Month: November 2023

Reconstruction Shows Teen Who Died in Norway 8,300 Years Ago

About 8,300 years ago, a teenage boy with an unusual skull and short stature may have scampered along the rocky coast of what is now Norway, pausing to regain his balance as he clutched a fishing rod. Now, a new full-body reconstruction of the Stone Age teenager — nicknamed Vistegutten, Norwegian for “the boy from Viste” — is on display at the Hå Gamle Prestegard museum in southern Norway.

The boy’s reconstruction was a months-long project, but researchers have known about Vistegutten since 1907, when archaeologists found his remains in a Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age, cave in Randaberg, along Norway’s western coast.

A few things stand out about the 15-year-old boy: At 4 feet, 1 inch (1.25 meters) tall, he was short for his age, even by Mesolithic standards; a condition known as scaphocephaly meant that his skull had fused too early, forcing his head to grow backward instead of sideways; and he may have died alone, as his remains were found as if he had been leaning against a cave wall.

“Either he was placed like this after his death, or he actually died in this position,” Oscar Nilsson, a forensic artist based in Sweden who created the boy’s likeness, told Live Science in an email. “This can give the impression of a lonely boy, waiting in vain for his friends and family to show up … but we know nothing about how he died.”

Scaphocephaly occurs when the sagittal suture on the top of the skull fuses too early, giving the skull a ridged appearance. But “it is not associated with any developmental problems or intellectual disabilities,” Sean Dexter Denham, an osteologist at the Museum of Archaeology at the University of Stavanger in Norway who helped analyze the skeleton, told Live Science in an email. And while the boy’s unusual skull and short stature may have given him a unique appearance, his remains suggest he was well-fed and healthy.

“The sheer volume of animal remains found at the site also attests to a plentiful food supply,” Denham said. The cave, which is about 30 feet (9 m) deep and 16 feet (5 m) wide, is filled with kitchen waste; ornaments, such as decorated bone pendants; and fishing tools, including hooks, harpoons and barbed bone points, suggesting that ancient “people lived, worked, cooked and slept at the Viste site,” Nilsson said.

“The fishing hook that the reconstruction of the boy from Viste holds in his hand is a replica of one of these findings,” Nilsson noted.

To make the reconstruction, two computed tomography (CT) scans were taken of the skull, allowing Nilsson to create a 3D-printed plastic replica. Because he wasn’t sure about the boy’s facial tissue thickness, Nilsson relied on measurements of modern Northern European 15-year-old boys. “Of course, we don’t know how transferable these measurements are to someone who lived 8,000 years ago,” Nilsson said. “But it’s the best we can guess.”

He noticed that the forehead was “quite childish in appearance, rounded and projecting from the face a bit. This is most probably coming from the scaphocephaly,” Nilsson said, adding that the teenager also had a thin nasal ridge but a nose that was “rather broad at the lower parts.”

An analysis of the boy’s DNA showed that his skin tone, hair, and eye color “likely would be close to the other ‘Norwegian’ findings from the period,” including mostly brown eyes, dark hair, and intermediate skin tone, Nilsson added.

He intended to give the teenager a subtle smile, “but as I got deeper into the project, I could not get rid of a feeling of a lonely boy,” Nilsson said. “I imagine him on his way to the sea (which at his time was extremely near the cave) to catch some fish. It is very windy in this part of Norway, so I worked quite a lot to make it look as if the wind blows in his hair and clothes.”

Stone Age wardrobe

The boy’s clothes are made by Helena Gjaerum, a Sweden-based independent archaeologist who uses prehistoric techniques for tanning leather. “Oscar wanted a summer outfit and that the boy would be barefoot, standing on the beach,” Gjaerum told Live Science in an email. “Therefore, a tunic was decided from the beginning.”

She made the tunic from de-haired and fat-tanned elk skin, and put two bark-tanned salmon skins around his waist. A bag that hangs off his belt was sewn from deerskin. All of these animals’ remains were found at the archaeological site. To add to the authenticity, “The suit is sewn with both sinew thread and leather straps,” Gjaerum explained. “It is smeared with ash and grease to look believable.”

The boy’s necklace was crafted from salmon vertebrae and a broken seashell. His remains are “one of the oldest skeletons ever found in Norway,” Kristine Orestad Sørgaard, an archaeologist at the Museum of Archaeology at the University of Stavanger who helped Nilsson understand the archaeological context, told Live Science in an email. “It’s a great reminder that people in the past were very much like us, despite living in a world very different from our own.”

Limestone Wall In Bolivia Has Over 10,000 Dinosaur Footprints Belonging To 10 Different Species

Cal Orcko is a small town that is situated three miles south of the city of Sucre in Bolivia. It is home to the largest and most spectacular collection of dinosaur footprints of the Cretaceous era.

Even though the site remained closed for almost eight years after this paleontological discovery, it has been opened for visitors now.

A 300-foot-long limestone wall is located in Cal Orko, Bolivia, that has over 10,000 dinosaur footprints etched on it. The footprints belong to approximately 10 different dinosaur species that walked the earth about 68 million years ago. A 1.2-kilometre-long and 80-meter-high wall exists in Bolivia’s Cal Orko. The wall is a limestone slab that dates back to the dinosaur era.

It is covered with numerous dinosaur tracks that experts believe belong to approximately ten different species of dinosaurs. Currently, more than 10,000 individual dinosaur footprints have been identified on the limestone wall.

Christian Meyer, a Swiss palaeontologist, once commented that in 1998, they were able to recover only around 3,000 dinosaur tracks. Then in 2007, the number of footprints rose to 5,000, and in the latest survey, they have encountered over 10,000 individual dinosaur footprints in the limestone slab.

The most prominent tracks on the limestone wall are those of the quadrupedal titanosaurs. The tracks of the bipedal, carnivorous dinosaurs can also be found across the entire wall.

Other dinosaur species whose footprints were found on the wall include the theropods, ornithopods, ankylosaurs, and quadrupedal ornithopods.

The wall gives an impression that the dinosaurs were walking vertically. But in reality, the wall was originally the floor of a shallow lake from the Cretaceous period. It was due to tectonic movements that the floor became vertical.

Since the limestone slab is almost vertical, it gives the impression that the dinosaurs were walking vertically, like lizards on a wall. But experts have provided a more logical explanation. The limestone slab was originally the floor of a shallow lake of the Cretaceous era that once flowed through South America.

According to geologists, the floor of the lake has moved several times as a result of tectonic plate movement. Sixty-eight million years ago, the floor was walked upon by hundreds of dinosaurs leaving behind their footprints in the process.

The unique climate fluctuations at Cal Orko, Bolivia are believed to be the reason behind the spectacular presence of paleontological remains.

Why is it that there is such a concentration of dinosaurs remains in this area? Experts believe that it has something to do with the unique climatic fluctuations of the area. The large feet of the dinosaurs sank into the mushy shoreline of the lake that used to exist there.

When drought hit the area, the tracks solidified. Wet weather returned once again and sealed the footprints below layers of sediment and mud. Experts believe that this wet-dry pattern was repeated as many as seven times which led to the prints getting preserved on the floor of the lake.

And the best part was that tectonic activities shifted the floor into a vertical viewing angle, enabling this wonderful paleontological spectacle to be viewed by the species that continued living on this planet after the dinosaurs.

The Cal Orko Parque Cretacico hosts a museum, and models of dinosaurs, fossils, and related paleontological information and offers a guided, one-hour tour to a few selected areas of the dinosaur footprint wall.

Today, guided tours are offered to visitors to get a glimpse of the dinosaur footprints. Visitors are provided with a helmet as a safety requirement because of the cement factory that is located near the wall.

The guides point out the footprints of the Theropods (carnivorous dinosaurs) and Sauropods (long-neck herbivores). Lengths of the footprint trackways range from 26 feet to as long as an amazing 65 feet.

This amazing limestone slab serves as a record and offers a glimpse of the ever-changing history that took place in the Cretaceous era.

A couple renovating a 115-year-old building discovered two 60-foot-long hidden murals

What started out as a couple’s renovation project to convert a historic building into a bar has turned into an effort to restore decades-old artwork in a small Washington town.

Nick and Lisa Timm purchased the building in Okanogan, located about four hours east of Seattle, at the end of 2021. This past week, they discovered 60-foot murals painted on canvases along its north and south walls.

“We were about 20 minutes from covering up the walls,” Nick told CNN on Wednesday. “I then was like ‘Well, let’s just look at what’s behind all this plaster.’”

As the plaster peeled away, they discovered a giant mural — stretching 60 feet long and 20 feet high — depicting a lake, cabins and trees. One crew member threw out the idea that there could be another canvas on the opposite wall. Lo and behold, there was indeed a matching mural.

They found the murals at around 5 p.m. and had been working since 5 a.m., Nick said. But the team stayed for four more hours to uncover the rest of the artwork.

“It was like a lightning bolt of energy,” Nick said. “We were just hooting and hollering and pulling things down.”

The Timms moved back to Okanogan last year to take care of Nick’s father, who was diagnosed with lung cancer. After he died in September, a family friend told the couple about the chance to purchase the building.

“One of our main goals moving back was to reenergize Okanogan and then this happened,” Nick said.

Dating back to around 1907, the building had served as a movie theatre, a pool hall and even a rooster fighting rink, according to Nick. The couple’s plan was to turn the 3,000-square-foot space into a bar and gathering place for the community, building on Nick’s experience running bars and restaurants in Olympia.

“It’s funny how this worked out,” Nick said. “We were going to make it a historical showcase by bringing in a bunch of historical stuff about the area.”

After the Timms’ big find, the Okanogan County Historical Society was able to dig up a newspaper clipping from 1915 that reveals the original plan for the murals.

A local artist was set to paint the murals for what was the Hub Theatre at that time, according to the clipping, which was provided to CNN by the society.

“The new improvements at the Hub include 120 feet of panoramic landscape scenery in light tans,” the clipping reads.

Now, that panoramic scenery will be cautiously taken down, refurbished and rehung. Nick said some sections of the murals have extensive water damage that they want to get restored as quickly as possible.

It will likely be a pricey process. The couple has started a GoFundMe page to gain support from the community.

The Timms had hoped to open their renovated bar by the end of March, but it may now take until midsummer to finish work on the murals, Nick said.

The mural will be the centrepiece of the establishment, and the plan still is to fill the rest of the space with other historical items. Nick’s family has lived in the area for centuries, so many of the items have been passed down for generations. Other memorabilia have been donated by others in the community.

And Okanogan’s future gathering place already has a name: the Red Light Bar, an ode to the singular red light in town.

Perfectly-preserved dinosaur embryo found inside the fossilized egg in China

A well-preserved dinosaur embryo has been found inside a fossilized egg. The fossilized dinosaur embryo came from Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province in southern China and was acquired by researchers in 2000.

Researchers at Yingliang Group, a company that mines stones, suspected it contained egg fossils, but put it in storage for 10 years, according to a news release.

When construction began on Yingliang Stone Natural History Museum, boxes of unearthed fossils were sorted through.

“Museum staff identified them as dinosaur eggs and saw some bones on the broken cross-section of one of the eggs,” Lida Xing of China University of Geosciences, Beijing, said in a news release. An embryo was found hidden within, which they named “Baby Yingliang.”

The embryo is that of the bird-like oviraptorosaurs, part of the theropod group. Theropod means “beast foot,” but theropod feet usually resembled those of birds. Birds are descended from one lineage of small theropods.

In studying the embryo, researchers found the dinosaur took on a distinctive tucking posture before hatching, which had been considered unique to birds.

The study is published in the science journal.

Researchers say this behaviour may have evolved through non-avian theropods.

“Most known non-avian dinosaur embryos are incomplete with skeletons disarticulated,” said Waisum Maof the University of Birmingham, U.K.

“We were surprised to see this embryo beautifully preserved inside a dinosaur egg, lying in a bird-like posture. This posture had not been recognized in non-avian dinosaurs before.”

While fossilized dinosaur eggs have been found during the last 100 years, discovering a well-preserved embryo is very rare, the researchers said in the release.

The embryo’s posture was not previously seen in non-avian dinosaurs, which is “especially notable because it’s reminiscent of a late-stage modern bird embryo.”

The researchers will continue to study the rare specimen in even more depth.

They will attempt to image its internal anatomy. Some of its body parts are still covered in rocks. Their findings can also be used in more studies of fossil embryos.

Researchers Uncovered a 5,000-Year-Old Crystal Dagger Buried in Spain

Inside an ancient tomb near Seville, researchers found the remains of several individuals buried in a ritualistic fashion, as well as a most striking artefact: a quite beautiful dagger made from rock crystal.

The intricately carved crystal dagger has been dated to at least 3000 BCE, making it the “most technically sophisticated and esthetically impressive collection of rock crystal material culture ever found in Prehistoric Iberia,” according to Spanish researchers who investigated the site.

Prehistoric humans in Europe made most of their tools from chert and flint. Tools made by knapping ‘rock crystals’ (macro-crystalline quartz) were far less prevalent, but nevertheless, people developed a technique for their manufacturing that appeared during late prehistory in certain European regions, such as the southwest Iberian Peninsula in the third millennium BCE.

Although rock crystal tools were more difficult to fashion and the raw materials weren’t as abundant as sedimentary rock, prehistoric people likely cherished them due to their social value.

Just as we stand in awe today at their sight, one would imagine that people were even more impressed by the thousands of years ago.

This particularly exquisite rock crystal tool, an 8.5-inch long dagger, was found in one of eight megalithic tombs from Valencina de la Concepción, a site near Seville in Spain that is considered one of the most significant for the study of Copper Age Iberia.

The tomb, known as the Montelirio tholos, was excavated between 2007 and 2010.

It is a great megalithic construction with a 39-meter (128-foot) corridor leading to the main chamber with a 4.75-meter (15.5-foot) diameter from which, through a narrow corridor, a secondary chamber is accessible.

Researchers found the remains of at least 25 individuals, alongside numerous sumptuous grave goods, including shrouds and clothes made of tens of thousands of perforated beads and decorated with amber beads, as well as many flint arrowheads, found fragments of gold blades, ivory objects, and of course the dazzling crystal core.

The arrowheads, blade, and rock crystal dagger were found at the back of the main chamber. No other objects were found in the rest of the chamber, which is suspicious.

The accumulation of artefacts right next to the main chamber’s access corridor “suggest an offering similar to those discovered in the main corridor, where the arrowheads, although made of lower quality materials, were found in large groups associated with an altar and other offerings (plants),” said researchers at the University of Granada and the University of Seville in a study published in Quaternary International.

At least several females and one male-identified within Montelirio tholos are believed to have died due to poisoning.

The remains of the women were arranged in a circular fashion in a chamber next to the bones of the male, who may have been a person of high status. The dagger itself was found in a different chamber “in association with an ivory hilt and sheath.”

There are no sources of quartz of the kind used in the dagger near the site, which suggests the materials were sourced from far afield.

The researchers say this is another reason why these crystal daggers and arrowheads may have been reserved to a few elite individuals who could afford them, having a dual significance.

“On the one hand, it had a social significance due to the exoticism of the material and the fact that its transformation required very specific skills and probably some degree of technical specialisation. They probably represent funerary paraphernalia only accessible to the elite of this time period. The association of the dagger blade to a handle made of ivory, also a non-local raw material that must have been of great value, strongly suggests the high-ranking status of the people making use of such objects.”

“On the other hand, rock crystal must have had a symbolic significance as a raw material invested with special meanings and connotations. The literature provides examples of societies in which rock crystal and quartz as raw materials symbolise vitality, magical powers and a connection with ancestors.”

12,000-year-old massive underground tunnels are real and stretch from Scotland to Turkey

Is it possible that ancient cultures were interconnected thousands of years ago? According to thousands of underground tunnels that stretch from North Scotland towards the Mediterranean the answer is a big yes.

While the reason behind these sophisticated tunnels remains a mystery, many experts believe that this huge 12,000-year-old network was built as a protection against predators and other dangers 12,000 years ago.

Some experts believe that these mysterious tunnels were used as modern-day highways, allowing the transition of people and connecting them to distant places across Europe.

In the book Secrets Of The Underground Door To An Ancient World (German title: Tore zur Unterwelt) German archaeologist Dr Heinrich Kush states that evidence of huge underground tunnels has been found under dozens of Neolithic settlements all over the European continent. These tremendous tunnels are often referred to as ancient highways.

According to Dr Kusch, the fact that many of these tunnels still exist today, after 12,000 years indicates that the tunnels must have been both complex and huge in size.

“Across Europe, there were thousands of them says Dr Kusch,” in Germany, we have discovered hundreds of meters of underground tunnels. In Austria, we have found hundreds more. These underground tunnels can be found everywhere across Europe and there are thousands of them.” Said the German archaeologist.

While some of the tunnels are relatively small- some of them measure over a meter in width, there are other tunnels that have been found with underground chambers and storage areas.

The fact that these tunnels have been found points towards incredible ancient ingenuity which is anything but what history books tells us today. Ancient mankind had the knowledge and tools to build complex structures over ten thousand years ago.

Evidence of that is the Pyramids of Bosnia in Europe and their incredible underground tunnels that go on for kilometres.

Dr Kusch states that ‘Across Europe, there were thousands of these tunnels – from the north in Scotland down to the Mediterranean.

They are interspersed with nooks, at some places it’s larger and there is seating, or storage chambers and rooms. They do not all link up but taken together it is a massive underground network.’

Cappadocia in Turkey is another incredible example. The underground city of Derinkuyu is another piece of evidence that points towards the perfection and long-lost construction methods of our ancestors.

The underground city of Derinkuyu is perhaps one of the greatest achievements in underground construction together with the huge network of tunnels.

The geological features of the stone from Derinkuyu is something that is very important; it is very soft. Thus, the ancient builders of Derinkuyu had to be very careful when building these underground chambers providing enough pillar strength to support the floors above; if this was not achieved, the city would have collapsed, but so far, archaeologists have not found evidence of any “cave-ins” at Derinkuyu.

Other ancient monuments such as Gobekli Tepe are more pieces of crucial evidence that point towards incredible skills and knowledge by people who inhabited our planet over ten thousand years ago.

According to Dr Kusch, chapels were often built at the entrances to the underground tunnels because the Church were afraid of the heathen legacy the tunnels might have represented, and like many other things, the church wanted to make sure word about the tunnels was kept as a secret.

In some of the tunnels, writings have been discovered which refer to these underground tunnels as gateways to the underworld.

Investigations have discovered the existence of a 900m high “Great Pyramid” hidden under intense vegetation in Australia

There are pyramid constructions all over the world. Despite the ancient study of culture we, in each of them there are these buildings. That’s why it’s not surprising that there’s even a Great Pyramid in Australia.

A team of amateur archaeologists, assures Australia that before the arrival of Europeans, ancient Egyptians were in the ocean and the built pyramids.

Is this the Great Pyramid in Australia?

The research team found signs of what could be a Great Pyramid dating 5,000 years built by the Egyptians in Australia.

It is placed on a mountain, in North Queensland and according to the hieroglyphics found in Gosford, there is a total of two pyramids: one in the pipe, which was destroyed and the other location remains unknown.

Called” The Pyramid of Walsh ” is about 30 minutes west of the Australian people’s coastal town. Altitude is exactly 922 meters and is believed to have been the last resort of Nefer-ti-ru.

The evidence on which they are based is mentioned in the hieroglyphics Gosford. These strange sizes are considered Egyptian by many experts. They’re near Sydney.

These hieroglyphics are believed to have been made by the Egyptian sailors 5,000 years ago when they discovered the continent.

Hieroglyphics reveal the truth about the pyramid.

Fake hieroglyphics or the hidden truth?

These hieroglyphs have been full of controversy since their discovery. Some archaeologists claim they are modern forgeries.

They say it’s impossible that the sailors from old Egypt arrived in Australia.

Ray Johnson, an amateur archaeologist, translated hieroglyphics for the Museum of Antiquities in Cairo and was able to document and translate two walls facing Egyptian symbols.

The story behind this text shows how ancient Egyptian researchers were shipwrecked in a place “strange and hostile”. Current

Or way, you’re sure these texts mention Australia’s Great Pyramid and how it was King Nefer-ti-ru’s Tomb.

Although signs can be found that this true pyramid exists, experts have not wanted to investigate the country, saying it is nothing more than a “natural granite peak.”However, this will not be the first time a pyramid facility has been unearthed underground for skilled and vegetation.

Oldest Circular Structure Discovered – and It’s Made of Mammoth Bones

Huts built from mammoth bones found along the Dniepr river valley of Ukraine (and also at locations in Moravia, Czech Republic, and in southern Poland) may be the earliest structures built by prehistoric man, and thus the earliest examples of architecture.

Some of the most notable of these mammoth bone huts were found in Mezhyrich, a village in central Ukraine, where in 1965, a farmer dug up the lower jawbone of a mammoth while in the process of expanding his cellar.

Further excavations revealed the presence of 4 prehistoric huts, made up of a total of 149 mammoth bones.

These shelters date between 23,000 BCE and 12,000 BCE, and are thought to be some of the oldest dwellings known to have been constructed by prehistoric man, usually attributed to Cro-Magnons.

“They are composed of several hundred bones and tusks arranged in a rough circle, between 6 and 10 m (20 and 33 ft) in diameter.

A hearth typically lies near the centre of the former dwelling, and stone tools and other debris are scattered within and outside the structure. Large pits filled with stone tools, bone fragments and ash have been found near the houses.

“Considerable effort must have been required to assemble these structures. Even in a dry state, large mammoth bones weigh hundreds of pounds. It has been suggested that the bones and tusks were recovered from hunting episodes in which entire herds of adult mammoths and their young were slaughtered.

A more likely explanation is that they were gathered from natural accumulations of bones perhaps at the mouths of streams and gullies near the sites.

The primary purpose of the mammoth-bone dwellings which were presumably covered with animal skins was probably sheltered from extreme cold and high winds.

Some archaeologists, impressed with the size and appearance of the structures, have argued that they also possess religious or social significance.

They have been described as the earliest examples of ‘monumental architecture as evidence of increased social complexity and status differentiation during the final phase of the Ice Age.” (Paul G. Bahn (ed) 100 Great Archaeological Discoveries [1995] 54-55)

Other interesting objects have also been found on the site, including a map inscribed onto a bone, presumably showing the area around the settlement.

The remains of a “drum”, made of a mammoth skull painted with a pattern of red ochre dots and lines, were also discovered, along with amber ornaments and fossil shells.