompeii, the city buried in a volcanic eruption in 79 AD, have made the extraordinary find of a frescoed hot food and drinks shop that served up the ancient equivalent of street food to Roman passersby.

Known as a termopolium, Latin for hot drinks counter, the shop was discovered in the archaeological park’s Regio V site, which is not yet open the public, and unveiled on Saturday.

Traces of nearly 2,000-year-old food were found in some of the deep terra cotta jars containing hot food which the shop keeper lowered into a counter with circular holes.

Frescoes on an ancient counter discovered during excavations in Pompeii, Italy.

The front of the counter was decorated with brightly coloured frescoes, some depicting animals that were part of the ingredients in the food sold, such as a chicken and two ducks hanging upside down.

“This is an extraordinary find. It’s the first time we are excavating an entire termopolium,” said Massimo Ossana, director of the Pompeii archaeological park.

Archaeologists also found a decorated bronze drinking bowl known as a patera, ceramic jars used for cooking stews and soups, wine flasks and amphora.

Pompeii, 23 km southeast of Naples, was home to about 13,000 people when it was buried under ash, pumice pebbles and dust as it endured the force of an eruption equivalent to many atomic bombs.

“Our preliminary analyses show that the figures drawn on the front of the counter, represent, at least in part, the food and drink that were sold there,” said Valeria Amoretti, a site anthropologist.

Amoretti said traces of pork, fish, snails and beef had been found in the containers, a discovery she called a “testimony to the great variety of animal products used to prepare dishes”.

About two-thirds of the 66-hectare (165-acre) ancient town has been uncovered. The ruins were not discovered until the 16th century and organised excavations began about 1750.

Rare documentation of Greco-Roman life, Pompeii is one of Italy’s most popular attractions and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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