Visiting the Ancients

Evidence of Hobbling, Torture Discovered at Ancient Massacre Site in Colorado | Western Digs

Posted on June 27, 2014 by Shelly Martin

he site of a gruesome massacre some 1,200 years ago in southwestern Colorado is yielding new evidence of the severity, and the grisly intensity, of the violence that took place there.

First excavated in 2005 near the town of Durango, the site known as Sacred Ridge was in some ways a typical early Pueblo settlement, a collection of pithouses situated not far from similar communities, dated to around the year 800.

But digs at Sacred Ridge soon revealed a scene of visceral conflict that archaeologists are still trying to piece together.

via Evidence of Hobbling, Torture Discovered at Ancient Massacre Site in Colorado | Western Digs.

Posted in American Southwest, Ancient American Southwest, Archaeology, Chaco Culture, CRM Archaeology, History, Prehistoric America | Tagged archaeology, Bone Dome, Colorado, Sacred Ridge | Leave a comment

Grisly Mass Grave in Utah Cave Is Evidence of ‘Prehistoric Warfare,’ Study Says | Western Digs

Posted on June 27, 2014 by Shelly Martin

Nearly a hundred skeletons buried in a cave in southeast Utah offer grisly evidence that ancient Americans waged war on each other as much as 2,000 years ago, according to new research.Dozens of bodies, dating from the first century CE, bear clear signs of hand-to-hand combat: skulls crushed as if by cudgels; limbs broken at the time of death; and, most damning, weapons still lodged in the back, breast and pelvic bones of some victims — including stone points, bone awls, and knives made of obsidian glass.

via Grisly Mass Grave in Utah Cave Is Evidence of ‘Prehistoric Warfare,’ Study Says | Western Digs.

Posted in American Southwest, Ancient American Southwest, CRM Archaeology, Prehistoric America | Tagged archaeology, Basketmakers, Cave 7, Richard Wetherill | Leave a comment

Recapping the Recapture Canyon ATV protest | Friends of Cedar Mesa

Posted on May 14, 2014 by Shelly Martin

Posted on May 13, 2014

A first hand report by Executive Director, Josh Ewing

Frustrated with years of delay from the BLM in deciding the fate of a proposed ATV trail in Recapture Canyon, protestors rode their machines into the Canyon on Saturday, May 10th. Because of recent events where BLM employees had been threatened with violence and because of the confrontational attitudes of some militia-type riders who came to town for the ride, many conservation groups decided not to send supporters into the canyon.Friends of Cedar Mesa was not even in existence when the Recapture controversy started, so we had not been highly involved with the issue. However, I did feel that someone from the conservation community really needed to be there to see what happened and document the event. Two other Bluff locals volunteered to join me, and we hiked into the canyon and waited for ATV riders to show up.

via Recapping the Recapture Canyon ATV protest | Friends of Cedar Mesa.

Posted in American Southwest, Ancient American Southwest, Archaeology, CRM Archaeology, Prehistoric America, Wilderness and the Environment | Leave a comment

Photo of the day: Doors, Chaco Culture National Historic Park

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Shelly Martin

Chaco Doors

Posted in American Southwest, Ancient American Southwest, Archaeology, Chaco Culture, CRM Archaeology, National Parks, Prehistoric America | Tagged Ancestral Puebloan, archaeology, Chaco Canyon National Historic Park | Leave a comment

America’s only Clovis skeleton genome offers clues to Native American ancestry (Update)

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Shelly Martin

Nearly 13,000 years ago, a baby boy died in what is Montana today.

Mourners stained his tiny body with red ochre and entombed him with artefacts that had likely been in his family for generations.

After lying undisturbed for millennia, the infant’s body was dug up by accident at a construction site in 1968—the oldest skeleton ever found in the Americas.

Now, scientists say the remains have helped them settle a long-standing debate about the lineage of indigenous Americans, and shed light on the settlement of the last continent to be populated by modern humans.

After decoding the child’s genome, an international team of experts said they can confirm that modern Native Americans are direct descendents of the first people to have settled the continent from Asia some 15,000 years ago, and not migrants from Europe.

via America’s only Clovis skeleton genome offers clues to Native American ancestry (Update).

Posted in Archaeology, Prehistoric America | Tagged archaeology, Clovis, Genetics | Leave a comment

What Killed the Great Beasts of North America? | Science/AAAS | News

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Shelly Martin

Until about 11,000 years ago, mammoths, giant beavers, and other massive mammals roamed North America. Many researchers have blamed their demise on incoming Paleoindians, the first Americans, who allegedly hunted them to extinction. But a new study fingers climate and environmental changes instead. The findings could have implications for conservation strategies, including controversial proposals for “rewilding” lions and elephants into North America.

via What Killed the Great Beasts of North America? | Science/AAAS | News.

Posted in Archaeology, Prehistoric America | Tagged Extinction, Paleoindian, Younger Dryas | Leave a comment

Americas’ Natives Have European Roots – Scientific American

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Shelly Martin

The 24,000-year-old remains of a young boy from the Siberian village of Mal’ta have added a new root to the family tree of indigenous Americans. While some of the New World’s native ancestry clearly traces back to east Asia, the Mal’ta boy’s genome — the oldest known of any modern human — shows that up to one-third of that ancestry can be traced back to Europe.The results show that people related to western Eurasians had spread further east than anyone had suspected, and lived in Siberia during the coldest parts of the last Ice Age.

via Americas’ Natives Have European Roots – Scientific American.

Posted in Archaeology, Prehistoric America | Tagged archaeology, DNA, Native Americans | Leave a comment

Poles discovered an over 8 thousand years old grain storage in Turkey | News | Science & Scholarship in Poland

Posted on January 23, 2014 by Shelly Martin

The largest so far known in the Middle East amount of grain of the Neolithic period in a perfect state of preservation has been discovered by Polish archaeologists in Çatalhöyük, a famous archaeological site in Turkey.Çatalhöyük is one of the largest urban centers of first farmers and one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world. “In a small room with an area of approximately 7 m2 we discovered four clay containers. Each contained barley” – explained project pleader Prof. Arkadiusz Marciniak from the Institute of Prehistory, Adam Mickiewicz University in Pozna?.

via Poles discovered an over 8 thousand years old grain storage in Turkey | News | Science & Scholarship in Poland.

Posted in Archaeology | Tagged archaeology, Neolithic, Turkey | Leave a comment

Mars — Ancient History Encyclopedia

Posted on January 16, 2014 by Shelly Martin

Mars

by Mark Cartwright

published on 16 January 2014

Mars was the Roman god of war and second only to Jupiter in the Roman pantheon. Although most of the myths involving the god were borrowed from the Greek god of war Ares, Mars, nevertheless, had some features which were uniquely Roman. Considered more level-headed than the often impulsive and disruptive Ares, Mars was also seen as a more virtuous figure by the more martial-oriented Romans. As a protector of Rome and the Roman way of life and as a defender of city-borders and frontiers, important festivals connected to warfare were held in his honour and the god was also closely associated with the wolf and woodpecker.

Mars was considered the father of Romulus and Remus, the mythical twin founders of Rome. According to the story, their mother, the Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia, was raped by Mars while she slept and in her dreams she had a vision where she dropped a hairpin to the ground and from which there sprang two twin trees. Over time one of the trees grew so large that it covered the entire world with its shade, a reference to the ultimate success of Romulus and the growth of the huge Roman empire.

via Mars — Ancient History Encyclopedia.

Posted in Ancient Rome, Archaeology, History | Leave a comment