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July 2003 | |
 Humans settled in Amazon 4,500 years ago
Archaeologists said that they had uncovered remains of a monument and carved stone receptacles which prove that man had lived in the upper reaches of the Amazon some 4,500 years ago. The discovery was made in southern Ecuador in the province of Zamora-Chinchipe by Ecuadorian and French archaeologists, Francisco Baldes, chief Ecuadorian archeologist of the program, announced at a press conference.
The finds were uncovered at Santa Ana Florida near the Peruvianborder, at a site believed to have been used for "funereal or ceremonial" occasions. The stone containers were finely polished and feature engravings of large cats, condors and snakes. The remains proved that some complex human community had existed in the upper reaches of the Amazon since 2,450 BC and that was the earliest proof of human settlement in the region, said the experts.
Baldes added that the remains, as a proof of the early civilization in Andes region, was very similar to the well-known culture of the Chavin or Cupisnique in Peru. The Ecuadorian government will make the remains a tour site by setting up a museum there.
Source: People's Daily (2 July 2003)
Stonehenge: an ancient sex simbol?
Stonehenge's purpose has always remained a mystery, but now a University of British Columbia researcher has announced he has uncovered its true meaning: it is a giant fertility symbol, constructed in the shape of the female sexual organ.
"There was a concept in Neolithic times of a great goddess or Earth Mother," says Anthony Perks, a gynaecologist who decided to investigate the idea that the circles could have symbolic anatomical links. "Stonehenge could represent the opening by which the Earth Mother gave birth to the plants and animals on which ancient people so depended."
According to Perks's analysis, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine , the critical events in the lives of the builders of Stonehenge were births and deaths in their families and community. But there is no evidence of any burials near Stonehenge, Perks adds. "There is little sign of death; there are no tombs, because Stonehenge was a place of life and birth, not death".
Evidence that the monument was dominated by ideas about creation and regeneration has been overlooked until now, says Perks. He claimed there is a strong similarity between Stonehenge seen from above and the anatomy of the female sexual organ. The most important concern is the central empty area: "This area is empty because it represents the opening to the world, the birth canal," says Perks. Stonehenge was therefore constructed to honour the Earth Mother for "giving both life and livelihood". Stonehenge's alignment with various astronomical events could fit with notions of an Earth Mother partnered with a Sun Father, says Perks.
It is intriguing theory, though it has failed to impress experts. David Miles, chief archaeologist for English Heritage, said Perks's theory, although interesting, was essentially untestable. "You can come up with just about any idea to explain a structure like Stonehenge if you stare at it for long enough. And if Stonehenge was built so that it looked like a female sexual organ when viewed from above, how were people supposed to see that? As far as we have been able to tell, they didn't have hot-air balloons in prehistoric times".
"The archaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes once said that every age gets the Stonehenge it deserves," added Miles. "For example, in the 1960s, at the dawn of the computing era, researchers argued that you could use Stonehenge as a giant calculating machine. Later, in the more mystical New Age, it was argued that the monument was really a spaceport for aliens, while, in the Middle Ages, it was said Stonehenge was built by giants. By those standards, this latest idea seems to say something quite odd about the twentyfirst century."
Source: The Observer (6 July 2003)
Miami circle to be reburied
Five years after discovery of the Miami Circle, overseers have decided to rebury the 2,000-year-old archeological landmark, pushing plans for public access still further into the future. "It was decided to cover up the Circle with dirt or other gravel fill to protect it from the elements," said Brenda Swann, archaeology supervisor for the Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research. The move, she said, will be made to keep the Brickell Avenue landmark pristine pending a Department of the Interior study to see whether it can be included in the National Parks System as part of Biscayne National Park.
"The parks service approach is to look for minimal damage," Ms. Swann said. "We felt the best thing to do is to protect it until its status becomes more clear." The delay won't necessarily interfere with the planning group's efforts to get public access to the site, she said.
A year ago the group proposed a temporary thatched-roof shelter resembling a Seminole chickee over the 38-foot-wide circle and a walkway winding through the site. At that time, Michael Spring, executive director of the Miami-Dade Department of Cultural Affairs and a member of the planning group, had said athat shelter would secure the site and satisfy public desire to see it while the planning group contemplated its fate. "That's not off the table completely," Ms. Swann said. "We're taking a four-month period to look at different options for more permanent access, including tours."
Source: Miami Today (3 July 2003)
Looking for the real age of Pedra Furada petroglyphs
At Pedra Furada, a prehistoric site in a remote area of Brazil, there are more than 350 stone walls filled with paintings of people, deer, llamas, crocodiles and even pumas. They also may be the oldest cave paintings ever found in the Americas, and their discovery could radically change scientists' understanding of how and when the first people came to this hemisphere.
The problem is the paintings, drawn with charcoal and other pigments, are not 30,000 years old, as a team of archaeologists led by Brazilian Niede Guidon there claim, but just a few thousand years old. At issue is the method used to date the cave paintings: scientists can now measure trapped electrons in the thin layer of calcium that builds up on cave paintings over the centuries. It's a proven method for dating stalactites and stalagmites in caves. But it's problematic for dating human art because limestone in cave walls, at millions of years old, can contaminate the calcium deposits and give a much older age.
Brazilian scientists recently used this method for setting the age of several Pedra Furada paintings at between 27,000 and 44,000 years old. To add validity to the findings, they sent material to Marvin Rowe, a professor of archaeological chemistry at Texas A&M University, who has developed a novel method of dating cave art called plasma extraction. Rowe's method is unique because he can extract traces of carbon within the non-living pigments, giving scientists a potentially powerful new tool to date cave painting.
In his lab, Rowe tested 12 mostly reddish paint samples and found ages ranging from 1,230 to 3,730 years ago, hardly eyebrow-raising dates for human habitation in South America. "I was so disappointed myself because it would really have been a fantastic result," Rowe said.
Until the last few decades the long-held belief was that mammoth-hunting humans crossed a Bering Sea land bridge about 12,000 years ago. In 1985, an anthropologist at the University of Kentucky, Tom Dillehay, reported finding human artifacts at a site in central Chile that were 12,500 years old. The finding has led scientists to believe that humans were here earlier, and possibly came by boat rather than land. Dillehay says his own excavations at Pedra Furada support people living there 11,500 years ago, but not earlier. "We need to keep our minds open, but cautiously so," Dillehay said.
Source: Houston Chronicle (2 July 2003)
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