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Light in darkness: an experimental look at Paleolithic cave lighting

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A recreation of three common types of Paleolithic lighting systems (torches, grease lamps, and fireplaces) illuminates how Paleolithic cave dwellers might have traveled, lived, and created in the depths of their caves, according to a study published June 16, 2021 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Mª Ángeles Medina-Alcaide from the University of Cantabria, Spain, and colleagues.

Humans need light to access the deepest areas of caves – and these visits also depend on the type of light available, as light intensity and duration, area of illumination, and color temperature all determine how the cave environment can be used.

In this study, Medina-Alcaide and colleagues use archaeological evidence of lighting remains found across several Paleolithic caves featuring cave art in Southwest Europe to experimentally replicate the artificial lighting systems presumably used by the original human cave dwellers, allowing immediate empirical observations. [Read more…] about Light in darkness: an experimental look at Paleolithic cave lighting

Forged books of seventeenth-century music discovered in Venetian library

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In 1916 and 1917, a musician and book dealer named Giovanni Concina sold three ornately decorated seventeenth-century songbooks to a library in Venice, Italy.

Now, more than 100 years later, a musicologist at Penn State has discovered that the manuscripts are fakes, meticulously crafted to appear old but actually fabricated just prior to their sale to the library.

The manuscripts are rare among music forgeries in that the songs are authentic, but the books are counterfeit. [Read more…] about Forged books of seventeenth-century music discovered in Venetian library

Scrap for cash before coins

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How did people living in the Bronze Age manage their finances before money became widespread? Researchers from the Universities of Göttingen and Rome have discovered that bronze scrap found in hoards in Europe circulated as a currency.

These pieces of scrap – which might include swords, axes, and jewellery broken into pieces – were used as cash in the late Bronze Age (1350-800 BC), and in fact complied with a weight system used across Europe.

This research suggests that something very similar to our ‘global market’ evolved across Western Eurasia from the everyday use of scrap for cash by ordinary people some 1000 years before the beginning of classical civilizations. The results were published in Journal of Archaeological Science. [Read more…] about Scrap for cash before coins

Dinosaurs that hunted in the dark

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Today’s 10,000 species of birds live in virtually every habitat on Earth, but only a handful have adaptations enabling them to hunt active prey in the dark of night.

Scientists have long wondered whether theropod dinosaurs – the group that gave rise to modern birds – had similar sensory adaptations.

A new study led by University of the Witwatersrand scientist, Professor Jonah Choiniere, sought to investigate how vision and hearing abilities of dinosaurs and birds compared. [Read more…] about Dinosaurs that hunted in the dark

Related Posts

  • The ‘one who causes fear’ – new meat-eating dinosaur discovered
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    The ‘one who causes fear’ – new meat-eating dinosaur discoveredResearch published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology describes a newly discovered species of dinosaur – named the 'one who causes fear', or Llukalkan aliocranianus. Around 80 million years ago as tyrannosaurs ruled the Northern Hemisphere, this lookalike was one of 10 currently known species of abelisaurids flourishing in the…
    Tags: species, dinosaurs, skull, hearing, dinosaur, discovery, long, small, prey, lived

The ‘one who causes fear’ – new meat-eating dinosaur discovered

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Research published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology describes a newly discovered species of dinosaur – named the ‘one who causes fear’, or Llukalkan aliocranianus.

Around 80 million years ago as tyrannosaurs ruled the Northern Hemisphere, this lookalike was one of 10 currently known species of abelisaurids flourishing in the southern continents.

A fearsome killer, Llukalkan was “likely among the top predators” throughout Patagonia, now in Argentina, during the Late Cretaceous due to its formidable size (up to five meters long), extremely powerful bite, very sharp teeth, huge claws in their feet and their keen sense of smell. [Read more…] about The ‘one who causes fear’ – new meat-eating dinosaur discovered

Related Posts

  • Dinosaurs that hunted in the dark
    32
    Dinosaurs that hunted in the darkToday's 10,000 species of birds live in virtually every habitat on Earth, but only a handful have adaptations enabling them to hunt active prey in the dark of night. Scientists have long wondered whether theropod dinosaurs – the group that gave rise to modern birds – had similar sensory adaptations.…
    Tags: hearing, dinosaurs, species, prey, dinosaur, long, discovery, skull, small, lived

World’s first dinosaur preserved sitting on nest of eggs with fossilized babies

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The fossil in question is that of an oviraptorosaur, a group of bird-like theropod dinosaurs that thrived during the Cretaceous Period, the third and final time period of the Mesozoic Era (commonly known as the ‘Age of Dinosaurs’) that extended from 145 to 66 million years ago.

The new specimen was recovered from uppermost Cretaceous-aged rocks, some 70 million years old, in Ganzhou City in southern China’s Jiangxi Province.

“Dinosaurs preserved on their nests are rare, and so are fossil embryos. This is the first time a non-avian dinosaur has been found, sitting on a nest of eggs that preserve embryos, in a single spectacular specimen,” explains Dr. Shundong Bi. [Read more…] about World’s first dinosaur preserved sitting on nest of eggs with fossilized babies

Fermented wool is the answer to why colors of Iron Age rug are so vivid

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The Pazyryk carpet is the world’s oldest example of a knotted-pile carpet and is kept at the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia.

The carpet, which was made out of new wool at around 400 BC, is one of the most exciting examples of central Asian craftsmanship from the Iron Age.

Ever since the carpet was discovered in 1947 by Russian archaeologists in a kurgan tomb in the Altai mountains, experts in traditional dyeing techniques have been puzzled by the vivid red, yellow and blue colours of the carpet, which lay buried in extreme conditions for almost two thousand five hundred years. [Read more…] about Fermented wool is the answer to why colors of Iron Age rug are so vivid

New technology allows scientists first glimpse of intricate details of Little Foot’s life

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In June 2019, an international team brought the complete skull of the 3.67-million-year-old Little Foot Australopithecus skeleton, from South Africa to the UK and achieved unprecedented imaging resolution of its bony structures and dentition in an X-ray synchrotron-based investigation at the UK’s national synchrotron, Diamond Light Source. The X-ray work is highlighted in a new paper in e-Life, published today (2nd March 2021) focusing on the inner craniodental features of Little Foot.

Little Foot is the nickname given to a nearly complete Australopithecus fossil skeleton found in 1994-1998 in the cave system of Sterkfontein, South Africa.

The remarkable completeness and great age of the Little Foot skeleton makes it a crucially important specimen in human origins research and a prime candidate for exploring human evolution through high-resolution virtual analysis.

To recover the smallest possible details from a fairly large and very fragile fossil, the team decided to image the skull using synchrotron X-ray micro computed tomography at the I12 beamline at Diamond, revealing new information about human evolution and origins. This paper outlines preliminary results of the X-ray synchrotron-based investigation of the dentition and bones of the skull (i.e., cranial vault and mandible). [Read more…] about New technology allows scientists first glimpse of intricate details of Little Foot’s life

CT scans of Egyptian mummy reveal new details about the death of a pivotal pharaoh

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Modern medical technology is helping scholars tell a more nuanced story about the fate of an ancient king whose violent death indirectly led to the reunification of Egypt in the 16th century BC. The research was published in Frontiers in Medicine.

Pharaoh Seqenenre-Taa-II, the Brave, briefly ruled over Southern Egypt during the country’s occupation by the Hyksos, a foriegn dynasty that held power across the kingdom for about a century (c. 1650-1550 BCE).

In his attempt to oust the Hyskos, Seqenenre-Taa-II was killed. Scholars have debated the exact nature of the pharaoh’s death since his mummy was first discovered and studied in the 1880s. [Read more…] about CT scans of Egyptian mummy reveal new details about the death of a pivotal pharaoh