Scientists report discovering the oldest human fossil ever unearthed in Vietnam.
The skeletal remains that date back 10,000 years were found during an excavation by the Vietnam Institute of Archaeology at the Tam Chuc Pagoda Complex in Kim Bang District.
“This is the first-time human remains dating back 10,000 years have been discovered in Vietnam,” Mai Thanh Chung, director of the Ha Nam Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said.
Human remains were found in the Tam Chuc Pagoda Complex in the Kim Bang District of Ha Nam Province.
While examining the site, researchers discovered three graves of children and adults, with the people buried in a kneeling position.
In addition to human remains, scientists also found mollusk shells and teeth bones of small animals in the excavation pit, which could have been food sources for ancient people, the VNExpress informs.
The team from the Institute of Archeology also made two intriguing discoveries at two caves in Kim Bang where they unearthed “prehistoric paleontological vestiges and material culture including animal fossils and reddish-brown rope pottery fragments belonging to the Dong Son culture.
Dong Son was a Bronze Age culture in ancient Vietnam centered in the Red River valley of northern Vietnam from 1000 BC until the first century AD.”
Tam Chuc pagoda – the world’s largest pagoda located in Ha Nam province of Vietnam.
“Renowned for its large, ceremonial bronze drums and viewed by many as the foundational culture for an emerging Vietnamese civilization, bearers of the Dongson Culture were farming societies scattered throughout the Bac Bo region of Vietnam along its main river systems.
These communities were marked by sophisticated bronze-working industries, intensifying agricultural practices, and degrees of social differentiation and political complexity.
They were well positioned for interaction and exchange with others throughout the local area and further afield, connecting Dongson societies with counterparts elsewhere in present-day areas of central Vietnam, southern China, Laos, and Thailand,” Nam C. Kim writes in The Oxford Handbook of Early Southeast Asia.
When scientists explored the Tam Chuc complex, a famous spiritual destination in Vietnam and home to one of the largest pagodas in the world, they came across sea mollusk shells along with stream snails.
At the top of the mountain in the complex were pieces of pottery lying alongside mollusk pieces.
Archaeologists from the Vietnam Institute of Archaeology conducted an excavation in the Tam Chuc Pagoda Complex in the Kim Bang District of Ha Nam Province.
According to the institute, many Kim Bang relics date from the late Pleistocene to the late Holocene age, 10,000-12,000 years ago.
Researchers concluded that the district used to be a favorable area, inhabited by many ancient residents.
Future archaeological excavations can offer more information about people who lived here a long time ago, and there is no doubt that finding the oldest human skeleton in Vietnam is an exciting and significant discovery.
Timbers of Fifteenth-Century Newport Ship Analyzed
Tree-ring analysis has been able to date a medieval ship found in a Welsh riverbank within a few months. The wreck of a 15th Century ship was found in the mud of Newport’s River Usk in 2002 and experts believe it is as significant a find as the Mary Rose.
Now researchers have found timbers from the hull of the former wine-trading vessel were made from oak trees that were felled in the winter of 1457-58.
“It helps us refine when the ship was built,” said ship curator Toby Jones.
It is another major development for the Newport ship conservation project who have been working for more than 20 years to conserve and ultimately rebuild the vessel, which is a century older than the Mary Rose.
Earlier this year, the team working on the £8m project finished the conservation process of the 2,500 pieces of wood uncovered in the banks of the River Usk by workers building Newport’s Riverfront Theatre. Experts believe the 30m (98ft), 400 tonne, medium-sized boat was having a refit in Newport in 1468 or 1469 following a voyage from the Iberian Peninsula to Bristol when its moorings broke.
After collapsing into an inlet of the River Usk, its 25-tonne hull was found more than 550 years later preserved in a wet, muddy riverbank.
The Newport ship was uncovered in 2002 when constructing a new theatre on the banks of the River Usk.
Archaeologists are planning the world’s largest attempt to put an archaeological ship back together which historians have called the the world’s largest 3D puzzle.
TV historian Dan Snow has said the Newport ship was “one of the most interesting and important shipwrecks found in British waters in a generation” and was of “global significance and interest”.
In another breakthrough, experts now know when the ship was built using oxygen isotope dendrochronology – an advanced study of tree-ring data – to determine an estimated date when it was built.
“We do know it came into Newport in 1468 or 1469 but we now know the ship was in existence for not quite a decade,” added Dr Jones.
This is how historians think the Newport ship may have looked as it docked in south Wales in the 15th Century.
“It allows us to really focus on that 1457-58 period for historical research but it shows this type of analysis has real potential to refine various parts of the construction sequence of the Newport ship.”
Research by University of Wales Trinity Saint David and Swansea University suggests the vessel was constructed soon after the oak trees were chopped down in the winter of 1457-58.
The research, published in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, also suggested the vessel had a working life of about 10 years before coming to Newport for repairs in the late 1460s.
The ship would have been moored on the River Usk in Newport in about 1468
Previous research has shown that the ship timbers originated from forests in the Basque Country in northern Spain and that the ship was likely built along the Basque coast.
Tudor king Henry VIII’s flagship naval vessel the Mary Rose is perhaps the most famous 16th Century ship on display while the Vasa in Sweden is the 17th Century equivalent.
Now historians say the Newport ship could become the only 15th Century maritime exhibit on show anywhere in the world when it is restored. Historians have undertaken painstaking 20-year conservation work including drying out, freeze drying treating the oak timbers before beginning to focus on rebuilding.
Researchers used pioneering oxygen isotope dendrochronology to help date the timbers of the Newport ship
Archaeologists had thought the ship may been 10 years older than the new analysis proves – and the research may possibly help experts rebuild the vessel.
“It allows us to focus our resources on that specific season,” said Dr Jones.
“We can cut out anything from early 1450s now so narrow it down to a smaller window we can be more effective in our research to identify the ship.
“We can start to do this analysis on many of the timbers and if it gets really precise, we can start to determine the construction sequence and what timbers were harvested when and when they were added to the ship – so we can put dates on every timber.”
The 2,500 planks from the Newport ship were held in wax for four years as part of the restoration process
Dr Jones said the pioneering dating of the Newport ship was “stunning” because of what the wood has been through.
“The Newport ship has been through a lot,” he said. “More than 500 years underground, gone through cleaning, conservation, soaked in wax and freeze-dried – and yet these isotope signatures are still in the timbers.
“I wouldn’t have thought that was possible but this analysis has proved that information is still locked away in those tree rings.
“It’s great for us, it’s great for the Newport ship but also means we can do it on other vessels and timber structures that previously didn’t date with traditional ring dendrochronology can now potentially be dated with oxygen isotope or stable isotope dendrochronology.
A third of the Newport ship – coloured in brown in this image – remains
“It’s really exciting, not just for ships and ship archaeology but for anything made of wood that’s old.”
Experts used oxygen isotope dendrochronology to estimate when the timbers were harvested which has been called a “revolutionary” development in dating wood, like the advent of DNA technology in criminology.
“This process is only five to 10 years old and allows us to find answers today that we couldn’t get before,” said Prof Nigel Nayling, University of Wales Trinity St David’s chair of archaeology.
“It’s a complex process that takes a long time, days and days of work, and a lot of resource but it is a game-changer for archaeologists, it’s a significant innovation.”
A rare tumor with teeth discovered in Egyptian burial from 3,000 years ago
Teratoma with Tooth A (lower) in situ and Tooth B (upper) retrofitted in the crypt.
While excavating an ancient Egyptian cemetery, archaeologists made a rare discovery: an ovarian tumor nestled in the pelvis of a woman who died more than three millennia ago.
The tumor, a bony mass with two teeth, is the oldest known example of a teratoma, a rare type of tumor that typically occurs in ovaries or testicles.
A teratoma can be benign or malignant, according to the Cleveland Clinic, and it is usually made up of various tissues, such as muscle, hair, teeth or bone.
Teratomas can cause pain and swelling and, if they rupture, can lead to infection. In the present day, removal of the mass is the typical treatment.
Tomb 3 of the North Desert Cemetery at Amarna, Egypt. Right: Shaft with the north chamber in the background. Bottom left: Individual 3051 on the far left. Top left: Illustration of the pelvic area of Individual 3051, showing the positions of the teratoma and finger rings.
Only four archaeological examples of teratomas had previously been found — three in Europe and one in Peru.
The recent discovery of a teratoma in the New Kingdom period cemetery in Amarna, Egypt, both founded around 1345 B.C., is only the fifth archaeological case published, making it the oldest known example of a teratoma and the first ancient case found in Africa.
Amarna was a short-lived city on the eastern bank of the Nile River, about halfway between the cities of Cairo and Luxor (ancient Thebes). It functioned as the center of pharaoh Akhenaten’s worship of the sun god Aten and was home to his royal court.
Although the city included temples, palaces and other buildings that supported a population of around 20,000 to 50,000, it was abandoned within a decade after Akhenaten died in 1336 B.C., the study reported.
Teratoma in situ in left sciatic notch.
Four large cemeteries associated with Amarna have been investigated by archaeologists. In one tomb in the North Desert Cemetery that consisted of a shaft and a burial chamber, researchers found the skeleton of an 18- to 21-year-old woman wrapped in a plant fiber mat.
She was buried with a number of grave goods, including a ring decorated with the figure of Bes, a deity often associated with childbirth, fertility and protection.
During excavation, archaeologists noticed something unusual in the woman’s pelvis: a bony mass, about the size of a large grape, with two depressions that contained deformed teeth.
Gretchen Dabbs, a bioarchaeologist at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and colleagues published the discovery of this tumor online Oct. 30 in the International Journal of Paleopathology. Ruling out other diagnoses, they suggested that the presence of teeth and the location within the woman’s pelvic region indicated it was an ovarian teratoma.
Teratoma in situ, showing Tooth B near top of the left thigh bone.
The Bes ring may hint that the teratoma was symptomatic, as the possible “magico-medical” object was placed on the woman’s left hand, which was folded across her lap above the teratoma. This may mean the woman “was attempting to invoke Bes to protect her from pain or other symptoms, or aid in her attempts to conceive and birth a child,” they wrote in their study.
“By 18-21 years, this individual probably would have been someone’s wife,” Dabbs told Live Science in an email, but there is also “little doubt she was working in some fashion.” Previous research at Amarna has suggested that women this age were engaging in a range of trades, which might have included working on state-level building projects, brewing beer, or tending to household gardens and livestock.
Bes ring illustration (Image credit: A. Salvador/Amarna Project)
Allison Foley, a bioarchaeologist at the College of Charleston in South Carolina who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email that this discovery is important because “teratomas are very rarely identified archaeologically.”
The Amarna example demonstrates how researchers can learn more about what living in ancient Egypt was like, Foley said, and the “presence, location, and possible symbolic importance of the Bes ring as a token of protection and fertility is particularly fascinating and evocative.”
Dabbs is still working on the full analysis of the hundreds of skeletons excavated last year from the North Desert Cemetery at Amarna. But future plans include looking into biological relationships among the people buried there, as well as further investigating other Egyptian burials with potential “magico-medical” objects.
10,000-Year-Old Human Remains Discovered in Vietnam
Skeletal remains dating back 10,000 years have been found in the northern province of Ha Nam, marking the oldest human fossil ever unearthed in Vietnam.
Human remains found in Tam Chuc Pagoda Complex in Kim Bang District of Ha Nam Province, March 2023.
Mai Thanh Chung, director of the Ha Nam Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, said at a meeting Thursday that the remains were found during an excavation carried out by the Vietnam Institute of Archaeology at the Tam Chuc Pagoda Complex in Kim Bang District last March.
Archaeologists discovered three graves of children and adults, with the people buried in a kneeling position.
“This is the first time human remains dating back 10,000 years have been discovered in Vietnam,” said Chung.
In addition to human remains, scientists also found in the excavation pit mollusk shells and teeth and bones of small animals, which could have been food sources for ancient people.
Archaeologists from the Vietnam Institute of Archaeology during an excavation in Tam Chuc Pagoda Complex in Kim Bang District of Ha Nam Province, March 2023.
Also during the March excavation at two caves in Kim Bang, the Institute of Archeology discovered prehistoric paleontological vestiges and material culture, including animal fossils and reddish-brown rope pottery fragments belonging to the Dong Son culture.
Dong Son was a Bronze Age culture in ancient Vietnam centered in the Red River valley of northern Vietnam from 1000 BC until the first century AD.
Within the Tam Chuc complex, the archeologists discovered sea mollusk shells along with stream snails. At the top of the mountain in the complex, they found pieces of pottery lying alongside mollusk pieces.
Many of the Kim Bang relics date back from the late Pleistocene to the late Holocene, or 10,000-12,000 years ago, according to the institute.
Researchers concluded that the district used to be a favorable area, inhabited by many ancient residents.
A rare tumor with teeth discovered in Egyptian burial from 3,000 years ago
Teratoma with Tooth A (lower) in situ and Tooth B (upper) retrofitted in crypt.
While excavating an ancient Egyptian cemetery, archaeologists made a rare discovery: an ovarian tumor nestled in the pelvis of a woman who died more than three millennia ago. The tumor, a bony mass with two teeth, is the oldest known example of a teratoma, a rare type of tumor that typically occurs in ovaries or testicles.
A teratoma can be benign or malignant, according to the Cleveland Clinic, and it is usually made up of various tissues, such as muscle, hair, teeth or bone. Teratomas can cause pain and swelling and, if they rupture, can lead to infection. In the present day, removal of the mass is the typical treatment.
Tomb 3 of the North Desert Cemetery at Amarna, Egypt. Right: Shaft with the north chamber in the background. Bottom left: Individual 3051 on the far left. Top left: Illustration of the pelvic area of Individual 3051, showing the positions of the teratoma and finger rings.
Only four archaeological examples of teratomas had previously been found — three in Europe and one in Peru. The recent discovery of a teratoma in the New Kingdom period cemetery in Amarna, Egypt, both founded around 1345 B.C., is only the fifth archaeological case published, making it the oldest known example of a teratoma and the first ancient case found in Africa.
Amarna was a short-lived city on the eastern bank of the Nile River, about halfway between the cities of Cairo and Luxor (ancient Thebes). It functioned as the center of pharaoh Akhenaten’s worship of the sun god Aten and was home to his royal court.
Although the city included temples, palaces, and other buildings that supported a population of around 20,000 to 50,000, it was abandoned within a decade after Akhenaten died in 1336 B.C., the study reported.
Teratoma in situ in left sciatic notch.
Four large cemeteries associated with Amarna have been investigated by archaeologists. In one tomb in the North Desert Cemetery that consisted of a shaft and a burial chamber, researchers found the skeleton of an 18- to 21-year-old woman wrapped in a plant fiber mat.
She was buried with a number of grave goods, including a ring decorated with the figure of Bes, a deity often associated with childbirth, fertility and protection.
During excavation, archaeologists noticed something unusual in the woman’s pelvis: a bony mass, about the size of a large grape, with two depressions that contained deformed teeth.
Gretchen Dabbs, a bioarchaeologist at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and colleagues published the discovery of this tumor online Oct. 30 in the International Journal of Paleopathology. Ruling out other diagnoses, they suggested that the presence of teeth and the location within the woman’s pelvic region indicated it was an ovarian teratoma.
Teratoma in situ, showing Tooth B near top of the left thigh bone.
The Bes ring may hint that the teratoma was symptomatic, as the possible “magico-medical” object was placed on the woman’s left hand, which was folded across her lap above the teratoma. This may mean the woman “was attempting to invoke Bes to protect her from pain or other symptoms, or aid in her attempts to conceive and birth a child,” they wrote in their study.
“By 18-21 years, this individual probably would have been someone’s wife,” Dabbs told Live Science in an email, but there is also “little doubt she was working in some fashion.”
Previous research at Amarna has suggested that women this age were engaging in a range of trades, which might have included working on state-level building projects, brewing beer, or tending to household gardens and livestock.
Bes ring illustration
Allison Foley, a bioarchaeologist at the College of Charleston in South Carolina who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email that this discovery is important because “teratomas are very rarely identified archaeologically.”
The Amarna example demonstrates how researchers can learn more about what living in ancient Egypt was like, Foley said, and the “presence, location, and possible symbolic importance of the Bes ring as a token of protection and fertility is particularly fascinating and evocative.”
Dabbs is still working on the full analysis of the hundreds of skeletons excavated last year from the North Desert Cemetery at Amarna. But future plans include looking into biological relationships among the people buried there, as well as further investigating other Egyptian burials with potential “magico-medical” objects.
Missing Pieces Of The Magnificent Golden Tree Of Lucignano Discovered
One does not need to be an art expert to recognize the value of the magnificent Golden Tree of Lucignano. Created by goldsmith Gabriello d’Antonio, the Golden Tree is a masterpiece of Italian goldsmithing.
Golden Tree of Lucignano.
The Golden Tree is a grandiose reliquary 2.70 m high and almost one meter wide. Made of gilded copper, silver, and enamel, it features branches decorated with coral, crystals, and miniatures on parchment.
The work on the beautiful reliquary started in 1350 and was completed in 1471. The artist who conceived and began the work is unknown, but it is documented that it was the Sienese goldsmith Gabriello d’Antonio who completed it.
Sadly, several of the artwork’s pieces were stolen in 1914, and the Golden Tree remained incomplete.
The good news is the missing parts have been discovered in a cave in the Arezzo region in Tuscany, which allowed experts to restore what many considered Italy’s most beautiful artwork.
The unique Golden Tree represents the mystical Lignum Vitae written in the 1260s by Franciscan theologian Saint Bonaventure.
The Golden Tree was long Lucignano’s greatest treasure, and according to ancient tradition, the inhabitants of Lucignano exchanged wedding vows in front of it.
In 1914, thieves stole the Golden Tree, broke it into pieces, and hid the objects secretly. The goal was naturally to sell the valuable artifacts that would generate a tremendous illegal income. Fortunately, several missing things were recovered some years later, but not all. Earlier this year, the Carabinieri Art Squad received a tip, and more missing parts of the Golden Tree could re-emerge. However, the crucifix is still missing.
“It is not only an extraordinary fruit of Italian goldsmith art, the Golden Tree of Lucignano is much more: it is one of those works whose existence is intertwined intimately and profoundly with the life and feelings of the community that it preserves, helping to define its very identity traits.
This is also why the Tuscany Region has decided to finance the restoration work of this masterpiece, which, entrusted to the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, an authentic Tuscan and national excellence, will further enhance its precious uniqueness,” Eugenio Giani, President of the Tuscany Region said in a press statement.
The Royal Superintendence of Florence has entrusted the restoration work to the Opificio delle Pietre Dure. It is a demanding and delicate project that requires careful studies of historical photographic documentation to identify the original position of all the gold pieces.
Dr. Andrea Di Pasquale, Director General of Education, Research and Cultural Institutes of the Ministry of Culture, has hopes that parts that have not yet been recovered will be found soon.
How long the restoration will take is uncertain, but the goal is to return the Golden Tree to Lucignano at the end of next spring.
Today, the reliquary is also known by the name of the Tree of Love, as it is a symbol of a good omen for lovers.
Oldest Known Spearthrowers Found At 31,000-Year-Old Archaeological Site Of Maisières-Canal
The hunter-gatherers who settled on the banks of the Haine, a river in southern Belgium, 31,000 years ago were already using spearthrowers to hunt their game. This is the finding of a new study conducted at TraceoLab at the University of Liège.
The material found at the archaeological site of Maisières-Canal permits establishing the use of this hunting technique 10,000 years earlier than the oldest currently known preserved spearthrowers.
This discovery, published in the journal Scientific Reports, is prompting archaeologists to reconsider the age of this important technological innovation.
Examples of experimental thrusting spears and javelins armed with replicas of the archaeological flint points.
The spearthrower is a weapon designed for throwing darts, which are large projectiles resembling arrows that generally measure over two meters long. Spearthrowers can propel darts over a distance of up to 80 meters.
The invention of long-range hunting weapons has had significant consequences for human evolution, as it changed hunting practices and the dynamics between humans and their prey, as well as the diet and social organization of prehistoric hunter-gatherer groups.
The date of invention and spread of these weapons has therefore long been the subject of lively debate within the scientific community.
“Until now, the early weapons have been infamously hard to detect at archaeological sites because they were made of organic components that preserve rarely,” explains Justin Coppe, researcher at TraceoLab.
“Stone points that armed ancient projectiles and that are much more frequently encountered at archaeological excavations have been difficult to connect to particular weapons reliably.”
Most recently published claims for early use of spearthrowers and bows in Europe and Africa have relied exclusively on projectile point size to link them to these weapon systems.
However, ethnographic reviews and experimental testing have cast serious doubt on this line of reasoning by showing that arrow, dart, and spear tips can be highly variable in size, with overlapping ranges.
The innovative approach developed by the archaeologists at TraceoLab combines ballistic analysis and fracture mechanics to gain a better understanding of the traces preserved on the flint points.
“We carried out a large-scale experiment in which we fired replicas of paleolithic projectiles using different weapons such as spears, bows and spearthrowers,” explains Noora Taipale, FNRS research fellow at TraceoLab.
A combination of impact traces on an archaeological artifact that could be identified as a spearthrower dart thanks to the experiments.
“By carefully examining the fractures on these stone points, we were able to understand how each weapon affected the fracturing of the points when they impacted the target.”
Each weapon left distinct marks on the stone points, enabling archaeologists to match these marks to archaeological finds. In a way, it’s like identifying a gun from the marks the barrel leaves on a bullet, a practice known in forensic science.
The excellent match between the experimental spearthrower sample and the Maisières-Canal projectiles confirmed that the hunters occupying the site used these weapons.
This finding encourages archaeologists to apply the method further to find out how ancient long-range weaponry really is. Future work at TraceoLab will focus on adjusting the analytical approach to other archaeological contexts to help reach this goal.
Circular Maya Structure Uncovered in Southern Mexico
Archaeologists have discovered an ancient structure in the jungles of Mexico that may have been linked to the cult of a Maya serpent deity.
A team of researchers with the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) uncovered the circular structure at the archaeological site of El Tigre, Campeche State, in the Yucatán Peninsula.
El Tigre likely corresponds to an ancient Maya settlement that was known as Itzamkanac, which was a regional capital and commercial hub. The inhabitants of the region were the Chontal or Putun Maya culture, who worshipped the serpent deity Kukulcán, among other gods.
The ancient circular structure at the archaeological site of El Tigre, Campeche state, Mexico. The structure likely supported a temple dedicated to the Maya deity Kukulcán.
The El Tigre site has a long history of occupation dating back more than 2,000 years until the era of Spanish colonization began in the 16th century.
The recently discovered structure dates to the period 1000–1200 A.D. and could be linked to the cult of Kukulcán, who is equivalent to the wind god Quetzalcóatl in Aztec mythology, INAH said in a press release.
The structure, which consists of two levels, likely supported a flat-roofed temple dedicated to Kukulcán, according to archaeologists. It is similar to several other structures that have previously been found across the Yucatán at sites such as Edzná, Becán, Uxmal, and Chichen Itzá.
The importance of the structure lies in its age, which corresponds to a time when the ancient Maya settlement maintained strong ties with other regions of Mesoamerica—such as central Mexico, Oaxaca, and the Gulf Coast.
These links would have enabled the spread of religious ideas between the Chontal Maya and the other regions. For example, while the cult of Kukulcán had its origins in earlier Maya traditions, it may have also been influenced by the Quetzalcóatl cult.
An important historical document of the region known as the Paxbolón Maldonado Papers, describes a settlement called Itzamkanac that features temples dedicated to the four main deities of the Postclassic period Maya, one of whom was Kukulcán.
The latest discovery of the circular structure that potentially represents the remains of a temple dedicated to Kukulcán suggests that El Tigre is the city of Itzamkanac described in historical sources, given the site’s location and other archaeological data, according to INAH researcher Ernesto Vargas Pacheco.
“This building broadens our knowledge of the late occupation of El Tigre. Circular structures generally correspond to the early postclassic period between A.D. 1000 and 1200, when the Maya zone had links with other regions of Mesoamerica,” INAH general director Diego Prieto said at a press conference.
The structure was found during archaeological rescue works conducted as part of the Tren Maya (Maya Train) project.
The project is an almost 1,000-mile-long railway, scheduled to start operating in December. It traverses Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, the heart of the ancient Maya civilization, which is rich in antiquities
Tren Maya is one of the largest and most controversial infrastructure projects in the history of Mexico. It aims to bring tourists from the region’s popular beach resorts to lesser-known inland locations, including historic Mayan sites, that represent some of the poorest parts of southern Mexico.
While thousands of ancient Maya artifacts and structures have been uncovered during work on the project, critics say it places others at risk of damage or destruction, as has already occurred. Some have also raised environmental concerns.
