Ancient History (3500 BC – 499 AD)

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Ancient Bones Suggest Maya Befriended Neighbors with a Sacrificial Spider Monkey

by Issam Ahmed
November 23, 2022

Introduction:
(Science Alert) Seventeen hundred years ago, a female spider monkey was presented as a treasured gift – and later brutally sacrificed – to strengthen ties between two major powers of pre-Hispanic America, according to a new study.

The paper, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), compared the offering by Maya elites to Teotihuacan to China's panda diplomacy that accompanied the normalization of Sino-US relations in the 1970s.

By using multiple techniques – including extraction of ancient DNA, radiocarbon dating, and chemical dietary analysis – researchers were able to reconstruct the life and death of the primate, finding she was likely between five and eight years of age when buried alive.


Conclusion:
Ultimately, the animal met a grisly demise: "Hands bound behind its back and tethered feet indicate en vivo burial, common among human and animal sacrifices at Teotihuacan," the authors wrote.

Though savage to modern eyes, "we need to understand and contextualize these cultural practices… and what it meant to be able to give up that which is most precious to you," said Sugiyama.
Read more here: https://www.sciencealert.com/ancient-b ... er-monkey
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Re: Ancient History (3500 BC – 499 AD)

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Scientists Discover 168 Mysterious Nazca Geoglyphs in The Desert Sands of Peru
by Carly Cassella
December 13, 2022

Introduction:
(Science Alert) The Nazca desert in Peru is like an art gallery for the gods above. Yet even with decades of surveyance from the skies, we've barely explored a small wing of this fading collection of giants among the stones.

Last year, an archaeologist in Peru told The Guardian he thought scientists had found only 5 percent of all the Nazca lines out there in the desert. Researchers at Yamagata University in Japan are now working with local archaeologists to change that, and their latest haul of ancient lines nearly doubles the previous number of known designs.

Drone surveys and aerial images in southern Peru have now identified 168 new geoglyphs in the Nazca Lines World Heritage Site, with roughly 50 of these large-scale geographical drawings depicting human-like figures.

One of the humanoid illustrations even appears to be sporting a bit of facial hair, Homer Simpson-style.
Read more here: https://www.sciencealert.com/scientist ... s-of-peru
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Re: Ancient History (3500 BC – 499 AD)

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Grad Student Solves 2,500-year-old Sanskrit Grammar Conflict
by Amanda Pampuro
December 14, 2022

Introduction:
(Courthouse News) — What do you do when the rule written to resolve conflicts instead creates them?

Classical linguist Pāṇini all but described the rules of Sanskrit in his momentous 5th century B.C. work the Aṣṭādhyāyī. For more than two millennia however, one set of problematic instructions — meant for resolving rule conflicts — instead made the well-oiled language machine misfire.

Enter linguist and doctoral candidate Rishi Rajpopat, who detailed the discovery of his solution amid the complexities of Sanskrit scholarship in his dissertation published by the University of Cambridge on Wednesday.

Known as the father of Sanskrit and the first descriptive linguist, Pāṇini documented nearly 4,000 language rules in the “eight book” Aṣṭādhyāyī nearly 2,500 years ago. The Indian scholar lived in what is now northwest Pakistan and southeast Afghanistan.

Pāṇini's grammar rules are considered a ‘language machine’ complete with metalanguage, metarules and operation rules, predating Alan Turing's 1936 mathematical machine by more than 2,000 years.
Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/grad-st ... conflict/
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Re: Ancient History (3500 BC – 499 AD)

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Huge 2,000-year-old Mayan civilization discovered in northern Guatemala
https://phys.org/news/2022-12-huge-year ... thern.html
by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

A team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in the U.S., working with a colleague from France and another from Guatemala, has discovered a very large 2,000-year-old Mayan civilization in northern Guatemala. In their paper published in the journal Ancient Mesoamerica, the group describes using LiDAR to conduct a survey of the area.

LiDAR is a detection system similar to radar but is based on laser light rather than sound signals. In recent years, it has been used to scan parts of dense tropical rain forests for signs of ancient civilizations. Lasers used in such systems are able to penetrate vegetative canopies over rain forests, revealing what is on the ground beneath them.

In this new effort, the researchers flew over parts of Guatemala as part of a mapping effort, when they came across what they describe as a vast ancient Maya civilization. In studying their maps, they were able to see that the ancient civilization was made up of more than 1,000 settlements covering approximately 650 square miles, most of which were linked by multiple causeways. The researchers were also able to see that the people who once lived in the settlements had been densely packed—a finding that goes against theories suggesting early Mesoamerican settlements tended to be sparsely populated.

The causeways (cleared, raised beds used as roads) added up to 110 miles of traversable pathways, making it relatively easy for the people in the civilization to visit other settlements. The researchers note that the road network would have allowed for collective labor efforts.

The researchers also found evidence of large platforms and pyramids in some settlements, which, they note, suggests some of them served as centralized hubs for work, recreation and politics. They note also that some of the settlements had ball courts that prior research has shown were used for playing a variety of sports native to the region. The researchers also found that the people of the civilization had built canals for moving water and reservoirs for holding it to allow for use during dry periods.
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LIDAR reveals ancient Mesoamerican structures aligned for use as a 260-day calendar
https://phys.org/news/2023-01-lidar-rev ... igned.html
by Bob Yirka , Phys.org
A trio of researchers from the Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the University of Arizona, and Colgate University has found examples of Mesoamerican structures aligned for use as a 260-day calendar, built thousands of years ago along Mexico's gulf coast.

In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, Ivan Šprajc, Takeshi Inomata and Anthony Aveni describe how aircraft-based LIDAR allowed them to see the alignment of the ancient structures. They also discuss how these structures could have been used by ancient cultures.

Prior research has shown that ancient people living in Mesoamerica had developed and used a 260-day calendar as far back as 300 to 200 B.C. The written evidence was found on plaster mural fragments.
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Smallpox has plagued humans since ancient Egyptian times, new evidence confirms
https://phys.org/news/2023-01-smallpox- ... ptian.html
by Microbiology Society

Smallpox was once one of humanity's most devastating diseases, but its origin is shrouded in mystery. For years, scientific estimates of when the smallpox virus first emerged have been at odds with historical records. Now, a new study reveals that the virus dates back 2,000 years further than scientists have previously shown, verifying historical sources and confirming for the first time that the disease has plagued human societies since ancient times.

The paper appears in the journal Microbial Genomics.

Smallpox, caused by the variola virus, is perhaps best known for being the only infectious human disease to be eradicated worldwide. But the disease was a major cause of death until relatively recently, killing at least 300 million people in the 20th century. This is roughly the equivalent of the population of the United States.

Until relatively recently, the earliest genetic evidence for smallpox was only from the 1600s. Then in 2020, a study that sampled skeletal and dental remains of Viking-age skeletons recovered multiple strains of variola and confirmed the virus' existence at least another 1,000 years earlier.
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Re: Ancient History (3500 BC – 499 AD)

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Ancient temple to Poseidon has been discovered after tsunami hit Greece
Jan 13, 2023 4:37 PM

The great Greek god of the seas, Poseidon, will be no doubt pleased to hear that archeologists have discovered a temple that once stood in his honor. Remarkably, the remains might even be those of an important shrine that was mentioned by the ancient Greek historian Strabo.

Archeologists led by the Austrian Archaeological Institute say the ruins were found at a site that was once a Poseidon sanctuary surrounded by a grove of wild olives and, as such, they believe the remains of the structure were a temple dedicated to the god.

"The location of this uncovered sacred site matches the details provided by Strabo in his writings," Dr Birgitta Eder, Director of the Athens Branch of the Austrian Archaeological Institute, said in a statement.

The site can be found among three hills near the tiny Greek village of Samikon and the beach that overlooks the Ionian Sea. Today, this is a sleepy pocket of the Mediterranean coast – but it was once an important hub of activity and travel used by the ancient Greeks since the Mycenaean-era

"The results of our investigations to date indicate that the waves of the open Ionian Sea actually washed up directly against the group of hills until the 5th millennium BCE. Thereafter, on the side facing the sea, an extensive beach barrier system developed in which several lagoons were isolated from the sea," added Vött.
https://www.iflscience.com/ancient-temp ... eece-67076
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Egypt says ancient royal tomb unearthed in Luxor
Source: AP

today

CAIRO (AP) — Archaeologists unearthed an ancient tomb in the southern Egyptian city of Luxor, known for its treasures dating back to the pharaohs, authorities said Saturday.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said an Egyptian-British mission found the royal tomb in an ancient site on the west bank of the Nile River in Luxor, 650 kilometers (400 miles) south of the capital of Cairo.

He said initial examinations show that the tomb apparently belongs to the 18th Dynasty of Pharaonic Egypt, which spanned from 1550 B.C. to 1292 B.C.

The tomb is the latest in a series of ancient discoveries Egypt has touted in recent years in hopes of attracting more tourists. Egypt has been trying to revive its tourism sector, a major source of foreign currency. The sector is heavily reliant on the country’s ancient treasures.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/science-cair ... 7f9c61e529
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Norway archaeologists find 'world's oldest runestone'
Source: AP

By JAN M. OLSEN 2 hours ago

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Archaeologists in Norway said Tuesday that have found a runestone which they claim is the world’s oldest, saying the inscriptions are up to 2,000 years old and date back to the earliest days of the enigmatic history of runic writing.

The flat, square block of brownish sandstone has carved scribbles, which may be the earliest example of words recorded in writing in Scandinavia, the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo said. It said it was “among the oldest runic inscriptions ever found” and “the oldest datable runestone in the world.”

“This find will give us a lot of knowledge about the use of runes in the early Iron Age. This may be one of the first attempts to use runes in Norway and Scandinavia on stone,” Kristel Zilmer, a professor at University of Oslo, of which the museum is part, told The Associated Press.

Older runes have been found on other items, but not on stone. The earliest runic find is on a bone comb found in Denmark. Zilmer said that maybe the tip of knife or a needle was used to carve the runes.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/norway-oslo- ... a6ffafdfaa
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