Archive for 2007
By: The Scribe on June, 2007
Something North America seems to be famous for is revealing ancient flora… very, very ancient, in fact. In 2007, archaeobotanists working near Gilboa, Ohio, found what may be the world’s oldest known tree – a giant palm that lived around 380 million years ago.
Hearkening back 140 million years before the dinosaurs, and earlier than the Wollemia pine from Australia that may have lived with the dinosaurs, the Wattieza tree fern had a thin palm-like trunk with a top that resembled the fronds of a modern palm tree. It was likely only around 10 meters high during maturity, though this would have been high enough to reach sunlight through the dense forest canopy.
Archaeogeologists have identified this period of time as the Middle Devonian Period, between 397 and 385 million years ago, which is thought to have been an incubator period that saw the development of new reproductive strategies for land plants. Other life at the time included small insects, spiders, and oceanic crustaceans, as identified through fossil remains.
With the rise of land plants, the atmosphere and ecosystem of the entire Earth would have shifted, creating new micro-environments that could have sustained additional smaller plants and insects, eventually storing enough carbon to support an extensive amount of land life.
Previously, the oldest known tree was a plant called Archaeopteris, which had leafy twigs and long roots and branches, very unlike the small fern-leaves and reproductive spores from Wattieza. Archaeopteris was placed in the Late Devonian Period, around 359 million years ago.
The discovery of the world’s oldest tree has managed to shed significant insight into how the Earth’s landscape developed over the course of time, as well as helping to understand how much impact a forest’s growth can have on the rest of an area’s environment. So far, archaeobotanists have realized that it was the growth of these early forests and plant systems that must have paved the way for the sustainable development of early reptilian and mammalian life.
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Tomorrow: Nostradamus…OoOoOoooh
By: The Scribe on June, 2007
Previously here at the Ancient Standard, we brought you a story about a gladiator graveyard recently discovered at the site of the ancient city of Ephesus in Turkey. Now, it appears that forensic analysis of 70 gladiator skeletons has revealed some startling news about gladiator lifestyles – or rather, what they ate during their lives as gladiators.
Instead of conforming to the modern media image of gladiators as muscle-bound Playboys, gladiators in ancient Rome were actually overweight vegetarians – strong and muscular, yes, but with more than a little extra pudge around the middle. Using a method known as elementary microanalysis, palaeoanthropologists were able to determine that ancient gladiators lived off a diet that consisted mainly of barley, beans, and dried fruit.
A simple diet such as this, while increasing bone density and actually allowing the gladiators to become much stronger than normal, would result in a zinc deficiency, causing an imbalance in the gladiator’s internal chemistry. There would be too much of a natural chemical called strontium built up in the body, which would result in the gladiator becoming – rather literally – fat.
Why was this beneficial? Primarily, these layers of fat would have helped to protect their vital organs against piercing blows from opponents. It may have also helped them to heal much more quickly after being injured. Considering that most gladiators only survived for an average of three years in the ring, it was likely the case that gladiators “beefed up” during the fighting seasons and training, and then lost the weight soon after retirement (if they survived that long).
So, as much as Hollywood would like everyone to believe that gladiators were poster boys for fitness, the truth of the matter is that even though they were incredibly strong and relatively attractive men – in fact, unattractive men weren’t even considered for gladiatorial training – they were actually relatively overweight, moreso resembling lightweight sumo wrestlers than Russell Crowe’s movie-gladiator Maximus.
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Tomorrow: 380 Million year old tree…
By: The Scribe on June, 2007
‘Homer’ is the name of the ancient Greek poet traditionally attributed to the composition of the famous poems Iliad and the Odyssey: the Iliad tells the story of the Trojan War, while the Odyssey details the journey of the warrior Odysseus as he attempts to make his way home after the war has ended. Dated to around the 8th or 7th centuries BC, it is debated whether Homer actually composed the poems, or simply borrowed them from an already established oral tradition.
Almost nothing is known concretely about the life of Homer or who he even was, though tradition claims that he was blind – various Ionian cities also claimed themselves as his birthplace, confusing the matter further. Indeed, there is no definitive evidence to even say that he ever existed as a real person, however the ancient Greeks were highly familiar with these poems and seemed to accept that a poet named Homer did, at some point, live and compose tales of the Trojan war.
At the very least, it seems that Homer drew on the local ‘oral tradition’ of stories and tales about the Trojan War, known as the ‘Epic Cycle’, and re-wrote them as one large, coherent story. In fact, it is even possible that Homer did this without writing the poems down, and simply passed on his extensive repertoire of poetry through oral transmission – much like bards in Medieval Europe – and that they were not physically written down by a scribe until much later.
Scholars have also wondered about the level of truth in Homer’s poems – did he compose the Iliad and the Odyssey based on real events? Did a war against a city called Troy ever take place? It is possible that stories about a real war had been passed down and elaborated upon for generations, eventually reaching the point of legend – the events of which could then be composed as an entertaining, dramatic performance-driven piece of poetry.
The ancient Greeks revered Homer, and greatly admired his contribution to their culture and literature. Some Greek colonies, such as the city of Argos and the later Hellenistic city of Homerion, even developed ‘hero cults’ for Homer, and carried out ritual sacrifices in his name.
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Tomorrow: More interesting history!
By: The Scribe on June, 2007
While excavating a site in Suffolk in 2007, archaeologist Clare Good stumbled across a diamond-shaped object made of mineral jet, incised with a geometric pattern. This 4000-year-old amulet bears a surprising resemblance to another gold geometric-style object from a site near Stonehenge in Wiltshire. Evidently, the two are strikingly similar, and experts have speculated that the black object is a ‘skeuomorph’ – a copy of the object in another material.
Located in the remains of a funeral pyre, Good suspects that someone placed a number of items, such as the jet object, some pottery, and a knife, inside the pit after the body on the pyre was burned. The object itself has several parallel lines drawn around the outside, with several semi-circles around the inside and double circle with center dot. What the meaning of this design was remains a mystery, though the type of material used to make this object is believed to have held significance for the ancient people who lived around Stonehenge.
Mineral jet has been used all over the world in ancient cultures to create religious artifacts such as amulets or beads, and thus it is believed that the item uncovered by Good was an amulet with ‘magical powers’ – possibly even commissioned by religious leaders or a wisdom healer in the area.
Traces of copper from several holes in the object indicate that the amulet was likely held onto a piece of clothing with copper pins – possibly leather clothing, due to the heavy-duty abilities of copper. Good believes that both the jet piece and the gold piece may have even been attached together onto someone’s leather garment, likely in a visible area to let others know of their supernatural protection.
Although it is not known to whom these amulets belonged, it is likely that they were wealthy elites, and more likely, elite religious leaders
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Tomorrow: The REAL Homer
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