Exciting archaeological discoveries....

Dr Doran · Mar 20, 2008

Diamondback · Mar 20, 2008

Twitch said:
Seems it will be logical to start with an Emu and work backwards to "turn on" various dormant genes that control length of tail, skin, teeth and the rest. By genetically manipulation chicken DNA they got tails to produce more vertebra, beaks to grow teeth and found the one that could grow feathers where scales are on feet.

Yes, but Dr. Malcolm would quite wisely point out that perhaps we're focusing too much on if we can, and not enough on if we should...

Don't get me wrong, a resurrected Tyrannosaurus rex would be an impressive sight, but there need to be some limits on genetic technology, and a whole lot of thought needs to be put into "containment" and animal-control first. A hatchling rex wouldn't be much, but how you gonna control something the weight of a bull elephant, the height of a two-story building and an attitude that makes a charging rhino look like a kitten?

Some very interesting finds there, Doran. Thanks for keeping us posted! Might be interesting to see some of those someday...

dhermann1 · Mar 20, 2008

OK, here's a question: There are lots of well known sites with great stuff in the ground. There are also many less known sites. Where would you (fellow Loungers) like to dig for ancient civilizations? Personally, I've read and seen lots of theories about the coastal regions of the temperate latitudes during the last Ice Age. Areas like the land bridge between India and Sri Lanka, and other coastal areas of India. Or the Pacific Northwest. Some people think there were cultures there that were very advanced, which got inundated when the polar caps melted 11,000 years ago. There is very little real evidence, but they said the same about plate tectonics 75 years ago.
Anybody else???

Diamondback · Mar 20, 2008

My pipedream "dig" would be to get access to the NSA's ground-penetrating-radar satellites and map the entire globe with them. I'd even let them redact out the sensitive areas of US/NATO territory before seeing the images...

It'd tell us once and for all if there's anything under the Sphinx or not, for one... and the extent of the Santorini ruins for two.

Dr Doran · Mar 20, 2008

Diamondback ... we could always eat the damn thing.

Diamondback · Mar 20, 2008

But the problem would be killing it first--remember, to a rex we'd be just Chicken McNuggets? Grab, shake, gulp, GAME OVER.

Ever been eyeball-to-eyeball with a rex skull at your own eye level? A local rock-shop owner helped excavate the Fort Peck tyrannosaur, and had a cast of the skull in her shop for a while. Looking, at eye level, into the eye-sockets of a skull almost as big as you are and lined with huge banana-shaped "penetrator" teeth gives you a whole new perspective on what raw power is...

CassD · Mar 20, 2008

dhermann1 said:
OK, here's a question: There are lots of well known sites with great stuff in the ground. There are also many less known sites. Where would you (fellow Loungers) like to dig for ancient civilizations? QUOTE]

My personal dream would be to dig at the site of an old castle. The people in the Medieval and Rennaisance eras had what amounts to garbage dumps right by the castles, so you can find all sorts of things they threw away like broken buckles, stirrups, broken bits of pottery, etc. I know it's a little wierd, but you can learn a lot about a culture by the things they threw away. I also wouldn't mind doing excavation in the Middle East because of the theory that that is where humans started their existance, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that dream.

Oh, and I'm with Diamond back. I think the T-Rex would eat me before I ever got a chance to eat it.

Dr Doran · Mar 20, 2008

CassD said:
My personal dream would be to dig at the site of an old castle. The people in the Medieval and Rennaisance eras had what amounts to garbage dumps right by the castles, so you can find all sorts of things they threw away like broken buckles, stirrups, broken bits of pottery, etc. I know it's a little wierd, but you can learn a lot about a culture by the things they threw away. I also wouldn't mind doing excavation in the Middle East because of the theory that that is where humans started their existance, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that dream.

Oh, and I'm with Diamond back. I think the T-Rex would eat me before I ever got a chance to eat it.

Not weird at all! Garbage dumps are big in archaeology. And your dream is fairly easy to realize ... especially in England. You can volunteer at a site over summertime. It's hard work but at least it won't be hot in England unlike Israel where I dug. As for the second dream, plenty of digging at sites like Jericho and Catal Huyuk where extremely early cities are. That's hot and too strenuous for the likes of me, but who knows? You might like it.

I have to say, though, digging is boring, horrible work. I hated it. I kept a journal and the only appropriate title was "Dirt, Sweat, and Heat." You end up with a quarter inch of crud on your entire skin, all day, a thick disgusting layer of sweat, bug spray, suntan lotion, bugs, and dirt. The camaraderie is fun because everyone realizes how horrible the whole thing is.

If you are single, it is marvelous because everyone is young (most people are in their 20s at digs), very tan, utterly toned by all the hard work, in need of a break after the hard work, and drinking all the time. And they are all away from home so there is an "I'm on vacation" vibe.

dhermann1 · Mar 20, 2008

See, I would be cool with that, because it would just seem like I was cleaning my apartment . . . lol
But seriously, there must be a few weird individuals who love doing just what you describe. The thing is, you have to be methodical while sifting through dust. When my brother went on his digs in college he was not a great digger. He said "I dig crumbly and I dig crooked." Both undesirable traits.
But on his paleo digs he had fun. He described pulling fossils out of a 300 foot cliff to our mother by saying "Mom, you would have died a thousand deaths if you could have seen what I was doing."
The fact is, something like 90% of the work in archaeology is done back in the lab, analyzing and cataloging and interpreting the artifacts.
The great publicized finds are the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg. But the fact remains that ancient history, and what archaeology tells us about the past, are wonderful stimulants to the imagination. I love it, myself.

Dr Doran · Mar 20, 2008

dhermann1 said:
See, I would be cool with that, because it would just seem like I was cleaning my apartment . . . lol
But seriously, there must be a few weird individuals who love doing just what you describe. The thing is, you have to be methodical while sifting through dust. When my brother went on his digs in college he was not a great digger. He said "I dig crumbly and I dig crooked." Both undesirable traits.
But on his paleo digs he had fun. He described pulling fossils out of a 300 foot cliff to our mother by saying "Mom, you would have died a thousand deaths if you could have seen what I was doing."
The fact is, something like 90% of the work in archaeology is done back in the lab, analyzing and cataloging and interpreting the artifacts.
The great publicized finds are the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg. But the fact remains that ancient history, and what archaeology tells us about the past, are wonderful stimulants to the imagination. I love it, myself.

Fair enough. I like the work back at the lab. Especially if it is air conditioned. Let me state, though, that I would have been as excited as your brother if we actually found a damn thing at Tel Dor (where I dug). We found one or two shiny glass baubles, a bunch of crappy Roman pot-sherds, and that's about it.

I hated the digging in the heat part so much that I feigned an utterly absent interest in potsherd classification SOLELY in order to be stationed in the museum on site where my new job was entering info about the potsherds into the databanks. Naturally this involved computers and as we know, computers require air conditioning so ... heh heh heh. I worked very earnestly at that job and was commended for my performance because I was so happy to be out of the heat.

Twitch · Mar 20, 2008

Hey Doran, thanks for all those sites. Thaose ought to keep me busy for awhile.

Dr Doran · Mar 20, 2008

Twitch said:
Hey Doran, thanks for all those sites. Thaose ought to keep me busy for awhile.

My pleasure! More to come.

Dr Doran · Mar 20, 2008

you ask for coastal? I give you coastal.

From <http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080318/sc_livescience/ancientgreekoutpostdiscoveredspectacularlypreserved>:
====================================================================================================

Ancient Greek Outpost Discovered, Spectacularly Preserved

Clara Moskowitz
LiveScience Staff Writer

Long before Homer wrote the Iliad, the real-life progenitors of the
epic poem's characters might have visited a small outpost on the Greek
coast.

Archaeologists have discovered a spectacularly preserved ancient
harbor town of the Mycenaeans, the civilization on which many ancient
Greek legends were based. Though the settlement was built 3,500 years
ago, hundreds of walls are still standing.

The site, which is partially underwater, lies along a rocky, isolated
stretch of shoreline. Scientists suspect it may have been built as a
military outpost.

"This is really a remarkable find," said Daniel Pullen, an
archaeologist at Florida State University who discovered the site. "It
is rare indeed to locate an entire town built during the Late Bronze
Age that shows this level of preservation."

Unusually intact

The site is unique because the remains of most Mycenaean towns are
completely buried by now under a few millennia's worth of dirt and
detritus. This one stands above ground, with many walls incredibly
intact.

"Usually to excavate Mycenaean buildings you have to dig underground,"
Pullen told LiveScience. "What we have here is the plan of an entire
town preserved for us. We have the fortification wall, we have all
these buildings, and we can often see where the doorways would be. We
can see how the buildings relate to each other, because we have
obvious alleyways and streets."

When Pullen and his team first inspected the walls at the site, they
counted more than 900 of them, he said.

The structures are mostly aligned along a grid, leading scientists to
think the city was built all at once, as opposed to gradually over
time, which would likely result in a more random arrangement of
buildings.

"We think it was built for a specific purpose," Pullen said. "We have
evidence that there were a few people at this site for a long time
before. Then at some particular point people came in and established
this as a new outpost or maybe a naval or military base. And they
brought their engineers and builders with them and constructed the
main part of the site all at once."

Another clue that the city was a military base is the lack of
agricultural evidence at the site, and the fact that there is probably
not even enough farmable land nearby to support the number of people
the scientists think lived there.

Trojan War heroes?

Pullen and his team call the settlement Korphos-Kalamianos. It lies on
the coast of the Saronic Gulf in the western Aegean Sea about 60 miles
(100 km) southwest of Athens, and about 40 miles (65 km) east of
Mycenae, one of the major Mycenaean capitals when Korphos-Kalamianos
was active.

The Mycenaean civilization thrived in Greece from 1600 to 1100 B.C.,
and served as the historical setting of Homer's epics and many ancient
Greek myths. Although historians debate whether or not the Trojan War
was a real event (many think the stories of Helen of Troy and the
Trojan horse are likely myths), if it did occur, it would have been
shortly after Korphos-Kalamianos was built.

Mycenaeans were mostly peasants, ruled by a royal warrior class.

"There were a number of wealthy nobles beneath the king who owned land
and were involved in various economic activities," Pullen said. "The
majority of people were involved in agriculture. We know from the
Mycenaean tablets that the palace was very interested in sheep to
produce wool for fine textiles, and they produced lots of olive oil
and lots of wine for feasts."

Though Korphos-Kalamianos did not seem to have a palace, many of the
structures were built in palace-style architecture, leading the
scientists to think that nobles or representatives of the King would
have stayed there. Perhaps the site was an official outpost of the
palace at Mycenae, Pullen suggested.

Underwater secrets

The researchers have a few hypotheses for why the city is so well
preserved and why the walls are still above ground. Perhaps earthquake
activity shook off most of the land covering the ruins over the years,
Pullen said. Or maybe farming in the area caused soil to erode,
leaving the buildings exposed.

To further probe the mysteries of the lost seaside town, the research
team plans to take underwater measurements of the surface of the ocean
floor near Korphos-Kalamianos to reconstruct the shape of the
coastline during the Late Bronze Age. The archaeologists think the
area once had a useful natural harbor, which was probably the lure of
the site in the first place.

Pullen first discovered the ruins in 2001 and recently discussed his
findings in a presentation to the annual meeting of the Archaeological
Institute of America in January 2008.

HungaryTom · Mar 20, 2008

HISTORICALLY GREAT THREAD OF THE LOUNGE

Especially in terms of history.

Doran,

Thank you.

Tom

Dr Doran · Mar 21, 2008

HungaryTom said:
Especially in terms of history.

Doran,

Thank you.

Tom

Aww ... thanks.

CassD · Mar 21, 2008

Doran,

That is a great article. I haven't had a chance to look through all the links but I'm looking forward to it.

As far as the archeology and digging goes, I'm not afraid of getting dirty or working hard. I love that kind of thing. The only thing that would really bother me are the creepy crawlies that you might find mixed in with the good stuff. However, I am going to look into that summer dig thing. Sounds right up my alley.

~Cassie

Dr Doran · Mar 21, 2008

CassD said:
Doran,

That is a great article. I haven't had a chance to look through all the links but I'm looking forward to it.

As far as the archeology and digging goes, I'm not afraid of getting dirty or working hard. I love that kind of thing. The only thing that would really bother me are the creepy crawlies that you might find mixed in with the good stuff. However, I am going to look into that summer dig thing. Sounds right up my alley.

~Cassie

I love working hard too -- but only in temperatures under 70 degrees Fahrenheit. In the hot countries like Israel, no bugs or wormies in the soil -- it's too darn dry. The closest thing to that is bugs in the air and, twice per summer, a massive, (mildly) stinging jellyfish swarm off the coast of Israel. I am not kidding. Massive.

Dr Doran · Apr 15, 2008

Arab roots for da Vinci?

Not terribly archaeological and not ancient but may interest readers of this thread:

From <http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/news/story/0,,2273051,00.html>:
==========================================================

Da Vinci's mother was a slave, Italian study claims

John Hooper in Rome
Saturday April 12, 2008
The Guardian

The seemingly far-fetched theory that Leonardo da Vinci was of Arab
descent has been given new backing in a study, published this week,
that suggests his mother was a slave.

It is known that Da Vinci's parents were not married and that his
father was a Florentine notary, Ser Piero. In a tax record dating from
1457, five years after the Italian polymath's birth, his mother is
described as one Caterina, who by then was married to a man from the
Tuscan town of Vinci. It was assumed she was a local woman. But,
according to Francesco Cianchi, the author of the study, "There is no
Caterina in Vinci or nearby villages who can be linked to Ser Piero.
The only Caterina in Piero's life seems to be a slave girl who lived
in the house of his wealthy friend, Vanni di Niccolo di Ser Vann."

In his will, the Florentine banker left Caterina to his wife. But on
his death in 1451, his house went to his friend and executor, Ser
Piero.

The fact that the banker's widow continued to live in the house, soon
hiring a new servant, forms the basis for the theory that Ser Piero
allowed her to stay in return for freeing Caterina. The slave woman
disappears from the Florence records thereafter.

On April 15 1452, Da Vinci was born in Vinci. A few months later, his
mother married one Acchattabriga di Piero del Vaccha.

The study casts light on slavery in Renaissance Italy. At the
research's launch, Alessandro Vezzosi, a Da Vinci scholar and founder
of the Museo Ideale at Vinci, said: "A lot of well-to-do and prominent
families bought women from eastern Europe and the Middle East. The
young girls were then baptised. The most common names were Maria,
Marta - and Caterina."

Last year, a study by an Italian academic of a fingerprint left by Da
Vinci found that it included a configuration normally only found among
Arabs.

dhermann1 · Apr 15, 2008

Keep in mind, the slavery of Europe in the Middle Ages and Renaissance was a very different institutioin from the American "Peculiar Institution". Slaves were still considered human. They could be freed, and join society. They may have had lower status, but freedom was a common outcome for plenty of slaves.

Dr Doran · Apr 15, 2008

dhermann1 said:
Keep in mind, the slavery of Europe in the Middle Ages and Renaissance was a very different institutioin from the American "Peculiar Institution". Slaves were still considered human. They could be freed, and join society. They may have had lower status, but freedom was a common outcome for plenty of slaves.

Yes, and also in the ancient period, Roman slaves were often freed as well, especially in the master's will. (Evidence is literary sources, many tombstones, and sale papyri from Egypt.) Then upon manumission they became Roman citizens. Yes, they were looked down upon somewhat by the snobs (such as all the people who provide our literary sources). So were their children -- a little bit. Then their grandchildren weren't looked down on much. If a slave worked for a rich master, he could own money in a sum (the "peculium") that could be big. In the Roman period, we see snobbery against slaves in the literary sources, but not a strong sense that they, as people, are inferior by nature.

Thomas Sowell thinks that the ideology in the Americas that slaves were inferior by nature became strong after slavery as an industry mushroomed and a justification was needed for what was already going on. The economic system had gotten huge, so defenders of it started writing, putting together ideas about inferiority that had been floating around but which had not yet been knitted together into a cohesive racial ideology.

When I was an undergraduate I did a fascinating project analyzing the pro-slavery arguments of a highly intelligent mathematician in the 1840s (I think) named something Bledsoe (Albert, perhaps). Rather upsetting to read, but at least he could write well. He hearkened back to Aristotle's Politics, which gives a defense of the practice of slavery for 4th century BC Greece. Aristotle has an unnamed interlocutor who thinks slavery is not natural, so at least someone felt that way; Aristotle himself argues that slavery is natural and is beneficial to the slave.

We just had our undergraduates analyze that section of Aristotle's argument for their midterm. They did well. I wanted the students to be a bit more outraged, but they were not; I suppose they were not taking it personally, and that's actually rather refreshing in a place like Berkeley.

Exciting archaeological discoveries....

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