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Perseverance’s first year on Mars: Purdue professor, mission team member looks at what is ahead

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Almost one year into the Mars rover mission, accomplishing its goal is on the horizon for Purdue University’s Briony Horgan and the Perseverance team.

February 18 will mark one year since the rover landed on the red planet following a seven-month, 300-million-mile flight across space.

Horgan, associate professor of planetary science in the Purdue College of Science’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, says anticipation is building as the team focuses on the mission goal: researching a now-dry large river delta. [Read more…] about Perseverance’s first year on Mars: Purdue professor, mission team member looks at what is ahead

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  • ABB provides Ty-Rap cable ties for NASA Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Mission
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    ABB provides Ty-Rap cable ties for NASA Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover MissionAs NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover begins exploring its new planetary home after landing on February 18, 2021, it’s operating with the world’s most advanced technology while being equipped with Ty-Rap cable ties from ABB, the same ties that are widely used on earth. Found in buildings, subways, the deepest oceans…
    Tags: space, mars, rover, perseverance, mission, features

The secrets of ancient Japanese tombs revealed thanks to satellite images

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A research group at the Politecnico di Milano analysed the orientation of ancient Japanese tombs – the so-called Kofun.

This study has never been carried out before, due to the very large number of monuments and the fact that access to these areas is usually forbidden. For these reasons, high-res satellite imagery was used.

The results show that these tombs are oriented towards the arc of the rising sun, the Goddess Amaterasu that the Japanese emperors linked to the mythical origin of their dynasty. [Read more…] about The secrets of ancient Japanese tombs revealed thanks to satellite images

Ancient DNA reveals the world’s oldest family tree

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Analysis of ancient DNA from one of the best-preserved Neolithic tombs in Britain has revealed that most of the people buried there were from five continuous generations of a single extended family.

By analysing DNA extracted from the bones and teeth of 35 individuals entombed at Hazleton North long cairn in the Cotswolds-Severn region, the research team was able to detect that 27 of them were close biological relatives.

The group lived approximately 5700 years ago – around 3700-3600 BC – around 100 years after farming had been introduced to Britain. [Read more…] about Ancient DNA reveals the world’s oldest family tree

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  • Ancient Islamic tombs cluster like galaxies
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    Ancient Islamic tombs cluster like galaxiesSudanese Islamic burial sites are distributed according to large-scale environmental factors and small-scale social factors, creating a galaxy-like distribution pattern, according to a study published July 7, 2021 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Stefano Costanzo of the University of Naples "L'Orientale" in Italy and colleagues. The Kassala region of eastern…
    Tags: tombs, ancient, study, archaeologists, areas, family, analysis, team, university, years

In Guatemala, archaeologist helps to uncover hidden neighborhood in ancient Maya city

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Scientists have been excavating the ruins of Tikal, an ancient Maya city in modern-day Guatemala, since the 1950s – and thanks to those many decades spent documenting details of every structure and cataloguing each excavated item, Tikal has become one of the best understood and most thoroughly studied archaeological sites in the world.

But a startling recent discovery by the Pacunam Lidar Initiative, a research consortium involving a Brown University anthropologist, has ancient Mesoamerican scholars across the globe wondering whether they know Tikal as well as they think.

Using light detection and ranging software, or lidar, Stephen Houston, a professor of anthropology at Brown University, and Thomas Garrison, an assistant professor of geography at the University of Texas at Austin, discovered that what was long assumed to be an area of natural hills a short walk away from Tikal’s center was actually a neighborhood of ruined buildings that had been designed to look like those in Teotihuacan, the largest and most powerful city in the ancient Americas. [Read more…] about In Guatemala, archaeologist helps to uncover hidden neighborhood in ancient Maya city

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  • Did the ancient Maya have parks?
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    Did the ancient Maya have parks?The ancient Maya city of Tikal was a bustling metropolis and home to tens of thousands of people. The city comprised roads, paved plazas, towering pyramids, temples and palaces and thousands of homes for its residents, all supported by agriculture. Now researchers at the University of Cincinnati say Tikal's reservoirs…
    Tags: ancient, city, tikal, maya, features, archaeology

Researchers identify record number of ancient elephant bone tools

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Ancient humans could do some impressive things with elephant bones.

In a new study, University of Colorado Boulder archaeologist Paola Villa and her colleagues surveyed tools excavated from a site in Italy where large numbers of elephants had died.

The team discovered that humans at this site roughly 400,000 years ago appropriated those carcasses to produce an unprecedented array of bone tools – some crafted with sophisticated methods that wouldn’t become common for another 100,000 years.

“We see other sites with bone tools at this time,” said Villa, an adjoint curator at the CU Boulder Museum of Natural History. “But there isn’t this variety of well-defined shapes.” [Read more…] about Researchers identify record number of ancient elephant bone tools

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  • Neanderthal ancestry identifies oldest modern human genome
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    Neanderthal ancestry identifies oldest modern human genomeAncient DNA from Neandertals and early modern humans has recently shown that the groups likely interbred somewhere in the Near East after modern humans left Africa some 50,000 years ago. As a result, all people outside Africa carry around 2% to 3% Neandertal DNA. In modern human genomes, those Neandertal…
    Tags: years, humans, ago, europe, study, age, researchers, ancient, news, archaeology

Ancient Islamic tombs cluster like galaxies

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Sudanese Islamic burial sites are distributed according to large-scale environmental factors and small-scale social factors, creating a galaxy-like distribution pattern, according to a study published July 7, 2021 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Stefano Costanzo of the University of Naples “L’Orientale” in Italy and colleagues.

The Kassala region of eastern Sudan is home to a vast array of funerary monuments, from the Islamic tombs of modern Beja people to ancient burial mounds thousands of years old.

Archaeologists don’t expect these monuments are randomly placed; their distribution is likely influenced by geological and social factors. Unraveling the patterns of the funerary landscape can provide insight into ancient cultural practices of the people who built them. [Read more…] about Ancient Islamic tombs cluster like galaxies

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  • Population dynamics and the rise of empires in Inner Asia
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    Population dynamics and the rise of empires in Inner AsiaFrom the late Bronze Age until the Middle Ages, the eastern Eurasian Steppe was home to a series of organized and highly influential nomadic empires. The Xiongnu (209 BCE - 98 CE) and Mongol (916-1125 CE) empires that bookend this period had especially large impacts on the demographics and geopolitics…
    Tags: eastern, ancient, study, region, university, features
  • Ancient DNA reveals the world’s oldest family tree
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    Ancient DNA reveals the world’s oldest family treeAnalysis of ancient DNA from one of the best-preserved Neolithic tombs in Britain has revealed that most of the people buried there were from five continuous generations of a single extended family. By analysing DNA extracted from the bones and teeth of 35 individuals entombed at Hazleton North long cairn…
    Tags: university, ancient, family, archaeologists, study, team, tombs, years, analysis, areas

Early Earth was bombarded by series of city-sized asteroids

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Scientists know that the Earth was bombarded by huge impactors in distant time, but a new analysis suggest that the number of these impacts may have been x10 higher than previously thought.

This translates into a barrage of collisions, similar in scale to that of the asteroid strike which wiped out the dinosaurs, on average every 15 million years between 2.5 and 3.5 billion years ago. Some of these individual impacts may have been much bigger, possibly ranging from city-sized to small province sized.

Researchers are also considering what effect the impacts may have had on the Earth’s evolving near-surface chemistry. This work is presented at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference. [Read more…] about Early Earth was bombarded by series of city-sized asteroids

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  • Dinosaurs were in decline before the end, according to new study
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    Dinosaurs were in decline before the end, according to new studyThe death of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was caused by the impact of a huge asteroid on the Earth. However, palaeontologists have continued to debate whether they were already in decline or not before the impact. In a new study, published today in the journal Nature Communications, an international…
    Tags: years, impact, ago, earth, huge, life, time, features
  • Water on ancient Mars
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    Water on ancient MarsThere's a long-standing question in planetary science about the origin of water on Earth, Mars and other large bodies such as the moon. One hypothesis says that it came from asteroids and comets post-formation. But some planetary researchers think that water might just be one of many substances that occur…
    Tags: years, billion, ago, impact, ancient, earth, life, time, universe

Did the ancient Maya have parks?

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The ancient Maya city of Tikal was a bustling metropolis and home to tens of thousands of people.

The city comprised roads, paved plazas, towering pyramids, temples and palaces and thousands of homes for its residents, all supported by agriculture.

Now researchers at the University of Cincinnati say Tikal’s reservoirs – critical sources of city drinking water – were lined with trees and wild vegetation that would have provided scenic natural beauty in the heart of the busy city. [Read more…] about Did the ancient Maya have parks?

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  • In Guatemala, archaeologist helps to uncover hidden neighborhood in ancient Maya city
    35
    In Guatemala, archaeologist helps to uncover hidden neighborhood in ancient Maya cityScientists have been excavating the ruins of Tikal, an ancient Maya city in modern-day Guatemala, since the 1950s – and thanks to those many decades spent documenting details of every structure and cataloguing each excavated item, Tikal has become one of the best understood and most thoroughly studied archaeological sites…
    Tags: tikal, maya, city, archaeology, features, ancient
  • Ancient Maya built sophisticated water filters
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    Ancient Maya built sophisticated water filtersAncient Maya in the once-bustling city of Tikal built sophisticated water filters using natural materials they imported from miles away, according to the University of Cincinnati. UC researchers discovered evidence of a filter system at the Corriental reservoir, an important source of drinking water for the ancient Maya in what…
    Tags: water, ancient, maya, uc, archaeology

Provenance: How an object’s origin can facilitate authentic, inclusive storytelling

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Passports are a tangible way of showing where one has traveled, as the stamps provide a chronological order that traces an individual’s journey across international borders. When an object’s origins are not readily apparent, a variety of sources can be relied upon to learn more, which might include labels, sales receipts, foreign translations, oral histories, GPS coordinates and itemized personal possessions.

That documentation is an example of provenance, or the origins of an object and where it has traveled throughout history. Sarah Buchanan, an assistant professor in the University of Missouri’s College of Education, is an archivist, a professional who assesses, collects and preserves various artifacts and archives them to better understand their origin and cultural heritage.

With a three-year grant, Buchanan is investigating ways to conduct provenance research more efficiently, inclusively and transparently, both on MU’s campus and abroad. In a recently published study, Buchanan collaborated with Sara Mohr, a doctoral student at Brown University who reads and translates Assyrian, to create an online bibliography and corresponding map of ancient tablets located in universities throughout the United States, including six tablets inside MU’s Ellis Library. [Read more…] about Provenance: How an object’s origin can facilitate authentic, inclusive storytelling

How a small fish coped with being isolated from the sea

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The last ice age ended almost 12,000 years ago in Norway. The land rebounded slowly as the weight of the ice disappeared and the land uplift caused many bays to become narrower and form lakes.

Fish became trapped in these lakes.

Sticklebacks managed to adapt when saltwater became freshwater, and they can still be found in today’s coastal lakes along the Norwegian coast. [Read more…] about How a small fish coped with being isolated from the sea