This page is viewed 1148 times Xinhua News AgencyThe bones of 80 horses unearthed from the mausoleum of a Chinese emperor who lived more than 2,000 years ago have rekindled an ancient legend about blood sweating "heavenly" horses from central Asia.
The skeletons were found in two sacrificial pits within the mausoleum of Emperor Wudi of the Western Han Dynasty (202 BC-8 AD) in Xingping city, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, said Yang Wuzhan, a researcher with the provincial archeological institute. Yang and his team began excavating the two pits in September 2009, but had published few of their findings until Monday.Each of the two pits was a huge cavern containing 20 caves -- each "guarded" by two stallions and a terracotta warrior, Yang said.He said archeologists have conducted lab work on the skeletons and confirmed all were adult male horses. "Scientists will soon carry out DNA tests hoping to determine the genus of the horses."The finding was likely to rekindle a centuries-old Chinese legend about the mysterious blood-sweating horse from central Asia, Yang said."The legend goes that Emperor Wudi offered a hefty reward for anyone who could find him a mysterious 'blood-sweating' purebred horse that was said to have roamed central Asia, but was rarely seen in China," he said.Today, the horse is identified as the Akhal-Teke, one of the world's oldest and most unique breeds.Wudi left China's earliest written record of the breed, in a poem he composed for his Akhal-Teke mount, describing it as a "heavenly horse".The horse is known for its speed, endurance and perspiration of a blood-like fluid as it gallops along. It was also believed to be the mount of Genghis Khan (1167-1227).Wudi was best known for his opening of the Silk Road, an ancient trade route linking Asia and Europe.Construction of his mausoleum began in 139 B.C., a year after he was enthroned at 16 years old, and took 53 years.The mausoleum had more than 400 sacrificial pits, more than the mausoleum of the "first emperor" of a united China, Qin Shihuang. 
The Olmec are best known for the creation of colossal heads carved from giant boulders that have fascinated the public and archaeologists alike since they were discovered in the mid-19th century. The monumental heads remain among ancient America’s most awe-inspiring and beautiful masterpieces today. 
As part of a new exhibit at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano (www.iceman.it), two Dutch experts -- Alfons and Adrie Kennis -- have made a new model of the living Oetzi, this time with brown eyes.
The 53-year-old scholar, who has lectured on both sides of the Atlantic, lives in solitary splendour in Italy, in a farmhouse near Orvieto. In the great tradition of eccentric English expats, he keeps donkeys, produces his own olive oil and aspires to the philosophical mellowness of the Roman poet Horace. But the opportunity to write about his beloved Greece – he studied classics at Oxford – was too good to miss. 
If touristy Mykonos gets the thumbs down, Tilos in the Southern Dodecanese gets an enthusiastic thumbs-up. "It has only a few hundred inhabitants, but it has been blessed with a mayor with a passionate commitment to environmental conservation. He has banned all hunting on the island, which has led to a big increase in the numbers of rare raptors, like falcons and eagles. It is a great place for birdwatching." 
Travel the Aegean on a cruise ship and one island might seem much like another. A lot of the harbours are quite similar, the restaurant food is samey and that bright Aegean sun seems to suffuse the whole region, giving every hillside the same bleached quality. 
Archaeologists made the remarkable discovery while excavating a muddy area of a former Roman settlement on the A1 near Leeming. Helen Maclean of archaeology firm AECOM described the find as very rare."I'm not aware of many other footprints being found, everybody was quite amazed by it," she said.Photographs show a right footprint clearly visible in soft ground followed by two left prints - suggesting that the boy or girl who made them was hopping or skipping.The perfectly-preserved footprints were uncovered in 2010 during a dig at Healam Bridge, but photographs have only now been released after Sky News heard of their existence.The site was excavated as part of a ?318m Highways Agency scheme to upgrade part of the A1 to a three-lane motorway.The area where the child had been playing was close to a stream where archaeologists believe the Romans struggled to keep their feet dry.Experts found evidence of repeated attempts to make the area less muddy, with stones and plant material spread on the soft ground."It was quite close to where the stream probably ran", said Ms Maclean."The child was probably running through the mud, jumping in puddles or possibly just trying to avoid getting its feet wet."The dig was close to an imperial fort which served as a frontier outpost for the famous Ninth Legion which took part in the Roman invasion of Britain in AD43.The Highways Agency released photographs and drawings of an industrial complex found on the site with a water powered flour mill used to grind grain and produce food for the nearby Roman garrison.Archaeologists were unable to preserve the footprints and the photographs are the only evidence that remains of the child's brief skip through the Yorkshire mud.
Each of them is in charge of an excavation operation, directing a group of workers and documenting excavation processes and finds. One exception is me - I'm not too ashamed to claim the privilege of the director in strolling from one operation to another, chatting with workers and taking pictures. In addition, a group of Japanese geologists and plant scientists are examining the past natural environment and climate through the analysis of lake sediments. In March, applied anthropologists from the University of Arizona and other institutions will join us to carry out a community development project at the Q'eqchi' Maya village of Las Pozas, where many of our workers come from. In total, 28 researchers and about 50 local workers make up our team for this year. The makeup of our team reflects the nature of archaeology - a mixture of diverse academic fields. Social science and anthropology make the core of our discipline, but archaeology also involves chemistry and material sciences for the analysis of ceramics and other remains, physical anthropology for the study of human skeletons, geology and soil sciences for the understanding of deposits, environmental sciences for the study of the past ecology, diet and resource use, as well as requisite familiarity with the intricacies of culture and history of the chosen regions. And organizational skills are critical in managing large research teams and in maneuvering through governmental and local political mazes. Each archaeologist struggles to balance the needs for deepening expertise in the areas of specialization and for widening knowledge in various related fields. Collaboration with various specialists is essential.I am a social science type, interested in how Maya society was organized and changed, and at times am over-preoccupied with fuzzy, abstract theories. Dani, a Swiss who combines German perfectionism with Italian dynamism, specializes in ceramic studies and explores how and where certain ceramics may have been made and exchanged through the analysis of their chemical compositions. The good record-keeping of our project owes largely to her; all project members have learned by bitter experience that she does not tolerate any errors in excavation forms or artifact logs. In my case, such mistakes, which I tend to commit rather frequently, can have dire consequences - I have to fear a night on the floor, as she is my wife. Dani also ensures the well-being of project members by extending her relentless pursuit of perfection to camp hygiene and the disinfection regimen of our food.Kazuo Aoyama, who heads the Japanese-financed research, is a tireless lithic analyst. Konjou (guts!), kiryoku (will-power!!), shinukide-yaru (success or death!!!). Those are the mottos that drive Kazuo through tens of thousands of stone artifacts as he measures them, classifies them and examines their use-wear under the microscope to determine how and on what material stone tools were used. For him, even meals and sleep are part of work; he ingests nutrients and recharges energy, all for the sake of tomorrow's analysis, with the same intensity and earnestness that he applies to his beloved obsidian and chert. His thundering outpour of vigor leaves all the rest of us in awe. The only time Kazuo diverts his attention from work is when he makes the daily call to the three women of his life in Japan - his Honduran wife, Vilma, and their daughters, Sakura and Michiko - still with uncompromised intensity and earnestness.Such directions are usually chosen during one's graduate training. Jessica MacLellan, our second-year grad student from the University of Arizona, is interested in Preclassic Maya architecture. Her first assignment of this season was to excavate a small unit behind the East Court, which was a large platform during the Preclassic period and reused as the royal palace toward the end of the Classic period. I thought that in this area we would hit the bedrock soon below the surface and would easily get an idea about how much deeper we have to dig in the excavations of the East Court. I was too optimistic. What Jessica found was a condensed version of Ceibal's long occupation history. Under the midden (where food refuse and other trash were thrown) associated with the Classic-period royal palace, Jessica found a powdery, white layer. I told Jessica that it was probably soil from before human occupation. I was wrong. It turned out to be an eroded Preclassic structure. Underneath it, she revealed an older construction. I hope that this excavation gave her a good introduction to Ceibal. During this season and the next, Jessica will need to develop a plan for her own dissertation research that should be manageable as a student project, yet have an impact on the field.Another student, Ashley Sharpe, is a zooarchaeologist from the University of Florida - one who analyzes faunal remains, including shells and animal teeth and bones, to reconstruct past diet, resource use and environment. She also dug a small pit near the East Court, which revealed a sequence as complex as Jessica's. Ashley has found two Preclassic caches (ritual deposits of ceramic vessels) and a midden. These deposits give us important information about the function of the Preclassic platform. Ashley's dissertation plan is fairly clear: she will examine animal remains from Ceibal and other Maya sites, focusing on the Preclassic period. It may be a good omen that this midden contained faunal remains, including tiny fish bones.
Known officially as the Mirador Basin, the site is home to dozens of Mesoamerica's earliest, largest, and most striking examples of Preclassic Mayan civilization, as well as La Danta, the largest pyramid by volume in the world. But according to the World Wildlife Fund, the Maya Biosphere has lost 70 percent of its forests in the last decade, and El Mirador itself has been threatened by wildfires, looting, poaching, narcotics trafficking, and other dangers. Since 2003, Global Heritage Fund (GHF) has been working in Mirador to protect its priceless ancient cities and monuments and preserve the site for future generations. Led by project director Dr. Richard Hansen, founder and president of the Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies (FARES), GHF primary goal is to establish a new 880,000-acre national park in the area and continues to work with local communities like nearby Carmelita to ensure Mirador's integrity and sustainability. In 2010, after completion of site conservation, El Mirador opened to the public for the first time.THREATS TO MIRADORFor decades, Mirador has been plagued by an array of threats. Chief among these is deforestation, caused in large part by drug trafficking profits which have fueled a massive ranching industry that requires large areas of jungle to be cleared, and which have virtually destroyed the Maya Biosphere. Forest is also cleared for agricultural purposes, generally in a slash-and-burn practice that employs fire to clear the land. This practice has been so extensive, though, that the intensity of the fires and the resulting smoke has forced the closure of schools as far north as Texas. (Global Heritage Network (GHN) GHF's new early warning and threat monitoring system for endangered sites in the developing world, has been used to track wildfires.)Illegal logging has also had a devastating effect on the Mirador Basin, as looters and poachers not only hack through forest to navigate the site, but consequently block access roads needed to clear fallen trees. Looters, as well, have targeted and compromised virtually every site in the Mirador Basin, seizing their piece of a Mayan artifacts-trafficking industry that accounts for millions of dollars in the collecting markets each month (though extremely little of this lands in the pockets of looters). Indeed, only a fraction of the sites at Mirador have been studied by archaeologists thus far, and according to Dr. Hansen, "By the time scholars get there, looters may already have plundered them."GHF PROGRESSWhen GHF began work at Mirador in 2003, its primary conservation goals were to establish permanent protection for the Mirador Basin, create a sustainable protected area within 10 years, and aid the Guatemalan government in securing a UNESCO World Heritage Site inscription for the 880,000 acre site, the largest of its kind in Central America. In 2011, GHF continues its preparations for the Archaeological Management Plan for the Mirador Natural and Cultural System, while extensive mapping of all major sites and causeways continues.Conservation efforts at Mirador have been aimed predominately at stabilizing and preserving the site's most significant monuments, including the complex of La Danta, the pyramid of El Tigre, and a building known as "Jaguar Paw Temple." In 2010, GHF completed site conservation, and El Mirador opened to the public for the first time."Preservation by Design" is how GHF terms its integrated conservation and development methodology - a living framework that combines long-range planning, conservation science, community engagement, and monitoring and evaluation to ensure the future sustainability of each project site. At Mirador, GHF has equipped and trained 60 guides in the community association and funded Mirador's 30 park rangers who have been relied upon to police illegal activities taking place within the protected area. In the gateway village of Carmelita, the town's first ever water system has been implemented and a Visitor Center opened. GHF has also provided 45 computers with custom-designed courses for students and adults on conservation, nature, wildlife, archaeology, history, tour guiding and park ranger training."It is a great privilege to partner with Global Heritage Fund in our efforts to save Mirador, a nearly one-million-acre natural and cultural protected area," says Fernando Paiz, Chairman of The Foundation of Cultural and Natural Maya Patrimony (PACUNAM). "Global Heritage Fund's Preservation by Design methodology and technical expertise in master planning and building international partnerships has helped to create a sustainable framework to increase food production and bring access to financing for thousands of hunger-afflicted people."PARTNERS IN CONSERVATIONGHF's main partners on the Mirador project have been FARES, founded by project director and eminent archaeologist Dr. Hansen, who in 2005 was given the National Order of the Cultural Patrimony of Guatemala, and PACUNAM, an association that includes some of Central America's leading businesses. Serving as a new model for private-public partnerships, PACUNAM looks to become Guatemala's leading foundation in the preservation of Mayan natural and cultural heritage by combining the efforts of companies, businessmen, and individuals. This is the first time that major industrial groups have combined forces in Guatemala to realize a major new national park and conservation program for cultural and natural heritage of the country.Mr. Paiz, former Chairman of the Board of Trustees for Wal-Mart Central America, says, "Global Heritage Fund has enabled our entire country- top companies, foundations, the government and community stakeholders- to work together towards a common vision for the successful long-term conservation of Mirador. GHF's expertise in planning, partnerships and community development has been critical to our success."Kurt Vogt, Managing Director of Citi Latin America, says, "For five years, Citibank has entrusted Global Heritage Fund with our resources to preserve heritage and bring the benefits of economic development from heritage to the poorest regions of the world. Thanks to our continued partnership, Citi's investments are enabling large-scale conservation and sustainable development of major sites like Mirador."In 2009-2010, GHF received significant support and funding from its project partners, including the United States Department of the Interior, which secured approximately $1 million for conservation and other related projects in the Mirador Basin. The Foundation for Sustainable Development (FUNDESA) granted $1.2 million in funding for tourism development and community infrastructure, while GHF itself secured $6 million to go along with $3 million from the Guatemalan private sector (PACUNAM) and $4 million from the Guatemalan government and IDB for training and park infrastructure.The Guatemalan government is committing major new investments in park infrastructure, social services, security, and park management. President Colom estimates that the project will generate thousands of new jobs and will be a critical initiative to stop the destruction of the Maya Biosphere Reserve.JUAN CARLOS' STORYJuan Carlos Calderon grew up in the village of Carmelita, a small and remote community of 200 bordering Mirador Rio Azul National Park in the Peten region of Guatemala. Uneducated, unemployed, and faced with basic human responsibilities of sheltering and feeding his family, Juan Carlos subsisted on a life of wildlife poaching and looting in the numerous Mayan ruins that surrounded his home. In dire circumstances like these, how could Juan Carlos be aware of the cultural and natural importance of these areas? How could he know that, if properly protected, these ruins could in turn help protect him and his family?Since 2003, GHF has led an integrated program of planning, scientific conservation, community development and funding at Mirador. For the last five years, Juan Carlos has worked as a guard in the park. Today, with a job that provides him with a steady income, access to basic health care, and education opportunities (he has completed basic literacy programs at the Mirador Project camp), Juan Carlos now defends the very assets he plundered for much of his life. Most importantly, thanks to his new income, his eldest son Enrique completed high school and is studying law at university in Guatemala City.
Long before its Biblical walls came tumbling down, Jericho’s residents were being enticed to give up hunting and gathering and start farming for a living. They settled in this oasis next to the Jordan River and built a mysterious 8.5-meter (28-foot) stone tower on the edge of town. 
The global infant mortality rate has more than halved over the past 40 years, according to the World Bank. 
Tang Tricolor Pottery
Yes, the scenes were from the day after at Cairo's world-famous home to the treasures of the Pharaohs that was attacked by a mob. The would-be looters broke into the museum while the nation's attention was riveted on the Tahrir Square protests, ripping the heads of two mummies and damaging some 75 rare artefacts before being stopped by soldiers and apprehended.
Gravitational tussles with other planets or passing stars can eject planets from their solar systems. But even in the cold of space, these wayward worlds could stay warm, thanks to the decay of radioactive elements in their rocky cores.
The team of archaeologists and palaeontologists were working in Lene Hara Cave on the northeast tip of East Timor. "Looking up from the cave floor at a colleague sitting on a ledge, my head torch shone on what seemed to be a weathered carving," CSIRO's Dr Ken Aplin said."I shone the torch around and saw a whole panel of engraved prehistoric human faces on the wall of the cave."The local landowners with whom we were working were stunned by the findings. They said the faces had chosen that day to reveal themselves because they were pleased by the field work we were doing."The Lene Hara carvings, or petroglyphs, are frontal, stylised faces each with eyes, a nose and a mouth. One has a circular headdress with rays that frame the face.Uranium isotope dating by colleagues at the University of Queensland revealed the 'sun ray' face to be around 10,000 to 12,000 years old, placing it in the late Pleistocene. The other faces could not be dated but are likely to be equally ancient.Lene Hara cave has been visited by archaeologists and rock art specialists since the early 1960s to study its rock paintings, which include hand stencils, boats, animals, human figures and linear decorative motifs. The age of the pigment art in Lene Hara is currently unknown but a fragment of limestone with traces of embedded red ochre was dated previously by Professor Sue O'Connor of The Australian National University to over 30,000 years ago.Although stylised engravings of faces occur throughout Melanesia, Australia and the Pacific, the Lene Hara petroglyphs are the only examples that have been dated to the Pleistocene. No other petroglyphs of faces are known to exist anywhere on the island of Timor."Recording and dating the rock art of Timor should be a priority for future research, because of its cultural significance and value in understanding the development of art in our past," Professor O'Connor said.
Researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have joined colleagues from New York University (NYU) and NOAA to investigate this phenomenon and report that the tomcod living in the Hudson River have undergone a rapid evolutionary change in developing a genetic resistance to PCBs.
Looking at the ability of the fish to respond to the contaminants, the researchers found the primary changes occurred in a receptor gene called AHR2, which is important in mediating toxicity in early life stages and can control sensitivity to PCBs. In his work over the last 16 years in the Acushnet River Estuary near New Bedford, Mass., biologist Hahn has found the same gene involved in controlling other fishes’ responses to PCBs.
Wirgin noted that tomcod spawn in the winter, and in the summer become “a major component of the diets of striped bass and other fish.” This can lead to “an abnormal transfer of contaminants up the food chain,” perhaps all the way to humans who may consume them.
Ironically the recently begun EPA-mandated cleanup of Hudson River PCBs could be trouble for the tomcod. If there are evolutionary costs to having the variant AHR2 gene, the absence of the toxic substance that triggered its adaptation might leave it at a disadvantage.
The finding took place in late 2010 in the bed of a stream located 100 meters to the west of the pyramid, when rain uncovered a fragment of sandstone (86 by 61 centimeters and 15 cm thick) with a bas-relief scene partially eroded. 
china Plain Tri-colored Glazed Porcelain
The well-preserved remains of a palatial compound are among the new findings from the ongoing archaeological excavations in the abandoned town of Al Zubarah, situated on the northwest coast of Qatar, Gulf Times has learnt. Al Zubarah, which bustled with activity 200 years ago, is considered perhaps the best preserved example of a mid-18th to the end of 19th century pearl fishing and trading town."Though Al Zubarah is quite recent in terms of archaeology, it is a crucial location for the history of Qatar because it was the nation's largest town with at least 6,000 inhabitants at its heyday," Qatar Islamic Archaeology and Heritage (QIAH) project's deputy fieldwork director Dr Tobias Richter said.QIAH is an initiative of Qatar Museums Authority (QMA) chairperson HE Sheikha Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and vice-chairperson Sheikh Hassan bin Mohamed al-Thani as part of a major programme to investigate and protect Al Zubarah's rich archaeological heritage.As asked by QMA, teams from the University of Copenhagen are currently undertaking the third season of archaeological fieldwork at Zubarah and the surrounding hinterland with another four years of field research planned."Al Zubarah was for sometime one of the most important trading centres in the entire Gulf," pointed out Dr Richter, an assistant professor at University of Copenhagen's Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies.The palatial compound, which the expert listed among the new findings, is the largest fortified compound, measuring 100 by 100m, in Zubarah.The compound, with towers at each corner is sub-divided into a number of courtyards. "We are excavating one of these courtyard areas to find out what the building was used for. It is clearly an important facility, very likely used by the ruling family of the town," Dr Richter stated.It should have been a really impressive structure, a palace at one point and it has some nice features inside. "We found these hamams (baths), footprints on the floor of one of the rooms, matting impressions, and fallen roof beams that are still preserved. They are small findings but significant in terms of understanding the site," he said.Three major areas are being currently excavated in Al Zubarah, all of them continued from last year, the second season (Autumn 2009-Spring 2010) of excavation.The centre of the town is being excavated. There are a number of courtyard houses or standard family homes very typical for the region."Then we are excavating an area what we think is a souq or market area, which is turning out some rather interesting results for the future," Dr Richter said.Findings suggest that the souq was in the same location for at least two or three phases of the occupation."The first thing we did in the first season (Winter and Spring 2009), was to do a topographic survey of the entire town, followed by mapping and detailing all the neighbourhoods, roads, squares mosques and palaces in the settlement and then we began excavations in a few locations targeting key areas of interest," he recalled. This was in addition to the areas previously excavated by QMA. "There is still much to learn about the site as a whole. We now think that the site has at least six phases of occupation, the first major phase is 1760s to roundabout 1811 when the town was attacked and burned.Subsequently Zubarah was inhabited very sporadically then resettled in the middle of the 19th century for another 50 or 60 years. "So the phases of occupation are quite short and in particular in the earlier phase, this is a very lucky situation for archaeologists, because not only was the town founded as a sort of a planned settlement, but it also was not changed much."The total area is 60 hectares for the major settlement, and the later settlement is 13 hectares (during the mid 19th century, when it was resettled after the attack in 1811)."Al Zubarah is not a site that existed without its surrounding landscape. All of northern Qatar is full of historic sites and settlements," Dr Richter maintained.There are small forts, small villages, coastal villages, rural settlements, wells throughout the entire region and they all operated at one point in conjunction with Zubarah as it required food and water to support its pearl fishing and trading fleets.The trading vessels went out into the Indian Ocean all the way to Bombay (now Mumbai) and to other places on the African coast. "We are exploring these hinterland sites as well, but with non-intrusive methods," the expert said.
A team of University College Dublin archaeologists who have been visiting the remote 700 year old fishing site will no longer be able to conduct their scientific recording and analysis, due to recent budget cuts experienced by the Irish Heritage Council. "There is little we can do to preserve the medieval fishing structures because they are totally exposed to the forces of nature on the mudflats, after being buried for centuries beneath the mud," explains Dr Aidan O'Sullivan, UCD School of Archaeology, University College Dublin."They are likely to be entirely destroyed within the next ten years.""We had hoped that by working with the local community we could record this significant archaeological site before it is destroyed."Located about 1.5km from the nearest dryland in the Fergus Estuary in County Clare, Ireland, the medieval fishweirs [wooden structures] are in the very middle of a vast landscape of mudbanks and water channels.The archaeological site can only be accessed by boat for a few short weeks in the summer when the tide is extremely low."The mudflats are too deep and dangerous to walk on," says Dr O'Sullivan. "Even when we can see them at low tide, we only have about 2 to 3 hours at most to examine them," he explains."There are serious logistical and practical difficulties involved in gathering the data and taking samples."The wooden fishweirs are long wooden fences of upright posts interwoven with wattle that converge in a V-shape on the estuary mudflats close to the low water mark."We can see wooden ropes with knots tying together the structure and most remarkably, we have even found woven, conical baskets intact in the clays at the ends of the weirs. It is almost as if someone had walked off and left these baskets there last year," says Dr O'Sullivan.In the Middle-Ages, any fish dropping down with the ebbing tide would have encountered these fences and would have been guided into the end of the weir, where they would have been trapped by baskets and nets."Medieval fishermen would have travelled out here by boat at low tide to build and repair the weirs and to remove the catch every day," says Dr O'Sullivan."It is not known who built and used the fishweirs, but it seems likely that they were owned and managed by the Augustinian Abbey on Canon Island.""Fish was a hugely important part of the diet of medieval clerics, given the number of saints' days in the yearly calendar. And the fish would also likely have been supplied for the dining tables of local lords."Provided by University College Dublin
The discovery of the thick disc, a major result from a five-year investigation, will help astronomers better understand the processes involved in the formation and evolution of large spiral galaxies like ours, according to the team, which includes UCLA research astronomer Michael Rich and colleagues from Europe and Australia.