http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/archeology-blog.html Archeology blog from networlddirectory, the place for information. Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT en-us http://www.networlddirectory.com/images/blogs/archeology-blog.jpg http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/archeology-blog.html 112 83 http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/dino-not-so-soaring.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/dino-not-so-soaring.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT The largest animals ever to have walked the face of the earth may not have been as big as previously thought, reveals a paper published recently in the Zoological Society of London's Journal of Zoology Researchers have discovered that the original statistical model used to calculate dinosaur mass is flawed, suggesting dinosaurs have been oversized........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/record-for-past-half-million-years.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/record-for-past-half-million-years.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT Scientists here have used sediment from the deep ocean bottom to reconstruct a record of ancient climate that dates back more than the last half-million years. The record, trapped within the top 20 meters (65.6 feet) of a 400-meter (1,312-foot) sediment core drilled in 2005 in the North Atlantic Ocean by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, gives new information about the four glacial cycles that occurred during that period........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2009/match-between-molecular-fossil-data.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2009/match-between-molecular-fossil-data.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT During a seminar at another institution several years ago, University of Chicago paleontologist David Jablonski fielded a hostile question: Why bother classifying organisms as per their physical appearance, let alone analyze their evolutionary dynamics, when molecular techniques had already invalidated that approach?....... ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2009/discovery-of-early-african-mammal-fossils.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2009/discovery-of-early-african-mammal-fossils.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT A limestone countertop, a practiced eye and Google Earth all played roles in the discovery of a trove of fossils that may shed light on the origins of African wildlife. The circuitous and serendipitous story, featuring University of Michigan paleontologists Philip Gingerich, Gregg Gunnell and Bill Sanders, is the subject of a segment on the award-winning television series "Wild Chronicles," currently airing on public television stations (Episode 412-Looking Back; check listings for local air dates). "Wild Chronicles" is produced by National Geographic Television and presented by WLIW21 in association with WNET.ORG........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2009/did-dinosaurs-die-from-an-asteroid-hit.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2009/did-dinosaurs-die-from-an-asteroid-hit.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT The enduringly popular theory that the Chicxulub crater holds the clue to the demise of the dinosaurs, along with some 65 percent of all species 65 million years ago, is challenged in a paper to be reported in the Journal of the Geological Society on April 27, 2009. The crater, discovered in 1978 in northern Yucutan and measuring about 180 kilometers (112 miles) in diameter, records a massive extra-terrestrial impact........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2009/temple-that-sheds-light-on-dark-age.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2009/temple-that-sheds-light-on-dark-age.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT The discovery of a remarkably well-preserved monumental temple in Turkey - believed to be constructed during the time of King Solomon in the 10th/9th-centuries BC - sheds light on the so-called Dark Age. Uncovered by the University of Toronto's Tayinat Archaeological Project (TAP) in the summer of 2008, the discovery casts doubt upon the traditional view that the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age was violent, sudden and culturally disruptive........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2009/mistress-of-the-lionesses.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2009/mistress-of-the-lionesses.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT The legend is that the great rulers of Canaan, the ancient land of Israel, were all men. But a recent dig by Tel Aviv University archaeologists at Tel Beth-Shemesh uncovered possible evidence of a mysterious female ruler. Tel Aviv University archaeologists Prof. Shlomo Bunimovitz and Dr. Zvi Lederman of the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations have uncovered an unusual ceramic plaque of a goddess in female dress, suggesting that a mighty female "king" may have ruled the city. If true, they say, the plaque would depict the only known female ruler of the region........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2009/ct-to-reveal-hidden-face.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2009/ct-to-reveal-hidden-face.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT Using CT imaging to study a priceless bust of Nefertiti, scientists have uncovered a delicately carved face in the limestone inner core and gained new insights into methods used to create the ancient masterpiece and information pertinent to its conservation, as per a research studyreported in the recent issue of Radiology....... ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2009/why-those-fishes-went-extinct-65-million-years-ago.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2009/why-those-fishes-went-extinct-65-million-years-ago.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT Large size and a fast bite spelled doom for bony fishes during the last mass extinction 65 million years ago, as per a newly released study to be published March 31, 2009, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Today, those same features characterize large predatory bony fishes, such as tuna and billfishes, that are currently in decline and at risk of extinction themselves, said Matt Friedman, author of the study and a graduate student in evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/2-2009/air-filled-bones-helped-prehistoric-reptiles.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/2-2009/air-filled-bones-helped-prehistoric-reptiles.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT In the Mesozoic Era, 70 million years before birds first conquered the skies, pterosaurs dominated the air with sparrow- to Cessna-sized wingspans. Researchers suspected that these extinct reptiles sustained flight through flapping, based on fossil evidence from the wings, but had little understanding of how pterosaurs met the energetic demands of active flight........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/2-2009/what-did-prehistoric-hominid-eat.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/2-2009/what-did-prehistoric-hominid-eat.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT In an unusual intersection of materials science and anthropology, scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and The George Washington University (GWU) have applied materials-science-based mathematical models to help shed light on the dietary habits of some of mankinds prehistoric relatives. Their work forms part of a newly published, multidisciplinary analysis* of the early hominid Australopithecus africanus by anthropologists at the State University of New York at Albany and elsewhere........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/2-2009/cacao-ritually-used-in-chaco-canyon.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/2-2009/cacao-ritually-used-in-chaco-canyon.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT Inhabitants of Chaco Canyon apparently drank chocolate from cylinders like these about a thousand years ago. That's the finding in a paper published this week by PNAS, a publication of the National Academy of Science and written by Distinguished Professor of Anthropology Patricia L. Crown and her Collaborator at the Hershey Center of Health and Nutrition W. Jeffrey Hurst........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/2-2009/the-advent-of-earliest-known-animals.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/2-2009/the-advent-of-earliest-known-animals.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT Using compounds preserved in sedimentary rocks more than 635 million years old, scientists have found some of the earliest evidence for the existence of animals. Demosponges thrived in the shallow coastal waters of what is now Oman, as per scientist Gordon Love of the University of California at Riverside and his colleagues from MIT and other institutions........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/2-2009/largest-prehistoric-fossil-snake.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/2-2009/largest-prehistoric-fossil-snake.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT Scientists have recovered fossils from a 60-million-year-old South American snake whose length and weight might make today's anacondas seem like garter snakes. Named Titanoboa cerrejonensis by its discoverers, the size of the snake's vertebrae suggest it weighed 1,140 kilograms (2,500 pounds) and measured 13 meters (42.7 feet) nose to tail tip........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/1-2009/new-piece-in-the-jigsaw-puzzle-of-human-origins.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/1-2009/new-piece-in-the-jigsaw-puzzle-of-human-origins.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT In an article in today's Nature, Uppsala researcher Martin Brazeau describes the skull and jaws of a fish that lived about 410 million years ago. The study may give important clues to the origin of jawed vertebrates, and thus ultimately our own evolution. Ptomacanthus anglicus was a very early jawed fish that lived in the Devonian period some 410 million years ago. Typically it represents a type of fossil fish known as an "acanthodian" which is characterized by a somewhat shark-like appearance and sharp spines along the leading edges of all fins (except for the tail fin). This group of early jawed fishes may reveal a great deal about the origin of jawed vertebrates (a story that ultimately includes our own origins). However, their relationships to modern jawed vertebrates (and thus their evolutionary significance) are poorly understood, owing partly to the fact that we know very little about their internal head skeleton........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/1-2009/first-americans-arrived-as-2-separate-migrations.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/1-2009/first-americans-arrived-as-2-separate-migrations.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT The first people to arrive in America traveled as at least two separate groups to arrive in their new home at about the same time, as per new genetic evidence published online on January 8th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. After the Last Glacial Maximum some 15,000 to 17,000 years ago, one group entered North America from Beringia following the ice-free Pacific coastline, while another traversed an open land corridor between two ice sheets to arrive directly into the region east of the Rocky Mountains. (Beringia is the landmass that connected northeast Siberia to Alaska during the last ice age.) Those first Americans later gave rise to almost all modern Native American groups of North, Central, and South America, with the important exceptions of the Na-Dene and the Eskimos-Aleuts of northern North America, the scientists said........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/1-2009/watch-out-some-pterosaurs-take-off.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/1-2009/watch-out-some-pterosaurs-take-off.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT Pterosaurs have long suffered an identity crisis. Pop culture heedlessly - and wrongly - lumps these extinct flying lizards in with dinosaurs. Even paleontologists assumed that because the creatures flew, they were birdlike in a number of ways, such as using only two legs to take flight. Now comes what is thought to befirst-time evidence that launching some 500 pounds of reptilian heft into flight mandatory pterosaurs to use four limbs: two were ultra-strong wings which, when folded and balanced on a knuckle, served as front "legs" that helped the creature to walk - and leap........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2008/male-dinosaurs-may-have-been-babysitters.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2008/male-dinosaurs-may-have-been-babysitters.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT Those ferocious Hollywood meat-eating dinosaurs you're used to seeing in the movies very possibly had a much softer side: the males might even have been sort of prehistoric babysitters, as per a far-flung study conducted by a Texas AandM University researcher. Jason Moore, a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Geology and Geophysics, and team members from Montana State University, Florida State University and the American Museum of Natural History in New York discovered that some types of male dinosaurs probably cared for and watched over eggs in much the same way that females of other species do. Their work appears in the current issue of Science magazine........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2008/ancient-empires-declined-during-dry-spell.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2008/ancient-empires-declined-during-dry-spell.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT The decline of the Roman and Byzantine Empires in the Eastern Mediterranean more than 1,400 years ago may have been driven by unfavorable climate changes. Based on chemical signatures in a piece of calcite from a cave near Jerusalem, a team of American and Israeli geologists pieced together a detailed record of the area's climate from roughly 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D. Their analysis, to be reported in an upcoming issue of the journal Quaternary Research, reveals increasingly dry weather from 100 A.D. to 700 A.D. that coincided with the fall of both Roman and Byzantine rule in the region........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2008/oetzis-last-supper.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2008/oetzis-last-supper.html Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT What we eat can say a lot about us - where we live, how we live and eventually even when we lived. From the analysis of the intestinal contents of the 5,200-year-old Iceman from the Eastern Alps, Professor James Dickson from the University of Glasgow in the UK and his team have shed some light on the mummy's lifestyle and some of the events leading up to his death. By identifying six different mosses in his alimentary tract, they suggest that the Iceman may have travelled, injured himself and dressed his wounds. Their findings1 are reported in the recent issue of Springer's journal Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, which is specially dedicated to Oetzi the Iceman........ ]]>