By: The Scribe on Monday, March 11, 2013
Several recent discoveries of canine skulls have revealed to scientists that your darling little Buddy’s ancestors may have been man’s best friend 15,000 years earlier than they’d previously thought.
One of the skulls, found in the Altai Mountains of Siberia, has shown through DNA tests to be more closely related to modern domestic pets than wolves, showing that dogs may have been domesticated over 33,000 years ago—moving the earliest thought domestication out of East Asia and the Middle East.
The theory is that wolves moved from being wild creatures to domesticated creatures through a slow process, though exactly how has been debated (and still is) in many scientific circles. It is well documented that dogs were fully established within human societies about 10,000 years ago, with burials of dogs and humans found together in graves from Germany dated to 14,000 years ago.
This new skull and another fossil found in Goyet Cave (Belgium) now represent the two oldest potentially domestic dogs ever discovered—and along with DNA research, the anatomical examinations of the skulls showed them to be more like Lassie than the Big Bad.
The genetic sequences studied by researchers were compared to gene sequences of 72 modern dog species from 70 different breeds, as well as 30 wolves, 4 coyotes, and 35 “prehistoric canid species from the Americas.” ()
The results? Pretty much what they’d already learned from looking at the skulls, though the study did confirm that the Altai canid skull was from an ancient dog and not an ancient wolf, though the split from wolf would have happened rather recently in the dog’s ancestry.
That said, the DNA study was limited to just a portion of the genome, since working with ancient DNA presents its own set of challenges! According to researchers on the project, “additional discoveries of doglike remains are essential for further narrowing the time and region of origin for the domestic dog.”
Either way, give your Old Yeller a hug today—sounds like dogs have been putting up with us for a lot longer than most people would!
By: The Scribe on Friday, March 8, 2013
Want to know an ancient Chinese secret? Shhh… come closer… good. That rice you’re having for dinner? The sticky rice that’s easy to pick up with your chopsticks? It’s both tasty and practical! If you can’t finish what’s on your plate, no problem! We’ll just make it into a nice paste, and…
Well, the rest is ancient history.
Turns out scientists have discovered the secret behind a super-strong ancient Chinese mortar that was used to build city walls and buildings that could withstand earthquakes. Sticky rice, or the “sweet rice” that’s a mainstay in traditional Asian dishes, was developed into a “sticky rice mortar” about 1,500 years ago by mixing rice with slaked lime.
Slaked lime isn’t a piece of citrus fruit—it’s actually limestone that’s been heated to a very high temperature and then exposed to water. Sticky rice mortar is thought to have therefore been the world’s first composite mortar using organic and inorganic materials.
Sticky rice mortar just so happened to be more resistant to water than mortar made with pure lime, and thus was used to construct things like city walls, pagodas, buildings, and tombs—some of which have survived to today! Despite disturbances from things like modern construction and earthquakes, some of the sticky rice mortar structures have stayed strong over a thousand years later.
For example, a section of tomb from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) is so strong that even modern bulldozers have been unable to destroy or move it.
To get scientific about it, the complex carbohydrate found in sticky rice called “amylopectin” is the secret ingredient that gives the mortar its incredible strength. It’s also thought that the mortar actually gets stronger over time—yes, even over a thousand years later—because the chemical reaction simply continues to occur.
As a result, sticky rice mortar has been used for modern-day restoration work on ancient Chinese structures, such as the conservation project at 800-year-old Shouchang Bride in eastern China.
By: The Scribe on Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Technically, to spetum in someone’s eye is possible… with the small exception that “to spetum” is not a verb. But when has grammar ever stopped someone from stabbing another person during battle?
Indeed, a spetum was a pole weapon used in 13th-century Europe. It had a long pole, between 6-8 feet long, with a long spear head mounted on the end—and two pointy projections along its base. Over time, the spetum saw a number of variations, and you may have heard of it by a different name, such as chauve souris, corseca, or runka.
This particular weapon is distinguished from other, similar weapons by its blades, or “prongs”, which were single-edged and primarily used for slashing the enemy rather than stabbing. The main blade was long enough to be rather formidable at its task, set between 12-14 inches long, with the side-blade projections about half that length and set at an angle (usually around 45 degrees).
The form of the weapon was good for stabbing when necessary, but the projections made it easy to pull shields out of enemy hands—and to fight off sword hits with a quick counterattack. But, like any European pole weapon, it saw a number of iterations over the centuries. A corseque (yet another name for a similar weapon), was listed as being in Henry VIII’s armory in 1547, though this variety was likely more ornate and a bit more sophisticated than the 13th-century version.
By: The Scribe on Monday, March 4, 2013
Strange as it may seem, it looks like the people of the ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacan tried to put out the flames of their god of fire… by burying him in a pit.
Mexican archaeologists have discovered a figure of the fire god Huehueteotl inside a covered pit, located at the very top of the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan. Though excavations are ongoing, the discovery has prompted archaeologists to suggest that there used to be a temple at the top of the pyramid that was used to perform ritual offerings to the god.
This means that the largest stepped pyramid in the city would have been dedicated to this bearded god, usually depicted with a pot of fire on his head. Excavators found the figure of Huehueteotl and two stone pillars inside a 15-foot deep, covered pit—and the pit was underneath what historians believe is the remnant of a platform foundation for a small temple.
Until they started digging and “didn’t find the bottom of the platform”, archaeologists had no idea the pit was there. The suggestion has been made that Leopoldo Batres, a pioneering archaeologist who did restoration work on the Pyramid of the Sun’s basic form over a century ago, might have covered the platform up instead of excavating it (not an uncommon sort of decision for early archaeologists).
The figure of the god weighs 418 pounds, and was carved out of grey volcanic stone. The Pyramid of the Sun may hold other objects, as well—a 400-foot-long tunnel found in 2011 at the base of the structure is still under study, and it’s thought that only a fraction of the area has been covered with thorough study so far.
(Photo: European Pressphoto Agency)
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