Arkeo Blusukan

Intact Figurine Unearthed at Neolithic Town in Turkey STANFORD, CALIFORNIA— Ars Technica  reports that an intact female figure carved from marble was recently unearthed at Çatalhöyük by a team of archaeologists led by Ian Hodder of Stanford University. ( Jason Quinlan ) Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced that the statue dates to between 8000 and 5500 B.C., measures about 6.7 inches long, and weighs about two pounds.  (resources: Archaeology Magazine, 13/09/2016 ) ( Ian Hodder, Stanford Univ. )

Perburuan Kereta Emas Nazi di Polandia Berakhir dengan   Kegagalan  WARSAWA, KOMPAS.com Para pemburu harta karun akhirnya menghentikan upaya mencari kereta emas Nazi Jerman yang diduga disembunyikan di kawasan pegunungan Polandia. Berdasarkan legenda lokal, kereta api pembawa harta karun Nazi itu disembunyikan dalam terowongan rahasia di pegunungan Owl tak jauh dari kota Walbrzych, wilayah barat daya Polandia. Dugaan itu muncul karena wilayah ini menjadi jalur penarikan mundur pasukan Jerman yang sedang dikejar pasukan Uni Soviet di penghujung Perang Dunia II pada 1945. Tahun lalu, dua pemburu harta karun Piotr Koper dan Andreas Richter mengklaim bahwa mereka sudah dekat dengan penemuan kereta-kereta itu. Klaim itu berdasarkan temuan radar mereka yang disebut menampilkan gambar-gambar sejumlah kereta terkubur di bawah tanah sedalam sembilan meter. Namun, setelah mencoba mencari selama beberapa pekan, pada Rabu (24/8/2016), kedua pemburu harta karun itu meny...

Look up! 5 planets will align in the august night sky  Last time until 2018. Stargazers, get ready for an awesome natural phenomenon next month – five bright planets in our Solar System will align in the night sky, and will all be visible with the naked eye. Eliot Herman/Flickr. If you find a dark enough vantage point, you’ll be able to check out Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn tracing a glorious line away from the setting sun. Western Sky Horizon after sunset (Simulation), Surabaya 13/08/2016; 18:30 (gmt+7)(private doc). "The fainter planets that lie closer to the Sun, such as Mercury and Venus, will be difficult to see so it is best to wait until after sunset for the twilight to fully fade, but before the planets set,"   said Alan Duffy , an astronomer with Swinburne University of Technology in Australia. "The planets stretch across the sky, anchored to the horizon following the setting Sun," he added. "This is because the entire...

Migrasi Manusia ke Nusantara Membawa Penyakit  KOMPAS.com   - Migrasi manusia pada masa lampau, selain membawa produk kebudayaan, seperti bahasa dan budaya, juga membawa penyakit. Demikian pula migrasi Austronesia ke Nusantara sekitar 4.000 tahun lalu. Sebaran manusia Austronesia di Asia Tenggara (Wikipedia). Dengan memahami migrasi penyakit, penelusuran mengenai asal-usul dan diaspora nenek moyang memiliki dimensi kekinian kuat. "Saya setuju penelusuran asal-usul bangsa ini penting untuk mengetahui gambaran pemikiran, paham, ataupun anggapan tentang sikap suatu bangsa. Pengetahuan tentang asal-usul nenek moyang juga bermanfaat bagi penguatan identitas bangsa Indonesia pada masa mendatang," tutur Sangkot Marzuki, ahli genetika Kepala Akademi Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia, pembicara kunci simposium Diaspora Austronesia, di Badung, Bali, Selasa (19/7/2016). Selain itu, manfaat kekinian lain, pengetahuan soal asal-usul nenek moyang itu sangat dibutuhkan dalam mengatasi pers...

New Thoughts on Borneo’s “Deep Skull”  SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA—“Deep Skull,” a 37,000-year-old cranium discovered in Niah Cave on the island of Borneo, has been examined by Darren Curnoe of the University of New South Wales. When the skull was first studied after its discovery in 1958, researchers concluded that it belonged to an adolescent male who was closely related to modern indigenous Australians. That interpretation became part of a hypothesis postulating that Borneo’s first inhabitants were replaced by migrating farmers from southern China. (Curnoe) According to the  International Business Times , Curnoe suggests the skull belonged to an older woman and that it “more closely resembles people today from more northerly parts of Southeast Asia.” In this view, the remains could represent the ancestors of Borneo’s modern indigenous population. In this scenario, the island’s indigenous people adopted farming some 3,000 years ago. (Curnoe) (Archaeology Magazine, 29/06/2016 )...

More on 17th-C. Remains Unearthed in Durham, England  DURHAM, ENGLAND—Researchers from Durham University have examined the bones of up to 28 individuals thought to have been Scottish prisoners of war captured at the Battle of Dunbar in 1650 by the English army. Historical sources say that at least 4,000 men were taken prisoner and marched to Durham Cathedral and castle, where they were held. The bodies in the two graves had been placed there haphazardly. Marks on the bones, perhaps made by scavenging animals, suggest that the graves were left open over a period of time. (Jeff Veitch) According to a report in  Chronicle Live , the scientists have found many of the individuals to have been between 13 and 25 years old at the time of death. The condition of their teeth suggests that the young men had experienced malnutrition and disease in childhood, and that some of them smoked pipes, which became popular in the 1630s. Their lack of healed wounds suggests that they had not...

Roman Coin Cache Discovered in Spain TOMARES, SPAIN—Construction workers in southern Spain discovered 19 amphoras containing 1,300 pounds of Roman coins. (City Council of Tomares) The unused bronze and silver-coated coins date to the fourth century A.D. Ana Navarro of the Seville Archaeological Museum said that the coins studied so far bear images of the emperors Constantine and Maximian. She thinks that the coins may have been stored to pay soldiers or civil servants. “It is a unique collection and there are very few similar cases,” she said in a  BBC News  report. (Archaeological Museum of Seville) (Archaeology Magazine, 29/04/2016 ).

Skeletons and Gold Coins Found in Pompeii Shop  ROME, ITALY—Archaeologists excavating a shop on the outskirts of Pompeii have found four skeletons, several gold coins, and a necklace pendant, according to an  Associated Press  report. The skeletons belonged to young people who died in the back of the shop when nearby Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79.  (Pompeii Archaeological Site Press Office) There was an oven in the shop that the archaeologists believe may have been used to make bronze objects. There is evidence that the shop was targeted by looters seeking treasure after the eruption, but they apparently missed the gold coins and the gold-leaf-foil, flower-shaped pendant. Archaeologists have been excavating a second shop as well, though they are unsure what its purpose was. The dig has also turned up a fourth-century B.C. tomb containing an adult skeleton surrounded by six black vases. (Pompeii Archaeological Site Press Office) (Archaeology Magazine, 24/0...

The Real Fact-Checking Lawrence of Arabia  Some scholars  have accused British military officer T.E. Lawrence, later known as Lawrence of Arabia, of exaggerating his experience fighting with Bedouin guerrillas during the 1916–1918 Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. (Photo: Ali Badry) (Countasy: Horizon Pictures (II), 1962, UK) Now archaeologists working in the Arabian Desert in Jordan can place him at the scene of one of the most dramatic moments described in his autobiography,  Seven Pillars of Wisdom . In the account, Lawrence records that he led an ambush on a Turkish military train. While surveying the site of that attack, the team found a spent bullet that was fired from a Colt 1911 automatic pistol, a weapon that would have been extremely rare in the Middle East at the time—and that Lawrence is known to have carried. “You can never be 100 percent sure,” says University of Bristol archaeologist Nick Saunders, “but we are confident this bu...

East African Bone Technology Analyzed ZANZIBAR, TANZANIA— Sci-News  reports that seven bone tools from East Africa’s Kuumbi Cave, including five projectile points, a bone awl, and a notched bone tube, were examined by a team led by Michelle Langley of Australian National University. (Michelle C. Langley et al.) The researchers suggest the 13,000-year-old projectile points, which are slender and short, may have been too small to bring down the zebra, buffalo, waterbuck, common reedbuck, bushbuck, and bush pig whose bones were also found in Kuumbi Cave. Langley suggests that the projectiles were used in conjunction with poison, perhaps made from the poisonous fruit of the Mkunazi plant. (Charcoal from the Mkunazi plant was found during a previous investigation.) (Archaeology Magazine, 24/06/2016 )