Category Archives: Archaeological News

Archaeological News, Pagan Landmarks

Stonehenge builders used Pythagoras’ theorem 2,000 years before Greek philosopher was born, say experts

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The builders of Britain’s ancient stone circles like Stonehenge were using Pythagoras’ theorem 2,000 years before the Greek philosopher was born, experts have claimed.

A new book, Megalith, has re-examined the ancient geometry of Neolithic monuments and concluded they were constructed by sophisticated astronomers who understood lengthy lunar, solar and eclipse cycles and built huge stone calendars using complex geometry

One contributor, megalithic expert Robin Heath has even proposed that there exists a great Pythagorean triangle in the British landscape linking Stonehenge, the site from which the Preseli bluestones were cut in Wales,  and Lundy Island, an important prehistoric site.

Pythagoras’ discovery that the sum of the areas of two squares on the sides of a triangle will add up to the area of a square on hypotenuse has been used for millennia to help builders attain perfect right-angles.

Stonehenge in 2750 BC with the four marker stones picked out

The new book, published today to coincide with today’s summer solstice, shows how within one of Stonehenge’s earliest incarnations, dating from 2750BC, there lies a rectangle of four Sarsen stones which when split in half diagonally forms a perfect Pythagorean 5:12:13 triangle.

The eight lines which radiate from the rectangle and triangles also perfectly align to important dates in the Neolithic calendar, such as the summer and winter solstices and spring and autumn equinoxes.

They also mark Imbolc, the ancient date for the beginning of Spring on February 1, Beltane, or May Day,  lammas, the start of the wheat harvest and Samhain, October 31 which traditionally marked the time when cattle were brought down from summer pastures and slaughtered for the winter which has become Halloween.

A bird’s eye view of Stonehenge showing the rectangle and Pythagorean triangles.

Contributor and editor John Matineau, said: “People often think of our ancestors as rough cavemen but they were also sophisticated astronomers.

“They were applying Pythagorean geometry over 2000 years before Pythagoras was born.

“We see triangles and double squares used which are simple versions of pythagorean geometry. And then we have this synthesis on different sites of solar and lunar numbers.

“We think these people didn’t have scientific minds but first and foremost they were astronomers and cosmologists. They were studying long and difficult to understand cycles and they knew about these when they started planning sites like Stonehenge.

“I do feel very sad that visitors to Stonehenge are not told anything about the astronomical alignments, even when they are very simple to explain.”

Nearly two miles north-east of Stonehenge, stood Woodhenge, which was also constructed using a 12:35:37 triangle.

Pythagorean triangles have also been found at Avebury, the inner ring of the Druid Temple in Inverness, Castlerigg in Keswick, Cumbria, Barbrook, in Derbyshire, Borrowston Rig, on the Scottish borders, and Daviot ‘B’, in Aberdeenshire.

Consequently many stone ‘circle’ were not fully circular but have geometry derived from Pythagorean triangles often in whole numbers of Megalithic yards (2.72 feet)  which were probably laid out using ropes and pegs.

Mr Heath added: “The phrase ‘a length of time’ may originally derive from an epoch when the length of a ruler, rope or set measure actually represented a time period—a technique manifested within many megalithic structures, which enshrine the time periods of the Sun and Moon.”

The huge stones of Stonehenge were also once surrounded by 56 wooden posts or stones  which could be used for predicting eclipses as well as showing the position of the Sun and the Moon and the lunar phases.

And the bluestone horseshoe in the centre is thought to contain 19 stones to represent the number of years it takes for the Sun and Moon metonic cycle to go full circle and reset.

The authors believe that much of the knowledge was lost following the rise of Christianity in Britain.

Robin Heath claims important sites in Britain are also linked by triangles

“These days it’s seen as hippy dippy or New Age, but actually it’s a colossal omission to the history of science that we don’t see these monuments for what they are,” added Mr Heath.

“People see the Neolithic builders of Stonehenge as howling barbarians, when they were very learned and it has been forgotten.”

Megalith is published by Wooden Books.

Archaeological News, Politics, Social Matters

Scientists discover DNA proving original Native Americans were White

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“This is a new population of Native Americans – the white Native American”

A new discovery of ancient DNA may overturn the idea that the Native Americans were the first to have populated the American continent. Instead, a new group known as the ancient Beringians, who are more closely related to modern white Europeans has been discovered by researchers. Genetic analysis of a baby girl who died at the end of the last ice age shows she belonged to this previously unknown ancient group of Beringians.

A baby girl who lived and died in what is now Alaska, at the end of the last ice age belonged to a previously unknown group of ancient people who branched off from the ancestors of modern Europeans, according to DNA recovered from her bones.

The child, a mere six weeks old when she died, was found in a burial pit next to the remains of a stillborn baby, perhaps a first cousin, during excavations of an 11,500-year-old residential camp in Tanana River Valley in Central Alaska. The remains were discovered in 2013, but a full genetic analysis has not been possible until now.

Researchers tried to recover ancient DNA from both of the infants but succeeded only in the case of the larger individual. They had expected her genetic material to resemble modern northern or southern lineages of Native Americans, but found instead that she had a distinct genetic makeup that made her a member of a separate population.

A new genome from a Pleistocene burial in Alaska confirms a longstanding belief that European ancestors first arrived in America.

The newly-discovered group, named “ancient Beringians,” appears to have split off from the Europeans around 20,000 years ago and made their way to North America via Alaska, when a frozen land bridge made the crossing from Europe and Asia into North America possible. The ancient Beringians then pushed south as the ice caps melted and mixed with other Native American populations, which is why many Native Americans today also exhibit physical characteristics more commonly associated with whites. According to Eske Willerslev, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Copenhagen, whose team recovered the girl’s DNA from a dense part of her skull known as the petrous bone,

“This is a new population of Native Americans – the white Native American.”

The findings which were published in the scientific journal Nature, are controversial and represent a growing body of evidence being discovered across the world that suggests the origins of the human race may have been Europe and not Africa as once believed.

Working with scientists at the University of Alaska and elsewhere, Willerslev compared the genetic makeup of the baby, named Xach’itee’aanenh t’eede gaay or “sunrise child-girl” by the local community, with genomes from other ancient and modern people. They found that nearly half of the girl’s DNA came from the ancient north Europeans who lived in what is now Scandinavia. The rest of her genetic makeup was a roughly even mix of DNA now carried by the northern and southern Native Americans. Using evolutionary models, the researchers showed that the ancestors of the first Native Americans started to emerge as a distinct population about 35,000 years ago. About 25,000 years ago, this group mixed and bred with ancient north Asians in the region, the descendants of whom went on to become the first white Europeans to settle the New World.

During the last ice age, so much water was locked up in the ice caps that a land bridge reached from Europe and Asia to North America across what is now the Bering Strait. Willerslev believes the ancestors of these early white Europeans traveled to the continent in a single wave of migration more than 20,000 years ago. Those who settled in the north became the ancient Beringians, he said, while those who moved south, around or through the ice sheets, split into the north and south Native Americans about 15,700 years ago.

But there is another possibility. Ben Potter, an archaeologist on the team from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, suspects that the Beringians split from the ancestors of other Native Americans in Europe before both groups made their way across the land bridge to North America in separate migrations,

“The support for this scenario is pretty strong. We have no evidence of people in the Beringia region 20,000 years ago.”

Potter suggests that alternatively, these early European settlers may have mixed with Asians before crossing over to North America and were responsible for creating the original Native American people. The families who lived at the ancient camp may have spent months there, Potter said. Excavations at the site, known as Upward Sun River, have revealed at least three tent structures that would have provided shelter. The two babies were found in a burial pit beneath a hearth where families cooked salmon caught in the local river. The cremated remains of a third child, who died at the age of three, were found on top of the hearth at the abandoned camp.

Connie Mulligan, an anthropologist at the University of Florida, said the findings pointed to a single migration of people from Europe to the New World via Asia, but said other questions remained.

“How did people move so quickly to the southernmost point of South America and settle two continents that span a huge climatic and geographic range?”

white European genes and their desire for better living conditions. With the land bridge from Asia to North America fast disappearing and in search of better food and water, the early Europeans would have feasted on the salmon they caught in the wild, which would no doubt would have enhanced their cognitive faculties and ability to anticipate and assess the rapidly changing situation.

David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard University, said the work boosted the case for a single migration into Alaska and then onward to North and South America, but he did not rule out alternatives involving multiple waves of migration. He added that he was unconvinced that the ancient Beringian group split from the ancestors of other Native Americans 20,000 years ago, because even tiny errors in scientists’ data can lead to radically different split times for evolutionary lineages.

“While the 19,000-21,000 year date would have important implications if true and may very well be right, I am not convinced that there is compelling evidence that the initial split date is that old.”

“It’s entirely possible that they were ancient Europeans through and through.”

Archaeological News, Pagan Landmarks

Gallows Hill gets a memorial

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Not too long ago we did a report on the discovery of the true Gallows Hill in Salem Massachusetts. The legendary site that many practicioners of witchcraft hold as sacred has long been steeped in mystery as to its true location. Due to the misnomer “Gallows Hill” by Nathaniel Hawthorne “the hanging judge”, a small hill just on the skirts of Salem was named Gallows Hill. But there was no evidence to prove that it ever actually was and today just stands as a base for a water tower and a playground and it’s foot.

Archaeologists and historians worked together to finally pinpoint the true location which was known as Proctor’s ledge.

Disguised by trees and a neighborhood it does not seem like much of a hill. But historical landmarks were used to successfully triangulate its location. A memorial commemorating the site was completed this summer.

Archaeological News

Europe was the birthplace of mankind, not Africa, scientists find

Source: Telegraph.uk

The history of human evolution has been rewritten after scientists discovered that Europe was the birthplace of mankind, not Africa.

Currently, most experts believe that our human lineage split from apes around seven million years ago in central Africa, where hominids remained for the next five million years before venturing further afield.

But two fossils of an ape-like creature which had human-like teeth have been found in Bulgaria and Greece, dating to 7.2 million years ago.

The discovery of the creature, named Graecopithecus freybergi, and nicknameded ‘El Graeco’ by scientists, proves our ancestors were already starting to evolve in Europe 200,000 years before the earliest African hominid.

An international team of researchers say the findings entirely change the beginning of human history and place the last common ancestor of both chimpanzees and humans – the so-called Missing Link – in the Mediterranean region.

At that time climate change had turned Eastern Europe into an open savannah which forced apes to find new food sources, sparking a shift towards bipedalism, the researchers believe.

“This study changes the ideas related to the knowledge about the time and the place of the first steps of the humankind,” said Professor Nikolai Spassov from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

“Graecopithecus is not an ape. He is a member of the tribe of hominins and the direct ancestor of homo.

“The food of the Graecopithecus was related to the rather dry and hard savannah vegetation, unlike that of the recent great apes which are living in forests.  Therefore, like humans, he has wide molars and thick enamel.

“To some extent this is a newly discovered missing link. But missing links will always exist , because evolution is infinite chain of subsequent forms. Probably  El Graeco’s face will resemble a great ape, with shorter canines.”

The team analysed the two known specimens of Graecopithecus freybergi: a lower jaw from Greece and an upper premolar tooth from Bulgaria.

Using computer tomography, they were able to visualise the internal structures of the fossils and show that the roots of premolars are widely fused.

“While great apes typically have two or three separate and diverging roots, the roots of Graecopithecus converge and are partially fused – a feature that is characteristic of modern humans, early humans and several pre-humans,”, said lead researcher Professor Madelaine Böhme of the University of Tübingen.

The lower jaw, has additional dental root features, suggesting that the species was a hominid.

The species was also found to be several hundred thousand years older than the oldest African hominid, Sahelanthropus tchadensis which was found in Chad.

“We were surprised by our results, as pre-humans were previously known only from sub-Saharan Africa,” said doctoral student Jochen Fuss, a Tübingen PhD student who conducted this part of the study.

Professor David Begun, a University of Toronto paleoanthropologist and co-author of this study, added: “This dating allows us to move the human-chimpanzee split into the Mediterranean area.”

During the period the Mediterranean Sea went through frequent periods of drying up completely, forming a land bridge between Europe and Africa and allowing apes and early hominids to pass between the continents.

The team believe that evolution of hominids may have been driven by dramatic environmental changes which sparked the formation of the North African Sahara more than seven million years ago and pushed species further North.

They found large amounts of Saharan sand in layers dating from the period, suggesting that it lay much further North than today.

Professor Böhme added: “Our findings may eventually change our ideas about the origin of humanity. I personally don’t think that the descendants of Graecopithecus die out, they may have spread to Africa later. The split of chimps and humans was a single event. Our data support the view that this split was happening in the eastern Mediterranean – not in Africa.

“If accepted, this theory will indeed alter the very beginning of human history.”

However some experts were more skeptical about the findings.

Retired anthropologist and author Dr Peter Andrews, formerly at the Natural History Museum in London, said: “It is possible that the human lineage originated in Europe, but very substantial fossil evidence places the origin in Africa, including several partial skeletons and skulls.

“I would be hesitant about using a single character from an isolated fossil to set against the evidence from Africa.”

The new research was published in the journal PLOS One.

Archaeological News, Social Matters

EUROPEANS ARE THE TRUE NATIVE AMERICANS. NEW EVIDENCE SHOWS

A new book titled “Across Atlantic Ice: The Origin of America’s Clovis Culture“ has been published by two high ranking Archaeologist who have concluded that evidence they have will re-write American history books… nah who are we kidding, history books never get re-written unless it’s to bash America.

Knives and other tools found in America dating between 19,000 and 26,000 years not only resemble those found in Europe of the same period, but are even made of materials native to Spain and France.

Dennis Stanford with Clovis stone points from the collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. (Photo by Chip Clark)

A stone knife unearthed in 1971 was made of french flint pretty much confirms that ancient Europeans were here long before evidence of Native Americans.

“We now have really solid evidence that people came from Europe to the New World around 20,000 years ago,” Bradley says. “Our findings represent a paradigm shift in the way we think about America’s early history. We are challenging a very deep-seated belief in how the New World was populated. The story is more intriguing and more complicated than we ever have imagined.” “There are more alternatives than we think in archaeology and we need to have imagination and an open mind when we examine evidence to avoid being stuck in orthodoxy,” Stanford adds. “This book is the result of more than a decade’s work, but it is just the beginning of our journey.” Across Atlantic Ice is published by University California Press, Berkeley.–Source University of Exeter

This is a very exciting turn of findings but most likely will be buried under the dogmatic, anti-American hate being taught in schools today. As I stated above, the knife was unearthed in 1971 so this concept has been around quite a long time and even though evidence has been mounding that we need to really reconsider the narrative we’ve been spoon fed, it’s been forty years and we’re still only just hearing about this.

Amazingly it took almost no time at all for people to accept the evidence that the Thanksgiving story, where by Europeans and Indians sat together in a big feast of friendship, was complete bunk. But getting anyone to even entertain these findings will be like trying to get creationist to admit the world is older than 6,000.

A side effect of all of this is now Mormons have vindication for their religion.

Archaeological News

GROUND ZERO: PROCTOR’S LEDGE IN SALEM CONFIRMED AS WITCH EXECUTION SITE

SALEM — Nearly 325 years after 19 people accused of witchcraft were hanged in this city, a group of scholars has finally confirmed the place where they met their fate: Proctor’s Ledge.

The Gallows Hill Project, a group of seven scholars, says they were able to definitively identify the location after five years of research, using court records, maps, ground-penetrating radar and aerial photographs.

Now the city intends to mark the location with a memorial, according to Mayor Kim Driscoll.

The discovery didn’t come as a shock, said Emerson “Tad” Baker, a history professor at Salem State University.

Proctor’s Ledge, a wooded, city-owned area that abuts Proctor and Pope streets, and described as a “rocky ledge … at the base of the hill,” has been considered the most likely spot since the early 1900s, when historian Sidney Perley conducted research and settled on that location.

“There was never really a ‘eureka’ moment,” Baker said. “I think most of us — we’re talking about a number of scholars who were working on this — we knew Perley’s research was really good.”

What Perley’s research lacked was modern technology, Baker said.

Around 1,000 documents survive from the time of the trials, Baker said, making it “one of the best recorded events in early American history.” But missing are eyewitness accounts of the hangings, he added.

Gallows Hill, but where?

Traditionally, the hangings have been described simply as occurring at Gallows Hill, but that covers many acres of land. To determine exactly where the executions took place, a group of scholars was assembled in 2010 to examine the evidence.

They included Baker; Elizabeth Peterson, director of Salem’s Corwin House, aka The Witch House; Tom Phillips, who directed and produced “Salem Witch Trials: Examine the Evidence”; Marilynne Roach, a witch trials author and historian; Peter Sablock, a Salem State geology professor; Benjamin Ray, a religion professor at the University of Virginia; and Shelby Hypes, chairwoman of the Salem Award Foundation.

They were able to combine their research and knowledge of the 1692 events, explore the possibilities, and also rule out that anything occurred on top of Gallows Hill.

“We’re pretty certain there’s nothing up there,” Baker said.

To memorialize the people who died there, the city is seeking Community Preservation Act funds to install a plaque there, as well as to clean the site up and prepare it for tourist traffic.

“Salem, long known for a dark time in our past when people turned on each, is now a community where people turn toward each other,” Driscoll said in a prepared statement. “Having this site identified marks an important opportunity for Salem, as a city, to come together and recognize the injustice and tragedy perpetrated against 19 innocent people.”

This is a sharp contrast from what was planned back in 1892 — a large memorial lookout tower, according to Baker.

What the Gallows Hill watchtower would have looked like had it been constructed.

At least 25 people died in the Salem Witch Trials. In addition to the 19 hanged, five died in prison awaiting trial. Another, Giles Corey, was crushed to death when rocks were placed on his chest in an effort to make him cooperate with the court.

While Baker said he and his team were excited to give the location legitimacy, he said they are simply “confirming the great work” that Perley did a century ago.

“I think we are all honored to be a part of this effort and are extremely happy that the mayor and the city are eager to see that the site is properly maintained and marked,” he said.

HOW THEY DID IT

The Gallows Hill Project prepared a series of questions and answers explaining how they confirmed Proctor’s Ledge as the execution site for accused witches.

How did they pin down the site?

Marilynne Roach discovered a few key lines of eyewitness testimony in a Salem witch trials court record from Aug. 19, 1692. … The record quotes the defendant Rebecca Eames, who had been on her way to the court in the custody of her guards and traveled along the Boston Road, which ran just below the execution site.

A few hours later, she appeared the Salem court for her preliminary examination. The magistrate asked Eames whether she had witnessed the execution that took place earlier that morning as she was passing by. She explained that she was at “the house below the hill” and that she saw some “folks” at the execution. Roach determined that the “house below the hill” was most likely the McCarter House, or one of its neighbors on Boston Street. The McCarter house was still standing in 1890 at 19 Boston St.

What other evidence is there?

Professor Benjamin Ray conducted research that pinpointed the McCarter house’s location and worked with geographic information system specialist Chris Gist of the University of Virginia’s Scholars Lab to determine whether, in fact, it was possible for a person standing at the site of the house on Boston Street to see the top of Proctor’s Ledge. Gist produced a view-shed analysis, which determined that the top of Proctor’s Ledge was clearly visible.

Why did they rule out the top of Gallows Hill?

There are several reasons why the location at the top of Gallows Hill does not work. First, it would not have been visible from the McCarter house and its neighbors on Boston Street. It also would not have been visible from the Symonds house on North Street, where another person is known to have witnessed some of the executions. Furthermore, we know that the eight victims hanged on Sept. 22 were driven by cart to the execution site. It would have been next to impossible to get a cart full of eight victims up a steep and rocky slope that lacked a road.

Finally, executions were meant to be public events, so everyone could witness the terrible consequences that awaited those who committed witchcraft and other serious crimes. The top of Gallows Hill would be much more difficult to access than Proctor’s Ledge.

Did the project find anything on Gallows Hill?

Professor Peter Sablock carried out geo-archaeological remote sensing on the site with a team of his geology students. Ground-penetrating radar and electronic soil resistivity do not disturb the soil, but can tell us about the ground underneath. His tests indicate there is very little soil on Proctor’s Ledge. There are only a few small cracks in the ledge, and here the soil is less than 3 feet deep — certainly not deep enough to bury people.

This finding is in keeping with oral traditions that the families of the victims came under cover of darkness to recover loved ones and rebury them in family cemeteries. There is no indication that there are any human remains on the Proctor Ledge site.

What about the gallows?

The numerous surviving documents from the witch trials contain no mention of a gallows. Indeed, the only time Gallows Hill was used for executions was in 1692. Therefore, the team believes that the executions were carried out from a large tree, a common tradition at the time. The remote sensing research supports this conclusion, as no trace of structures were discovered, though admittedly a temporary wooden gallows would leave little evidence behind for archaeologists to discover.

— This article plagiarized from this source.

Archaeological News

ANCIENT GREEK WELL USED FOR HYDROMANCY DISCOVERED IN ATHENS

Originally reported by: Greek Reporter

The ancient Greek phrase “ΕΛΘΕ ΜΟΙ Ω ΠΑΙΑΝ ΦΕΡΩΝ ΤΟ ΜΑΝΤΕΙΟΝ ΑΛΗΘΕC” is written on the mouth of a well that came to light during the latest excavations of the German Archaeological Institute at the archaeological site of Kerameikos in Athens.

The invocation phrase seems to have been addressed to Apollo, the ancient Greek god of prophecy, while the well was probably used in some kind of hydromancy rituals during the early Roman times.

This significant and unexpected discovery was made after an inverted marble was removed from the mouth of the well in the sanctuary’s courtyard, south of the famous “burial route.”

The well is attributed either to ancient goddess of the hunt, forests and hills, the moon and archery, Artemis, or goddess of magic, crossroads, moon, ghosts and necromancy, Hecate.

According to a Greek Culture Ministry announcement, the identification of more than 20 inscriptions with relevant content highlights the well’s connection with the sanctuary of Apollo in Athens, confirming the worship of God along with his sister, Artemis.

The excavation was carried out under the direction of Jutta Stroszeck and the supervision of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Athens.