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Sunday, August 07, 2005
Week in Review 1(9)
NT Week in Review
Vol. I, Issue 9
From UC Berkeley News, two scholars are challenging current archaeological orthodoxy regarding Polynesian contact on the West Coast:
In a recently published article, they claim to have found new linguistic and archaeological evidence that Polynesians landed in Southern California between 400 and 800 A.D. and shared their advanced boat-building techniques with the region's Chumash and Gabrielino Indians
If you think going to the dentist for a cleaning is annoyingly tedious, at least you have the ability to tell them what you eat:
Researchers have used new microscopic technology to reconstruct the diets of two extinct human species that lived in what is now South Africa.
The technique involves scanning the tooth surfaces in extreme detail to learn what a species ate. Reconstructing the diet of extinct human species can help shed light on our evolutionary history.
Dental microwear analysis investigates the microscopic scratches and pits that form on a tooth's surface as a result of its use.
The conclusion?
"Diet is a direct link between an animal and its environment," he added. "It is the single most important factor underlying behavioral differences among living primates, and the same was probably true of early hominins. After all, you are what you eat."
Read the whole article from National Geographic News here.
A nice story about spreading the significance and pure fun of archaeological research, this time in the form of a kid's camp. One girl is going to make a fine archaeologist one day:
The camp has definitely made an impression on 12-year-old Hannah Kalichman. As she worked to sift through soil during Thursday's dig, her clothes were covered in dirt. But she explained that it was important to find everything she could.
"If we threw away one piece of coal," she said, "it would be like throwing away history."
A "mummy" that duped archaeologists and nearly sparked a diplomatic row between Pakistan and Iran is finally being laid to rest.
From New Scientist, Creationism rift opens within The Vatican:
The Vatican’s chief astronomer, George Coyne, has rebuffed controversial comments made by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn in The New York Times on 7 July that evolution is incompatible with a belief in God.
In his article, Schönborn dismissed as “rather vague and unimportant” a statement made by Pope John Paul II in 1996 which seemed to indicate the church’s acceptance of evolution. “Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science,” Schönborn wrote.
"Buddah wuz here":
Kolkata, Aug 7 (IANS) New excavations in Orissa have revealed that Lord Buddha more than 2,500 years ago had visited the state and preached there, say archaeologists, belying earlier theories that the founder of Buddhism had never been there.
The discovery of three stupas (edicts), put up by Emperor Asoka after he converted to Buddhism, at Tarapur, Kayama and Deuli in Jajpur district to mark the places where the Buddha had preached in the state point towards a Buddha trail in his lifetime.
That camel footprint would look marvelous next to my looted Aztec burial goods: Ancient camel footprints chiseled off desert rock I think I've found a new pet cause for Brad Pitt: "Save the Camel Footprints."
Remains of Ancient Church Found in Egypt
CAIRO, Egypt - The remains of an ancient church and monks' retreats that date back to the early years of monasticism have been discovered in a Coptic Christian monastery in the Red Sea area, officials said Saturday.
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The Nomadic Thoughts Week in Review Series presents the "best of" from the anthropology, philosophy, religion, and science news feeds that make up a part of Will's blogroll. It is published every Sunday night/Monday morning.
Posted by Will at August 7, 2005 04:11 PM in