Tag Archive for artefacts

Archaeologists claim objects are earliest ‘matches’

from BBC News

8 August 2012 Last updated at 02:54 ET

By Nick Crumpton BBC News

Researchers from Israel say that mysterious clay and stone artefacts from Neolithic times could be the earliest known “matches”.

Although the cylindrical objects have been known about for some time, they had previously been interpreted as “cultic” phallic symbols.

The researchers’ new interpretation means these could be the earliest evidence of how fires were ignited.

The research was published in the open access journal Plos One.

The journal reports that the artefacts are almost 8,000 years old. . . . Read Complete Report

 

42,000 year old deep sea fishing

This SHOULD be a huge deal in archeology and anthropology. But don’t hold your breath…

‎”amazingly advanced maritime skills”
2 December 2011
Evidence of 42,000 year old deep sea fishing revealed Prehistoric humans living more than 40,000 years ago had mastered the skills needed to catch fast-moving, deep-ocean fish, new archaeological finds reveal. Jerimalai cave – a small rock overhang hidden behind foliage, a few hundred metres from the shore at the eastern end of East Timor – is where archaeologist Associate Professor Sue O’Connor from the Australian National University has unearthed the bones of more than 2,800 fish, some caught 42,000 years ago. “What the site has shown us is that early modern humans in island South East Asia had amazingly advanced maritime skills,” she said, “it seems certain that these people were using quite sophisticated technology and watercraft to fish offshore”. So far, O’Connor and her colleagues have only excavated two small test pits, but in just one of those – 1 metre square and 2 metres deep – they found 39,000 fish bones along with a number of stone artefacts, bone points, animal remains, shell beads and fish hooks. They also unearthed a small piece of fishing hook made from shell between 23,000 and 16,000 years ago – the earliest example of a fishing hook ever found, the researchers say. They are hopeful that more extensive excavations might reveal more hooks at the site. “I think Jerimalai gives us a window into what maritime coastal occupation was like 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, that we don’t really have anywhere else in the world,” Professor O’Connor said.
Rick Osmon’s book, The Graves of the Golden Bear is available on Amazon