Flannel Shirt

Archeologists find old industrial sewing machines

In San Francisco's Chinatown. 

A heart inside a heart?

Scientists made a pretty remarkable discovery.

The remarkably well preserved, fully dressed body of a seventeenth-century noblewoman has been found in a lead coffin in the French city of Rennes. A team led by Rosenn Colleter of the French National Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) made the discovery while excavating the remains of a fourteenth-century convent at the site of a future conference center. Along with some 800 graves, the archaeologists unearthed five lead coffins, one of which was still hermetically sealed and held the nearly intact body. “I knew at once that it was a beautiful discovery,” says Colleter, “and that we would need to work quickly so as not to lose any information to decomposition.”

The woman was buried with a heart-shaped relic inscribed with her husband’s name and containing his heart. This allowed the team to identify her as Louise de Quengo, Lady of Brefeillac, who died in 1656. The unusually complete state of de Quengo’s body and clothing is giving specialists a new look at French aristocratic burial practices of the time.

Laboratory analysis of the remains will allow researchers to reconstruct the pathogens she carried, including tuberculosis. “It’s rare that you are able to give a seventeenth-century person a comprehensive health check,” says Colleter. The Lady of Brefeillac will be reburied later this year.   

Brooch

This owl brooch, made by the Romans around 300 A.D., was discovered recently in Denmark.

A gold route between Ireland and England 4500 years ago

Lust for gold has a long history.

Archaeologists at the University of Southampton have found evidence of an ancient gold trade route between the south-west of the UK and Ireland. A study suggests people were trading gold between the two countries as far back as the early Bronze Age (2500BC).

The research, in collaboration with the University of Bristol, used a new technique to measure the chemical composition of some of the earliest gold artefacts in Ireland. Findings show the objects were actually made from imported gold, rather than Irish. Furthermore, this gold is most likely to have come from Cornwall. Lead author Dr Chris Standish says: "This is an unexpected and particularly interesting result as it suggests that Bronze Age gold workers in Ireland were making artefacts out of material sourced from outside of the country, despite the existence of a number of easily-accessible and rich gold deposits found locally.

"It is unlikely that knowledge of how to extract gold didn't exist in Ireland, as we see large scale exploitation of other metals. It is more probable that an 'exotic' origin was cherished as a key property of gold and was an important reason behind why it was imported for production."

The researchers used an advanced technique called laser ablation mass spectrometry to sample gold from 50 early Bronze Age artefacts in the collections of the National Museum of Ireland, such as; basket ornaments, discs and lunula (necklaces). They measured isotopes of lead in tiny fragments and made a comparison with the composition of gold deposits found in a variety of locations. After further analysis, the archaeologists concluded that the gold in the objects most likely originates from Cornwall, rather than Ireland -- possibly extracted and traded as part of the tin mining industry.

Dr Standish says: "Perhaps what is most interesting is that during this time, compared to Ireland, there appears to be much less gold circulating in Cornwall and southern Britain. This implies gold was leaving the region because those who found it felt it was of more value to trade it in for other 'desirable' goods -- rather than keep it."

Today, gold is intrinsically linked with economic wealth, is universally exchangeable and underpins currencies and economies across much of the globe. However, gold may not always have had this value -- in some societies, gold was seen to embody supernatural or magical powers, playing a major role in belief systems rather than economic ones. The value and significance placed on gold may have varied from region to region.

Dr Alistair Pike, a co-author from the University of Southampton, adds: "The results of this study are a fascinating finding. They show that there was no universal value of gold, at least until perhaps the first gold coins started to appear nearly two thousand years later. Prehistoric economies were driven by factors more complex than the trade of commodities -- belief systems clearly played a major role."

 

 

Mongol fashion statement

A cap worn by a Mongol fighter invading Europe. What was Jesus and the archangels doing on it, upside down?

The Golden Horde, a group of Mongols who conquered much of Eastern Europe in the thirteenth century, was famously tolerant of foreign religions. Recently, however, archaeologist Zvezdana Dode of the Southern Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences completed a study of rare textiles that suggests the Mongol attitude to Christianity was sometimes more complex than simple indifference. She examined pieces of fabrics found in Mongol burials that represent Christian subjects but had been repurposed as clothing, such as a hat that depicts an upside-down Jesus flanked by two archangels. She suggests that these fabrics, likely seized from Russian churches, were not merely the spoils of war. “The Mongols were able to observe employment of icons and banners with Christian symbols by the Russian military,” says Dode. “It’s possible they interpreted these symbols as devices for supernatural warfare.” By wearing an inverted Christian motif into battle, a Mongol warrior may have thought he was neutralizing that threat.

How mosasaurs were born

They weren't eggs. They were born alive.

Thanks to recently identified specimens at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, paleontologists now believe that mighty mosasaurs -- which could grow to 50 feet long -- gave birth to their young in the open ocean, not on or near shore.

The findings answer long-held questions about the initial environment of an iconic predator that lived during the time of the dinosaurs. Mosasaurs populated most waters of the Earth before their extinction 65 million years ago.

"Mosasaurs are among the best-studied groups of Mesozoic vertebrate animals, but evidence regarding how they were born and what baby mosasaur ecology was like has historically been elusive," said Daniel Field, lead author of a study published online April 10 in the journal Palaeontology. Field is a doctoral candidate in the lab of Jacques Gauthier in Yale's Department of Geology and Geophysics.

In their study, Field and his colleagues describe the youngest mosasaur specimens ever found. Field had come across the fossils in the Yale Peabody Museum's extensive collections. "These specimens were collected over 100 years ago," Field said. "They had previously been thought to belong to ancient marine birds."

Field and Aaron LeBlanc, a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto at Mississauga, concluded that the specimens showed a variety of jaw and teeth features that are only found in mosasaurs. Also, the fossils were found in deposits in the open ocean.

"Really, the only bird-like feature of the specimens is their small size," LeBlanc said. "Contrary to classic theories, these findings suggest that mosasaurs did not lay eggs on beaches and that newborn mosasaurs likely did not live in sheltered nearshore nurseries."

The giant carnivorous amphibian Metoposaurus algarvensis

At the dawn of the dinosaurs, this salamander (the size of mid-sized car) with lots of teeth pretty much ran the show along the shore.

Discovered

Another hidden tomb was discovered in Luxor, Egypt last week.

2.8 million year-old jaw

This bit of bone, discovered a few years ago in Ethiopia, is the oldest evidence of the homo line of hominims. That is, this is the oldest bone from someone you sorta, might have called a human, kinda.

Ancient Celtic burial site

In France.