Random Thought

Today I thought I would share a blog with some amazing pics of buildings of an Iron Age Settlement....... The Cairns Project, South Ronaldsay . Enjoy

common domain It would appear that Neanderthal's reputation is finally starting to catch up with their character. A report just published in Nature journal has done two very important things for Neanderthals. First, it shows that they were much more sophisticated than historians have depicted them and secondly, it has pushed their date of sophistication back three fold into prehistory. Until now most experts considered the oldest show of any culture and civilization by Neanderthal to be their cave art, which is only considered to go back to about 40,000 years ago. Recently there has been a lot of new discoveries or new tests on old discoveries that have given a new image to our Neanderthal cousins. We now know that Neanderthals made tools, used fire, made art, buried their dead, and perhaps even had language. “ The new findings have ushered a transformation of the Neanderthal from a knuckle-dragging savage rightfully defeated in an evolutionary contest, to a distant cousin t...

William Gadoury via CSA In the last few days there has been talk about the discovery of a new Mayan city by a schoolboy from Canada. William Gadoury has been interested in all things Maya for most of his young life. He has taken his interest seriously and used his curiosity and creativity to look for more understanding of the culture that stirs his imagination.  It has long been pondered about how the Maya chose the sites for some of their greatest cities. They are not near water sources. They are not along coasts. They are not along trade routes. They are not on grid patterns. They are not in open plains. They are not strategically impressive. Thus a question has plagued scholars for years; Why build cities in the middle of the jungle away from natural resources, especially water, and seeming to ignore all other logical rationale for human settlement? In most cases Mayan cities remained hidden and undisturbed of hundreds of years, due in part to the jungle having so complete...

Illustration by Jayne Doucette, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution When it comes to history and especially archaeology one of the biggest questions is "When did it happen?" In 1940 Martin Kamen introduced the world to Carbon14. Carbon14 (C14) is an isotope of Carbon. If you are not sure why it is Carbon14 as opposed to just Carbon or a different isotope, such as Carbon12 (C12), it has to do with the number of protons and neutrons that each contain. All carbon atoms have 6 protons, but the isotopes C14 and C12 have different numbers of neutrons and thus have differing levels of radioactivity, a C12 isotope has 6 neutrons therefore C14 has 8 neutrons, this difference in numbers of neutrons also changes the mass(weight) of the atoms as well. Willard F. Libby via ACS Seven years later Willard F. Libby presented the world with a method using C14 for radiocarbon dating. The theory of radiocarbon dating is based on the belief that the atmosphere contains a constant amoun...

If you look at things around the world....especially when it comes to the time before radio, television, and, of course, the internet...it seems that there are a whole lot of cultures that supposedly had no contact with far flung others that seem to have independently created the same images. One of the most iconic images, that is world-wide, is the pyramid. From Giza to Mexico to India and many places in between. In addition to the existing true pyramids there are also mounds and raised platforms , that some consider to be forms of pyramids in many other places as well. Let's take a look at some of the most famous of the amazing structures. While Giza pyramids are probably the most famous, they are considered by some to be younger than the Mesopotamia Ziggurats, which were the living places of the Gods. Yet, they resemble those of Mesoamerica that are considered thousands of years younger. The ones from India seem to have more in common visually with the ziggurats, yet th...

probably by Domenico Zampieri, c. 1602 (Palazzo Farnese, Rome) Throughout known history man has told fantastic stories of wonderful creatures and terrifying monsters. There are even depictions of creatures at ancient sites that some argue are representation of dinosaurs or other extinct creatures that supposedly the artisans would have no knowledge of. Of these mythical creatures, one of the most beloved is the unicorn. In modern romanticize versions this majestic creature has all the characters of a horse with a spiral shaped horned. But what is the actual basis for the unicorn? In the Old Testament of the Bible, there are up to 5 verses that use the word unicorn to describe a beast , either metaphorically or realistically. It is believed that these references refer to an animal more like an oxen, bull or bison with large horns. This would make sense since the bull was a very important animal to most cultures of the time. An animal listed as an unicorn can also be found listed i...