EUROPE, SPAIN, WORLD

17th-Century English Book Found in College Library in Spain

17th-Century English Book Found in College Library in Spain

BBC News reports that John Stone of the University of Barcelona has found a 1634 printing of The Two Noble Kinsmen, a play written by William Shakespeare with John Fletcher, a house playwright for the theater group the King’s Men.

The volume dating to 1634 was found by an academic researching Scots economist Adam Smith

The play appears in a book of English plays held at the Royal Scots College, which is now located in Salamanca, Spain. In the 17th Century, the seminary in Madrid was an important source of English literature for Spanish intellectuals.

The Two Noble Kinsmen was included in a volume made up of several English plays printed from 1630 to 1635. Dr. John Stone, of the University of Barcelona, said he found it among old books in the library of the Real Colegio de Escoceses – Royal Scots College (RSC) -which is now in Salamanca.

The book is still in its original 17th Century leather binding and was found cataloged under a philosophy

What is The Two Noble Kinsmen about?

“Friendship turns to rivalry in this study of the intoxication and strangeness of love,” is how the Royal Shakespeare Company described the play, which is based on Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale.

It was probably written around 1613-14 by Shakespeare and John Fletcher, one of the house playwrights in Bard’s theatre company the King’s Men. It was likely to have been Shakespeare’s last play before he retired to Stratford-on-Avon. He died there in 1616 at the age of 52.

Described as a “tragicomedy” the play features best friends, who are knights captured in a battle. From the window of their prison, they see a beautiful woman with whom they each fall in love.

Within a moment they have turned from intimate friends too jealous rivals in a strange love story that features absurd adventures and confusion.

Dr. Stone, who has worked in Edinburgh and Aberdeen, said: “It is likely these plays arrived as part of some student’s personal library or at the request of the rector of the Royal Scots College, Hugh Semple, who was friends with the Spanish playwright Lope de Vega and had more plays in his personal library.

“It is likely these plays were acquired around 1635 by an English or Scottish traveller who might have wanted to take these plays – all London editions – with him to Madrid.

“By the 1630s English plays were increasingly associated with elite culture. This small community of Scots was briefly the most significant intellectual bridge between the Spanish and English-speaking worlds.”

Canadian John Stone formerly worked as a researcher at the National Library of Scotland and Aberdeen University

In the 17th and 18th Centuries collections of books in English were rare in Spain because of ecclesiastical censorship, but the Scots college had special authorization to import whatever they wanted.

Plays in English were exceptionally rare in the period – and it had previously been thought the oldest work by Shakespeare in Spain was a volume found in the Royal English College of Saint Alban in Valladolid.

It is thought to have arrived in Spain in the decade after the volume found in the Scots College. The rector of the Scots College, Father Tom Kilbride, said the college was proud such an important work had been discovered in its library.

Scots college was exempt from strict ecclesiastical censorship banning many books from circulation

He said: “It says a lot about the kind of education the trainee priests were getting from the foundation of the college in Madrid in 1627, a rounded education in which the culture of the period played an important part.

“To think that plays would have been read, and possibly performed at that time is quite exciting.

“There was clearly a great interest in Spain at that time in English literature.”

The RSC no longer trains men for the priesthood in Scotland, but offers preparatory six-month courses for those expressing a vocation, and holds regular retreats and conferences for the Scottish Catholic community.

In Act 5 scene 1 Arcite, one of the knights talks about “dusty and old titles”, which sums up the find in Salamanca.

EUROPE, IRELAND, WORLD

Medieval Monastery Excavated in Ireland’s County Meath

Medieval Monastery Excavated in Ireland’s County Meath

The Irish Independent reports that archaeologists led by Geraldine Stout have uncovered pottery; the bones of cows, sheep, cats, and dogs; seeds; nuts; a key; a timber dash-urn with a paddle for churning butter; and a bakery at the site of a thirteenth-century monastery in eastern Ireland.

The new findings were discovered by a team of archaeologists, led by experts Matthew and Geraldine Stout at Beamore in East Month during a four week Covid-19 dig. Armed with two-meter COVID Sticks to ensure social distancing and colour co-ordinated equipment to avoid cross-contamination, the team tried to decipher the size of the monastery by the number of sourdough loaves made each day.

“One loaf equals one monk so the size of the oven might suggest how many came from France to live and work at the monastery,” said Geraldine.

Medieval Monastery Excavated in Ireland’s County Meath
Sourdough bread

“We had to think long and hard if we were even going to do a dig this year in the times that were in it.”

“Everyone was divided into pods for cuttings (sections of excavation) and they stayed with that group for the month. Each cutting had colour coded equipment which was not to be passed around to other groups to minimize the risk of cross-contamination.

“I gave everyone what I called the ‘COVID stick’ which was a two-meter yellow-painted stick so they had an idea of the distance they had to stay away from another person.

“We also got a special wash portacabin which I never saw before which enabled us with hot water to wash our hands and there were sanitising stations everywhere.

“But as much as we had reservations at the start, the measures worked and the excavations have given us more questions to come back and answer next year.”

And if the Cistercians ever had to practice social distancing, it wasn’t obvious in their findings which included evidence to suggest a communal toilet and bakery at the self-sufficient site.

Last year, the excavation team discovered ‘significant’ find of a rare French building and medieval pottery which supported a long-held belief that the site was once home to a unique Cistercian monk community from Normandy. 13th-century French jugs, ceramic roof tiles, and even a corn drying kiln and dried peas which proved crop rotation was ongoing in the 13th century were found on the lands outside Drogheda, owned by local historian and author John McCullen.

Unusual features of an existing gatehouse in a field, suggesting a diagonal French buttress were described as ‘very rare, if not unique in Ireland’ according to two of Ireland’s foremost medieval building archaeologists David Sweetman and Con Manning. It is believed that the site was the home of a 13th Century medieval monastic farm associated with the French Cistercian foundation of De Bello Becco (Beaubec)

The excavations which ended in early August were the second of a €50,000 three-year project, funded by FBD Trust and administered through the Kilsharvan Community Council. Author and archaeologist Geraldine Stout has a particular interest in the Cistercians, having worked on a similar site in Bective in Meath and says they were great innovators and farmers.

“We know that Walter de Lacey gave lands to this Abbey in Beaubec before Normandy in 1201, so there would have been about 100 monks living here up until the 16th century,” she said

“De Bello Becco was flourishing in Ireland in 1302 when it had to pay a tithe of 29s 4d to the Diocese of Meath, which placed it in a group of the highest valued churches in Meath.

This year, the jackpot continued and finds included a medieval key, animal bones of cows, sheep, cats, and dog as well as mixed farming produce of peas, beans, oats, wheat, and rye. Fruits including grapes and figs which, the Stouts say, had to have been imported from France and were further evidence of mixed farming.

Medieval Monastery Excavated in Ireland’s County Meath
Pottery, animal bones, seeds, nuts, and more tell a tale of what everyday life was like in medieval times in a monastic settlement in Ireland.

“We also pushed back the dating of human settlement at Beamore with the discovery of a prehistoric ceremonial pit circle and stone tools beneath the medieval monastic farm”

Remnants of a medieval timber dash urn with a paddle that was used to church butter were also found to prove a long-held belief that the Monks were a self-sufficient community.

“In the main residential block, an impressive, communal latrine was found with thirteenth-century detailing and outside the main residential block we found evidence of a water system that supplied the needs of this community for toilets, washing and food preparation.

“We found a cellar in the ruins which suggest it could possibly have been used for toilet facilities as well as a pot that worked like a medieval air freshener,” says Matthew.

Geraldine believes: “There were between 30 and 50 monks living here. The smallest Cistercian settlement had 12 monks minimum and this is a more sizable community, looking at the scale of the building here.

“We know that each monk was given a loaf of bread for his day’s work so if we work out mathematically the size of the oven and how many loaves it could hold, it would suggest how many monks lived here.

“We were lucky to find waterlogged deposits which preserved a lot of timber and seeds for us so we can tell by the flat oats and cereal that the Monks made and ate sourdough bread – so I guess history and trends can repeat themselves,” she laughed.

EUROPE, GREECE, WORLD

3,000-Year-Old World’s Oldest Olive Tree on the Island of Crete Still Produces Olives Today

3,000-Year-Old World’s Oldest Olive Tree on the Island of Crete Still Produces Olives Today

One day about 3,000 years ago, at a time when the Minoan civilization still ruled over Crete and long before the rise of Classical Greece, an olive fell to the ground in the area of Vouves. Or perhaps it was deliberately planted there by a human hand.

Whichever the case, that olive seed sprouted and grew into a tree. And incredibly that tree is still alive today – and still producing fruit – one of the so-called ‘monumental olive trees’ of Crete.

The Olive tree of Vouves is an olive tree in the village of Ano Vouves in the municipal unit of Kolymvari in Chania regional unit, Crete, Greece. Probably one of the oldest olive trees in the world, it still produces olives today.

The exact age of the tree cannot be determined. The use of radioisotopes is not possible, as its heartwood has been lost down the centuries, while tree ring analysis demonstrated the tree to be at least 2,000 years old.

And on the other end of the scale, scientists from the University of Crete have estimated it to be 4,000 years old. A possible indicator of its age are the two cemeteries from the Geometric Period discovered near the tree.

Current research in Crete and abroad indicates that earlier estimates of the age of olive trees are to be debated as far as their accuracy. There is not yet an agreed-upon scientific method to ascertain the age of olive trees.

In the case of the Vouves Olive, it could be much younger than earlier estimates or even than the ancient tree in Finix (Sfakia).

In 2012, the Municipality of Platanias and Terra Creta organized for the first time a harvesting event where 55 kg of olives has been collected and 5.0 kg of olive oil was produced in a specially designed olive mill.

Olive oil, Vouves

In 1997, the tree was declared a protected natural monument, and in October 2009, the Olive Tree Museum of Vouves was inaugurated in a nearby 19th-century house, displaying the traditional tools and process of olive cultivation.

Branches from the tree were used to weave victors’ wreaths for the winners of the 2004 Athens Olympics and the 2008 Beijing Olympics. A terrestrial laser scanner ILRIS 3D for the external and a Minolta Vivid 910 for internal scans were used.

The 3D model of the Monumental Olive Tree of Vouves

The final produced result is a complete three-dimensional model of the trunk of the Monumental Olive Tree of Vouves with a geometry accuracy of 0.5 cm. Thousands of tourists visit the stunning tree every summer to marvel at it and learn its history.

Mostly they are impressed by its enormous shape and the imposing volume of the trunk, but also by the fact that it remains alive and fruitful for 3,000 years without pause.

PERU, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

Gigantic 2,000-Year-Old Killer Whale Geoglyph Found in Peru Desert

Gigantic 2,000-Year-Old Killer Whale Geoglyph Found in Peru Desert

Archeologists have rediscovered a giant geoglyph of the killer whale that has been carved to a desert hillside in the remote Palpa region of southern Peru for over fifty years.

Gigantic 2,000-Year-Old Killer Whale Geoglyph Found in Peru Desert
The rediscovered orca geoglyph lies on a desert hillside in the remote Palpa region of southern Peru.

According to researchers, the 230-foot orca figure, called in ancient Peruvian soul a strong semimythical creature, could be over 2,000 years old, researchers say.

It is said to be one of the oldest geoglyphs in the Palpa region, older than those in the Nazca region known for its vast collection of ancient ground markings– the Nazca lines – which include animal figures, straight lines, and geometric shapes.

Archaeologist Johny Isla, the head of Peru’s Ministry of Culture in Ica province, which includes the Palpa and Nazca valleys, explained that he saw a single photograph of the orca pattern for the first time about four years ago. He’d seen it while researching studies of geoglyphs at the German Archaeological Institute in Bonn.

The photograph appeared in an archaeological catalog of geoglyphs printed in the 1970s, which was based on research carried out in Palpa and Nazca by German archaeologists in the 1960s, Isla said.

But the location and size of the orca geoglyph were not well-described in the catalog, Isla told Ancient Origins in an email.

As a result, he said, the glyph’s whereabouts in the desert hills of the Palpa Valley, about 250 miles (400 kilometers) south of Lima, were by then unknown to local people or to scientists.

After returning to Peru, Isla looked for the orca geoglyph on Google Earth and then on foot. “It was not easy to find it, because the [location and description] data were not correct, and I almost lost hope,” he said. “However, I expanded the search area and finally found it a few months later,”

Orca art

After documenting the rediscovery, Isla led a team of six specialists from Peru’s Ministry of Culture in an effort to clean and restore the orca geoglyph in March and April this year.

Before the restoration, the geoglyph was disappearing due to erosion and the passage of time. “Being drawn on a slope, it is easier [for it] to suffer damage than [for] those figures that are in flat areas, such as those of the Nazca Pampa,” he said.

Until the restoration this year, time and erosion had almost obliterated the ancient orca geoglyph to untrained eyes.

The creators of the orca drew it on the hillside in negative relief by removing a thin layer of stones to form the outline of the figure. This is similar to the technique used by the people of the Nazca culture to create geoglyphs from about 100 B.C. to A.D. 800.

But some contrasting parts of the rediscovered pattern, such as the eyes, were created out of piles of stones, the researchers said. This technique was used by people of the older Paracas culture, who occupied the region from around 800 B.C. to 200 B.C.

Soil tests have indicated that the orca geoglyph dates from around 200 B.C. The style of the pattern and its location on a hillside, rather than on a plain, suggest that it may be one of the oldest geoglyphs in the region, said one of Isla’s colleagues, Markus Reindel of the German Archaeological Institute, in an interview in a German newspaper.

Isla said that before the restoration in 2017, it would have been hard for a layperson to see the orca. “With the eyes of an archaeologist, and after having seen the photo in the catalog and later in Google Earth, it was not very difficult,” he said. “However, [for] the eyes of a person without these advantages, it was a bit difficult.”

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Here’s A 2,000-year-old Ancient Roman Face Cream

Here’s A 2,000-year-old Ancient Roman Face Cream

The oldest face cream in the world was discovered by archaeologists who had excavated a Roman temple on the banks of London’s River Thames, with the finger prints of their last person 2,000 years ago.

The closely wrapped cylindrical tin, measuring 6 cm by 5 cm, was opened at the London Museum to reveal a pungent-smelling white cream.

“It looks like an ointment because there are finger prints in the lid. Someone who uses it last has applied it to something with their fingertips and has used the lid as a dish to take the ointment out,” museum curator Liz Barham said as she opened the box.

Archaeologists assume that the white cream, found in a well-sealed cylindrical tub, may either be a face cream or a face paint, and the canister was probably buried in a ritual offering, they claim.
Archaeologists assume that the white cream, found in a well-sealed cylindrical tub, may either be a face cream or a face paint, and the canister was probably buried in a ritual offering, they claim.

The superbly made canister, now on display at the museum, was made almost entirely of tin, a precious metal at that time. Perhaps a beauty treatment for a fashionable Roman lady or even a face paint used in temple ritual, the cream is currently undergoing scientific analysis.

“We don’t yet know whether the cream was medicinal, cosmetic or entirely ritualistic.

We’re lucky in London to have a marshy site where the contents of this completely sealed box must have been preserved very quickly – the metal is hardly corroded at all,” said Nansi Rosenberg, a senior archaeological consultant on the project.

“This is an extraordinary discovery,” Federico Nappo, an expert on ancient Roman cosmetics of Pompeii. “It is likely that the cream contains animal fats. We know that the Romans used donkey’s milk as a treatment for the skin. However, it should not be very difficult to find out the cream’s composition.”

The pot, which appears to have been deliberately hidden, was found at the bottom of a sealed ditch in Southwark, about two miles south of central London.

Placed at the point where three roads meet near the river crossing – Watling St from Dover, Stane St from Chichester and the bridgehead road over the Thames – the site contains the foundations of two Roman-Celtic temples, a guest house, an outdoor area suitable for mass worship, plinths for statues and a stone pillar.

The complex, which last year revealed a stone tablet with the earliest known inscription bearing the Roman name of London, dates to around the mid-2nd century. It is the first religious complex to be found in the capital, rare evidence of organized religion in London 2,000 years ago.

“The analysis and interpretation of the finds have only just begun, and I’ve no doubt there are further discoveries to be made as we piece together the jigsaw puzzle we’ve excavated,” Rosenberg said. “But it already alters our whole perception – Southwark was a major religious focus of the Roman capital.”

Since excavation work was completed, the site will now become a residential development housing 521 apartments.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

1,800-year-old Roman penis carvings discovered near Hadrian’s Wall

1,800-year-old Roman penis carvings discovered near Hadrian’s Wall

Hadrian’s Wall was a barrier constructed by the Romans to protect them from enemy hordes of barbarians. What remains of the structure is millennia old, and it remains a testament to its structural integrity to this day.

Repairs were often required, of course, for which loyal soldiers dutifully lugged sandstone materials around and patched up areas threatening to crumble. When these Romans got bored enough, however, it seems they left their mark in more ways than one.

Newcastle University and Historic England archaeologists have partnered with each other to record the newly discovered inscriptions — including caricatures, phrases, and even penis rendering, Historic England reported.

This phallic graffiti from A.D. 207 was discovered at a quarry near Hadrian’s Wall by archaeologists from the University of Newcastle.

Colloquially known as “The Written Rock of Gelt,” researchers have learned a lot by descending down the Thirty-foot quarry in Cumbria, as the sandstone’s illustrative markings explore the military mindset involved in these repair works and how they passed the time.

One inscription, “APRO ET MAXIMO CONSVLIBVS OFICINA MERCATI,” dates the carving back to 207 AD when Hadrian’s Wall underwent extensive repairs and renewals under the consulate of Aper and Maximus.

Roman writing carved into the wall.

The phallus — used as a symbol of good luck by the Romans of the time — is only one of many carvings still being found. “The Written Rock of Gelt” was previously thought to consist of 9 Roman inscriptions, and while only 6 of them are currently legible, more are expected to be found.

The insight provided by this historical piece of stone also points to the army’s personal feelings about their superior, with the caricature of an officer presumably in charge of repairs making up one of the wall’s carvings.

“These inscriptions are probably the most important on the Wall frontier of Hadrian at Gelt Forest,” said Mike Collins, Historic England’s Inspector of Ancient Monuments for Hadrian’s Wall.

“They provide insight into the organization of the vast construction project that Hadrian’s Wall was, as well as some very human and personal touches, such as the caricatures of their commanding officer inscribed by one group of soldiers.”

A caricature carved into the wall, likely a commanding officer.

These discoveries are particularly exciting to those at the site because access to view these carvings was essentially shut down in the 1980s after the established path collapsed into a gorge of the adjacent Gelt River.

Unfortunately, the wall has been exposed to a great deal of water erosion since then — which makes recording its carvings all the more important.

“These inscriptions are highly vulnerable to further gradual decay,” said Ian Haynes, Newcastle University professor of archaeology.

“This is a great opportunity to record them in 2019, using the best modern technology to protect their ability to study them in the future.”

Practically speaking, this means using ropes to descend into the quarry — and using laser scanning technology to record inscriptions as much as possible in detail.

These scans are then processed for further study by computers into digital, three – dimensional models. Perhaps the most amazing thing about this historic venture is that, for the first time in nearly 40 years, the public will be able to see these carvings closely, albeit digitally.

EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

Rare mosaics of a Christian church were unearthed in Turkey

Rare mosaics of a Christian church were unearthed in Turkey

Archaeologists in southeastern Turkey have launched excavations to unearth the mosaics of a 1,600-year-old church in the village of Göktaş in the southeastern Mardin province.

Traces of the church were discovered on Sept. 18, 2019, with the area later being declared an archaeological site.

Abdülgani Tarkan, head of the excavation team and director of the Mardin Museum, told Anadolu Agency (AA) that the church took a basilica form with mosaic flooring.

The base of the church is inscribed with nine lines of Estrangelo, or Ancient Syriac, script, Tarkan said.

“The mosaics also show depictions of animals, geometric shapes and human figures, as well as scenes depicting people hunting,” he said. “The months of April and June are also inscribed on the human figures.”

Tarkan said the church, built-in 396 A.D, contained names of the spiritual figures who contributed to its construction.

In the excavation area, archaeologists also discovered a number of liturgical works that, in Christianity, instruct on the correct order of church service and prayer.

Tarkan said the excavation area would be open to the public after restoration work was completed.

MEXICO, NORTH AMERICA, WORLD

The 290 Million Year Old Fossil Human Footprint

The 290 Million Year Old Fossil Human Footprint

There is a story going around, that up in the Robledo Mountains of southern New Mexico exists a mind-bending fossilised impression. Why should this be of interest you wonder? The answer is because it is seemingly the print of a human being wandering the area some 290 million years ago.

I for one support a revised view of human origins, one that is very controversial, it is my publicly stated opinion that human beings, of one sort or another, go back further than currently believed and that Homo sapiens go back several hundred thousand years beyond the current consensus dating. Despite all of that, I admit it is a struggle to believe a man much like myself was wandering around New Mexico long before even dinosaurs had arisen on our planet!

What is to be made of this story, indeed of the photographic evidence also provided to accompany it?

To make any sense of the matter we need to go back to 1987, it was in that year that a sociologist (and amateur ichnologist) by the name of Jerry Paul MacDonald discovered a plethora of fossilised animal tracks high up in that mountain range. The rock strata, a type of mudstone found at the site, was reliably dated to the Permian Period.

This vast sweep of time covers approximately the era between 300 million and 250 million years before the present. There is no controversy over the dating of the many fossil prints at the site, they are accepted to be from creatures that must have existed in the Permian period, even if some are from creatures not as yet identified (which seemingly remains the case).

There certainly is some head-scratching associated with fossilised prints at the location, a number are seen as ‘problematica’ due to their similarity to those of animals from much later periods, including prints akin to modern birds (small three-toed impressions) and even bears (deep five arched toe marks along with nail impressions). Keep in mind that the Permian is a time long before even dinosaurs, let alone the much more recent appearance of birds and mammals.

These prints certainly suggest that there were animals walking the earth during the Permian period of which we know nothing, but is that such a shock when you take into account how little we can ever know of events over 250 million years ago? Perhaps not.

In and of themselves these prints are pretty revolutionary, simply because they suggest life forms that had much more anatomical similarity to modern animals than we would ever have imagined possible at that early point.

That does not necessarily mean a brown bear was chasing a chicken for its dinner, without fossilised skeletons we can only hazard a guess at what these creatures really looked like, to rebuild an entire lost species from a footprint seems at best an outlandish exercise in wishful thinking. With that thought in mind let us now turn our attention back to the supposed ‘human’ footprint.

What does Jerry MacDonald say about the human footprint he supposedly discovered? The answer appears to be, nothing at all. That in itself should through up some major red flags.

It also seems that the photograph supplied along with the claims of a prehistoric human footprint has no connection to MacDonald or his research work, in fact, it is seemingly supplied by a chap named Don Patton. Now, Don Patton is a self-admitted creationist and young earth theorist, on a number of occasions he has claimed to hold degrees and even Ph.D. qualifications in geology and archaeology, these have later been investigated and shown to be academically invalid (related to unaccredited Christian institutions). In fact, there is actually a second image of the footprint, shown accompanied by Don Patton, and the image is itself an example of ‘problematica’. It looks very much more like a separate slab of stone, or some kind of plaster cast, rather than an in situ print.

The footprint also looks very small, smaller than Don’s hand, with no sign of matching left print despite the fact such a small being’s prints should both comfortably fit on that slab (at least in partial). It should however be noted that there are some responding claims made that this was a very young child and that a partial left print snapped off from the ledge where the initial print was found.

If one digs deeper the entire story starts to fall apart, the print transpires to have been purportedly found by a mysterious hunter (no connection to Jerry MacDonald) and only ever investigated by Don Patton and his associate Carl Baugh (another creationist known to have claimed dodgy academic credentials).

They tell us that they were not able to do any real documenting of the find due to the sudden appearance of an angry landowner with a shotgun. What further adds to the fishy smell this story now begins to produce is the fact they state the print was made in a limestone layer, one dated to the Permian period.

“While the team was working, they were confronted by a local landowner who was armed with a shotgun. The landowner claimed that they were trespassing and that they were on his property. They showed the landowner the mining permit and stated that the property they were on was BLM (Bureau of Land Management) property. The armed landowner insisted that they leave immediately.”

Exactly how this stone layer could have been so accurately dated, by two falsely credentialed amateur geologists, busy running away from an armed man, really begs belief (let alone how they had time to make a cast). The second red flag is the very fact that the layer of the purported print is identified as being limestone, as we have already noted earlier that the layer in which MacDonald found his prints was mudstone, suggesting that this is an entirely different site with no connection at all if it even exists.

As ever it seems that when we dig for the truth we often have to shovel through a whole heap of disinformation and misinformation. Probably, like me, you are left shaking your head at this entire story and ready to through the whole matter into your mental dustbin. But before we leave this tale let us return to a very intriguing find genuinely made at the location where MacDonald was investigating.

In 1992 Jerry MacDonald took Doug Stewart (a regular contributor to the Smithsonian magazine) up to his site and allowed Doug to participate in making new finds as well as an independent examination of existing discoveries.

It is actually from Doug Stewart’s later report to the Smithsonian that we hear of the strange bird-like and bear-like footprints. One line in this report does leave us wondering whether some strange vaguely-humanoid type of creature perhaps walked the earth in the distant times of the Permian:

‘He’s got several tracks where creatures appear to be walking on their hind legs, others that look almost simian.’

The reality is of course that without even a photograph of the prints mentioned in the report, we can do little but speculate on what type of creature, some 250 million years ago, left tracks ‘kinda similar’ to those of a monkey. Whatever it was, I am betting it was nothing like we humans.

All In One Magazine