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Moguce otkrice,novih vrsta dinosaursa
Volunteers in Montana are working this week to uncover what is believed to be a never-before-seen species of sauropod dinosaur, perhaps about twice as old as most dinosaur fossils found in the state.
Malta paleontologist Nate Murphy is leading efforts to remove the bones from private land near the Little Snowy Mountains in central Montana.
The sauropod is kin to long-necked, plant-eaters like the 8-ton, 60-foot Camarasaurus and the larger Brachiosaurus, but with a larger head and shorter neck.
"There's roughly about two dozen known sauropod skulls on the planet, and we just found another one,'' Murphy said.
What's more, the one found near Roundup is intact, which is rare.
Ranchers stumbled onto the ancient remains about 18 years ago while trekking over a series of rolling, grassy hills. Millennia of hard-driven weather slowly eroded the earth around the bones, raising them to the surface.
For nearly two decades the ranchers did little with the bones. They began poking around the fossil with a backhoe a couple of years ago, and what they saw convinced them to call a friend at the Billings Gem and Mineral Club.
That person put them in touch with Murphy, who heads the Judith River Dinosaur Institute in Malta.
"They took out a few scoops just to see what they had in there, and they hit a lot of bone,'' Murphy said.
"It's just amazing seeing a sauropod skull up close and getting to work near it,'' said 19-year-old Evelyn Unger, a volunteer digger who studies biology at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania.
Unger, who is considering a career in paleontology, is on her third dig. "I'm having a blast.''
The crew also includes two British paleontology doctoral students and a California accountant, Hal Carroll, who is on his second dig with Murphy.
"It's a great time to get out for about a week,'' Carroll said.
Volunteers have so far uncovered about 20 percent of the fossil, including the neck and skull.
Experts who examined pictures of the sauropod's vertebra determined the fossil is indeed a new species. The animal was an zabranjeno when it died. Its body was shaped like a massive barrel, and it walked on stocky limbs.
The new dinosaur is important for a couple of reasons, said Dave Trexler, paleontologist at the Two Medicine Dinosaur Center in Bynum.
First, the discovery of a sauropod so far north in Montana helps scientists further define the range of these particular Jurassic beasts.
This dinosaur also seems to represent a missing link in the evolution of the sauropods. It is believed to have roamed the earth 150 million years ago, making it about twice as old as most dinosaur skeletons found in the state.
"It really does help us put together a more comprehensive and complete picture of sauropod evolution as well as sauropod range,'' Trexler said.
Once the bones are freed from the hillside, they'll be confined in plaster jackets and hauled to the Judith River Dinosaur Institute.
Pogledaj
Otkrili skelet zrtvovanog deteta
MEXICO CITY - Archaeologists digging through an Aztec temple say they’ve found a rare child sacrifice to the war god, a deity normally honored with the hearts or skulls of zabranjeno warriors.
The child found at Mexico City’s Templo Mayor ruins was apparently killed sometime around 1450, in a sort of grim cornerstone ceremony intended to dedicate a new layer of building, according to archaeologist Ximena Chavez.
Priests propped the child — apparently already dead, since the sand around him showed no sign of movement — in a sitting position and workers packed earth around his body, which was then covered beneath a flight of stone temple steps.
Chavez said Friday there was no reference to child sacrifices to the war god Huitzilopochtli in accounts written by the Spaniards after the 1521 Conquest, showing the need for exhaustive digs to discover more about the long-controversial subject.
Some researchers say the Spaniards distorted or exaggerated accounts of human sacrifices by the Aztecs to justify their own brutal conquest; others defend the old accounts, but archeologists now say Mexico needs hard physical evidence to decide the truth.
“We are finding things here that writers of the earliest accounts did not mention, possibly because they were writing about things they didn’t personally witness,” said Chavez, of the National Institute of History and Anthropology.
“This child is unique,” said Chavez, “because it is the first child dedicated to Huitzilopochtli.” Warriors captured during battles with opposing cities were often sacrificed to the war god; in contrast, children have sometimes been found sacrificed to Tlaloc, the rain god.
The discovery announced Friday was also unusual because the child’s body was found whole, and accompanied by whistles, collars, ankle bracelets of shells and copper bells — details normally reserved for honorific burials.
Many sacrifice victims had body parts removed or were dumped willy-nilly into pits.
Researchers are still working to determine with certainty the sex, age and cause of death of the child whose skeletal remains were found in the test trench. But the careful placement of the child’s body — and the ceremonial objects found with him — are strong indications that the child was sacrificed.
Carmen Pijoan, a prominent forensic anthropologist who did not participate in the dig, said that child sacrifices are sometimes found whole, but that it did appear unusual for a child to be sacrificed to the war god.
Chavez said the child’s killing had to be understood in the context of Aztec beliefs.
“They say this action of (human) sacrifice as a life-giving activity,” she said, noting they thought the deaths would bring rain, help crops and give life to the community.
In recent years archaeologists have found mounting physical evidence that corroborates the Spanish accounts of human sacrifices in substance, but which indicates that some Spanish accounts exaggerated the number of victims.
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Kovceg otkrio misteriju
WASHINGTON - The rusty iron coffin stubbornly resisted hammer and chisel as researchers in a warm Smithsonian laboratory sought a glimpse of an American who lived more than a century and a half ago.
An electric drill, its orange cord snaking around the pre-Civil War artifact, finally freed the lid.
"This is a person and we want to tell this person's story. She is our primary obligation," anthropologist Doug Owsley said as the lid was lifted to reveal a young body wrapped in a brown shroud.
The scientists hope to identify the remains so they can have a properly marked grave. In the process, they have a chance to learn about mortuary practices of the period, what disease and trauma people may have suffered, their diet, past environments, clothing and perhaps even social customs.
Based on the small size, they had expected the coffin to contain a female body. On examination, it turned out to be a boy, about age 13.
The coffin was found in April by utility workers digging in Washington.
Owsley, head of physical anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History, said the body was well preserved. The young man wore a shirt and vest, pants and drawers, all hand-sewn, as well as a pair of socks. Only the socks appeared machine-made, Owsley said Thursday.
"I think ultimately we'll be able to determine who he was and what the cause of death was," he said. Owsley said the young man's right lung had adhesions indicating an infection, possibly pneumonia, and calcifications of the lymph nodes from infections.
The cast iron coffin was shaped a bit like an Egyptian mummy and is of a type called Fisk style patented in 1848. This particular model was popular in the early 1850s among the well-to-do, Owsley said.
Because they are sealed, cast iron coffins tend to yield well persevered bodies. Indeed, the young person looked not unlike an ancient mummy, even though he had not gone through the Egyptian embalming procedures.
The Washington iron coffin was one of three opened this week in Owsley's lab.
Two others are from a Caswell family cemetery near Kinston, N.C. Their grave markers have been lost and the museum is helping the family identify the remains — comparing them with family records — so they can be reburied in newly marked graves.
Water had gotten into those coffins, causing the remains to deteriorate.
Nonetheless, anthropologist Kari Bruwelheide said researchers had identified two gallstones in one body that might have contributed to death. The other showed no signs of sickness or trauma, said Bruwelheide, a specialist in skeletons.
Both sets of remains were of middle-aged women. Both had dental work, including gold fillings, and in one, a porcelain crown.
The Washington remains are in much better condition, with skin and soft tissues intact. Researchers were using long cotton swabs to get samples they could test for toxins and bacteria.
Human remains from burials are a rich source of information about the past. Owsley's team has studied many of them over the years, though only a few have been from cast-iron coffins, which were rare and expensive.
On hand for the opening, in addition to Owsley's research team, were scientists from other museum departments and students from East Carolina State University.
After the Washington coffin was opened the body was carefully removed for CT scanning. An autopsy will be performed.
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Iskopavanje fosila,rastuci problem
CHADRON, Neb. - When three suspicious men were stopped on federal land in remote northwestern Nebraska in 2003, it didn't take the U.S. Forest Service long to figure out what they were doing.
The men had dug an 18-by-10-foot hole more than 2 feet deep, leaving the fossilized bones of a prehistoric rhinoceros exposed. Plaster used to take casts of the bones and excavating tools also were found.
The men were poaching fossils — a practice the Forest Service says has become rampant in recent years at Oglala National Grasslands.
Although the men in this case were arrested and eventually convicted in federal court, Forest Service paleontologist Barbara Beasley said most fossil poachers are never caught. There is only one federal law enforcement officer patrolling 1.1 million acres of federal grasslands in Nebraska and South Dakota, which makes it easy for those with even the most elementary knowledge of archaeology to take what they want.
In fact, the size of the hole left by the men suggested they had been digging for several days, Beasley said.
"Very seldom do we actually catch people in the act," she said. "We just got lucky that time."
While the problem is prevalent in all fossil-rich areas, from Colorado to Montana, Forest Service spokesman Dan Jiron said it is particularly bad in Nebraska because of the lack of natural barriers like mountains or thick brush that may hinder access.
Federal officials also previously did not make fossil-poaching a priority. This has changed in the last few years, Beasley said.
Beasley and others who conduct field work on federal lands are now undergoing training to be forest protection officers. That gives them the authority to investigate criminal cases but not to carry firearms.
Poachers include academics, those hoping to sell fossils on the black market and those who simply have their curiosity piqued by dinosaurs.
"It's like panning for gold," said Rusty Dersch, a Forest Service geologist. "The first time you find a few flakes, and you want to find a few more. It grows on you."
Evidence of poaching shows up nearly every week, Beasley said. Exposed holes and excavation tools are routinely found on the federally protected grasslands. Of more than 162 grassland areas identified in the 1990s as holding fossils, about 30 percent showed evidence of poaching, Beasley said.
Dinosaur fossils also turn up by the hundreds at fossil shows, in catalogs and on Internet auction sites.
"We have researchers and academic scientists who find our permitting process difficult and just decide to go around it," Beasley said. "But a lot of them just want to sell fossils."
The sales can be lucrative. Fossilized skulls of prehistoric animals sell can sell for thousands of dollars on eBay. In June, a saber-toothed cat skull sold for $32,312 at a Bonhams & Butterfields Natural History auction.
One of Beasley's duties is to keep up with the market price of fossils. That way when poachers are convicted, she can give prosecutors an idea of how much restitution offenders should pay, she said.
The three who were convicted in the 2003 case were ordered to pay $2,000 each. One of them, Tom Neumeyer of Sheboygan, Wis., a technical college welding teacher, declined to give a reason for wanting the dinosaur bones but said he has learned a lesson.
"I will never do this illegally again, I can tell you that," he said. "This has been the worst experience of my life."
That's just the kind of message the Forest Service wants to send.
"There's been more attention paid to poaching ... a lot of it because of the higher profile of fossils as the black market prices climb," Beasley said. "Our plan is to deter unauthorized collecting."
Pogledajl
Dopuna: 07 Avg 2005 14:21
Ostaci drevne crkve nadjeni u Egiptu
CAIRO, Egypt - The remains of an ancient church and monks' retreats that date back to the early years of monasticism have been discovered in a Coptic Christian monastery in the Red Sea area, officials said Saturday.
Workers from Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities found the ruins while restoring the foundations of the Apostles Church at St. Anthony's Monastery. The remains are about 2 or 2 1/2 yards underground, said the head of the council, Zahi Hawass.
The monastery, which is in the desert west of the Red Sea, was founded by disciples of St. Anthony, a hermit who died in A.D. 356 and is regarded as the father of Christian monasticism. A colony of hermits settled around him and he led them in a community.
The remains include the column bases of a mud-brick church and two-room hermitages.
The remains of a small oven and a stove for food were found in one hermitage room, Hawass said. Another room had Coptic writing on the walls and a small mud-brick basin.
"These hermitages are the oldest in Egypt and they cast light on the history of monasticism in Egypt," Abdullah Kamel, the head of the council's Islamic and Coptic Antiquities department, told The Associated Press.
Kamel could not offer a precise date for the hermitages.
Christians account for an estimated 10 percent of Egypt's population and belong mainly to the Coptic Church, an Orthodox church that traces its origins to St. Mark.
Pogledaj
Dopuna: 08 Avg 2005 23:14
Malo otkrice ima veliki uticaj
They were the width of a few hairs pressed together, but the microscopic fossils discovered in China were enormous in their implications.
The fossils turned out to be the oldest examples of a bilaterian -- animals that display bilateral symmetry, meaning their right and left halves are mirror images. The remarkable 2004 discovery pushed back the genesis of complex animal life by as many as 50 million years.
USC College paleontologist David J. Bottjer was among the group that discovered the fossils -- period-sized blobs believed to have skimmed the ocean floor with suction-cup mouths some 580 to 600 million years ago.
In the August edition of Scientific American magazine, Bottjer wrote about his experience and these minute, yet developed, creatures. Looking like teensy gumdrops or squashed helmets, they contain tissue layers, a gut, mouth and anus.
In Bottjer's article, which includes color graphics, he described collecting a truckload of black rocks in Guizhou Province in 2002 with other researchers, including then-USC graduate student Stephen Q. Dornbos. The group joined forces in their quest for the earliest bilaterians at the urging of Eric Davidson, a molecular biologist at Caltech.
Bottjer, a professor of earth and biological sciences, recalled the certainty of another participant, Jun-Yuan Chen, a paleontologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Nanjing. Chen, a pioneer in the study of early animal life, was certain that specimens of bilaterian animals would be found in the ancient rock heap. He was right.
But it took incredible patience and work to uncover the fossils, which measure about 200 micrometers across. The team sliced the samples into thousands of see-through-thin layers and examined them under a microscope. Finally, among the 10,000 slides, the collaborators discovered 10 examples of the fossil type they had been seeking. After more months of painstaking analysis, the group confirmed the examples were fossils of miniscule bilaterian animals.
"We were pretty excited when we saw what we had," Bottjer recalled. "It was sort of a 'holy cow!'-like experience."
They named the find Vernanimalcula, meaning small, spring animal. The name refers to the time they lived after glaciers covered the planet.
The discovery is crucial. It suggests that the earliest ancestors to modern-day animals developed before the Cambrian explosion. That so-called explosion period, 488 to 542 million years ago, envelops the time on Earth when most animal groups first appeared.
In his article, Bottjer suggests that the famous Cambrian explosion was more accurately "the exploitation of newly present conditions by animals that had already evolved the genetic tools to take advantage of these novel habitats."
Rather than solely genetics, it may have been the critters' ability to grow large that led to the explosion. The growth spurt, Bottjer said, may have been caused by a drastic rise in dissolved oxygen in seawater. More oxygen for breathing reduces size constraints.
Despite the findings, the quest for fossils of early bilaterians has not ended.
"There's got to be older stuff out there," Bottjer said. "We have to hope that we can find even older rocks that contain these tiny things."
Ovde
Dopuna: 22 Avg 2005 22:56
Nadjena lobanja Homo Erectus-a,stara 1.8 milona godina
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) -- Archaeologists in the former Soviet republic of Georgia have unearthed a skull they say is 1.8 million years old and part of a find that holds that oldest traces of humankind's closest ancestors ever found in Europe.
The Homo erectus skull was found earlier this month about 100 kilometers southeast of the capital, Tbilisi, in the same area where a jawbone believed to be the same age was found in 1991, Georgian National Museum director David Lotkipanidze, who took part in the dig, said by telephone.
Lotkipanidze said that the skull, which was unearthed on Sunday and sent to the museum for further study, was in the best condition of any of the five bone fragments that have been found in the area, called Dmanisi, in recent years.
"Practically all the remains have been found in one place. This indicates that we have found a place of settlement of primitive people,'' he said of the spot, where archaeologists have been working since 1939.
The findings in Georgia, which researchers said were a million years older than any widely accepted pre-human remains in Europe, have provided additional evidence that Homo erectus left Africa a half-million years or more earlier than scientists had previously thought.
Million-year-old fossils of hominids -- extinct creatures of the extended ancestral family of modern humans -- have been found in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, but not in Western Europe. Georgia is south of the Caucasus Mountains and northeast of Turkey, but is considered part of Europe.
Ovde
Dopuna: 11 Okt 2005 22:53
Kosti Hobbita
Scientists have discovered more remains of the strange, small people that once lived on Flores island, Indonesia.
The announcement last year detailing a single, partial skeleton caused a sensation when it was claimed to be a human species new to science.
Homo floresiensis, as it was called, was little more than a metre tall and lived 18,000 years ago.
Now, the same team tells Nature journal it has skeletal remains from at least nine of the "Hobbit-like" individuals.
The new discoveries include missing parts of the old skeleton - designated LB1 after the caved dig site at Liang Bua - and a collection of other bones, such as jaw and cranial fragments, a vertebra, arm and leg bones, toes and fingers.
Vise
Dopuna: 19 Okt 2005 11:34
Kinezi nasli drevne grobnice
BEIJING - Archaeologists have unearthed a 1,700-year-old complex of tombs in eastern China that contain bronze mirrors, porcelains and ancient money, a news report said Tuesday.
The tombs near the port city of Ningbo were uncovered by a forklift operator working at a construction site, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
The report didn't say who was buried in the tombs or how many bodies had been found.
Vise
Dopuna: 11 Nov 2005 10:41
Otkriven neobican fosil krokodila
Argentinski paleontolozi pronašli su fosilne ostatke čudnog krokodila sa glavom dinosaurusa i repom ribe, koji je pre 135 miliona godina živeo na tlu današnje Argentine, saopšteno je u Buenos Ajresu.
Otkriće, koje će biti objavljeno u najnovijem izdanju časopisa 'Sajens', treba da pomogne u saznanju kakve su životinje živele u moru planete Zemlje. Naučnici, koji fosil nazivaju 'Godzila', izjavili su da je to 'najčudniji vodeni krokodil' čiji su ostaci pronađeni.
Fosil je pronađen u argentinskoj provinciji Neuken nakon što su zemljoradnici otkrili delove lobanje i kičme životinje. Stručnjaci veruju da je preistorijski reptil bio dugačak oko četiri metra i da je njegova vilica bila veća nego kod današnjih krokodila. Prema njihovim rečima, zubi krokodila bili su veličine onih koji su karakteristični za fosile dinosaurusa, a prilikom plivanja više je koristio rep.
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