Mythopoeika
I am a meat popsicle
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2001
- Messages
- 51,580
- Location
- Inside a starship, watching puny humans from afar
That's pretty amazing.
I wonder if perhaps she died in childbirth?
Might that indeed have been it's intention, in the afterlife? A pointy procreation preventer?That spiked tummy-plate may be a pretty effective form of birth-control!
Early Bronze Age battle site found on German river bank
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13469861
Europe's Oldest Battlefield Yields Clues to Fighters' Identities
At Europe's oldest battlefield, archaeologists found new clues about who fought on the skeleton-strewn grounds some 3,250 years ago.
Starting in the 1980s, people began finding ancient daggers, knives and other weapons in the river sediment around Tollense Valley in northeastern Germany. Several skulls were found, too. In 1996, an amateur archaeologist even discovered an arm bone, pierced with an arrow, sticking out of the ground. ...
But it wasn't until 2007 that a systematic exploration of the site began. Over the last decade, archaeologists have unearthed a veritable battlefield, dating back to 1250 B.C., spread along the banks of the Tollense River, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of Berlin. To date, the researchers have found the skeletons of 140 people, mostly men between the ages of 20 and 40, among the remains of military equipment and horse bones.
Archaeologists had lacked evidence of large battlefields from the Bronze Age in Europe, despite all the metal swords, hill forts, depictions of violence and scarred human skeletons from this period. (Around the Mediterranean, this was the era of the legendary Trojan Warand Egyptian warrior kings like Ramesses II, whose tombs document his battle with the Hittites.)
Thomas Terberger, one of the German archaeologists who launched the excavation at Tollense Valley, said his team is now sure they're looking at a true battlefield.
"We are very confident that the human remains are more or less lying in the position where they died," Terberger, of the Lower Saxony State Office for Cultural Heritage, told Live Science. ...
Terberger estimated that more than 2,000 people might have been involved in the fight.
Amazing, if you walked past him in the street today you wouldn't give him a second look .. a very contemporary face.'Torbrex Tam' Skeleton Found In Scotland Was 4000 Year Old Bronze Age Farmer
11/03/2017 07:00:00 PM
Human bones uncovered in Stirling in the late 19th century have been identified as being more than 4000 years old, making ‘Torbrex Tam’ the city’s oldest resident to date.
The remains of the man in his 20s were found within a chambered cairn, on land occupied by a market garden, in 1872. The cairn, the oldest structure in Stirling, is now surrounded by houses in Coney Park.
Radiocarbon dating results, released last week, have established that Tam’s bones date from the Bronze Age when Torbrex was a small settlement surrounded by water.
During the 1870s, workmen digging for gravel hit a stone-lined box or cist. Inside were the remains of a man who would have been in his 20s when he died.
Nicknamed ‘Torbrex Tam’ they were given to the Smith Museum for safekeeping. As well as Tam’s bones being dated, his facial reconstruction has also been carried out.
Stirling archaeologist Murray Cook explained: “Torbrex Tam died around 2152 to 2021 BC. He is more than 4000 years old.
“He’s the oldest individual from Stirling and his facial reconstruction is Stirling’s first recorded face. For anyone from Stirling, Tam is their oldest ancestor. I’m sure I’ve seen his face in people around the tow
Read more at https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blog...on-found-in-scotland.html#uTIDY7cFMbyZJyLJ.99
Just a slight tangent - I always thought these facial reconstructions were supposed to be a hit-and-miss affair with the artist using quite a bit of imagination.
Question is, how accurate are they?
That spiked tummy-plate may be a pretty effective form of birth-control!
WORLD'S OLDEST SUIT OF ARMOR?
A suit of bone armor dating back to the chalcolithic age was found in Siberia, and at the moment stands as the oldest known use of armor.
http://siberiantimes.com/science/ca...ar-old-suit-of-bone-armour-unearthed-in-omsk/
I wonder how practical it would be against stone and bronze weapons?
Bone and horn armor is not necessarily inferior to, nor always earlier than, metal armor.
l imagine that anything’s better than nothing. l was impressed by how effective Chinese paper armour proved to be when the Mythbusters team tested it a few years ago.
My reservations would concern bone’s brittleness. Wood would seem to be a better idea, but l suppose bone’s selling point is that it’s pre-shaped for the very purpose of protecting innards.
maximus otter
You also have to consdier the type of fighting that went on - long fights between armies (if all factors were equal) were often won by those who were strongest and fittest. Even moderate 'not fatal in itself' blood loss weakens a soldier to the point where he loses effectiveness and thereafter life.l imagine that anything’s better than nothing. l was impressed by how effective Chinese paper armour proved to be when the Mythbusters team tested it a few years ago.
My reservations would concern bone’s brittleness. Wood would seem to be a better idea, but l suppose bone’s selling point is that it’s pre-shaped for the very purpose of protecting innards.
maximus otter
From a Bronze Age shoe to a 1,300-year-old ski: Melting mountain ice reveals thousands of stunningly-preserved artefacts lost by ancient Norwegian hunters
More than 2,000 remarkably well-preserved hunting artefacts have emerged from melting ice in Norway's highest mountains, dating as far back as 4000 BC.
The incredible finds were made by 'glacial archaeologists' in Jotunheimen and the surrounding areas of Oppland, which include Norway’s highest mountains.
They looked at the edge of the contracting ice and recovered artefacts of wood, textile, hide and other organic materials.
Included in the archaeologists' haul is a ski with preserved binding from 700 AD - only the second one to be preserved globally - as well as a Bronze Age shoe from 1300 BC.
Some archeologists have discovered an old fort in Sweden, where all the inhabitants were killed. What is odd is that despite being a fairly well-inhabited place nobody seems to have entered afterwards to bury anyone or to take the valuables. Perhaps it is cursed.
https://gizmodo.com/this-recently-discovered-fifth-century-massacre-in-swed-1825526799