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I've always been fascinated by Stonehenge. How did they get such huge rocks in place 5,000 years ago that way?

Here is what I find fascinating: There's an astronomical/mathematical order to the arrangement of the rocks, some of them weigh over 50 tons, it took about 1,500 years to complete and no one is sure why they are even there.

Now, there are findings indicating that whatever Stonehenge was, up to 240 people were cremated and buried there and it was a major burial ground for a lot longer than anyone ever thought: at least 500 years. Think about that. This country has only been around for about 240 years.

Whatever Stonehenge was, it apparently held tremendous meaning for the people who lived there 5,000 years ago. But it reminds me of the scene in Field of Dreams when Kevin Cosner builds a baseball field in a cornfield and when he's finished says something to the effect of, "I've done something that is totally illogical."

There's more on the recent report here.

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For thousands of years, human beings were hunter-gatherers, eating whatever game they could kill and plants they could find as they wandered from one place to the next. All that changed when people figured out they could grow plants they could eat.

The rise of agriculture was obviously a huge boon to the development of civilization.

Once people began to settle down in one place, they developed cultures that led to things like art, religion, kings, my-huts-bigger-than-yours and new ways to woo women. (Woo is a word. From Miriam-Webster: Wu\verb 1. To try to gain the love of; COURT 2 SOLICIT, ENTREAT)

Archeaologists from the University of Arizona, working in the Andes, have uncovered one of the earliest setttlements and with it one such artifact used in the dating and mating game: the oldest known gold necklace ever found in the Americas (pictured above). You can read more about it here.

Credit: University of Arizona

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Photo credit: AP photo of dinosaur excavation in North Dakota

A guy was digging in his uncle’s yard in North Dakota a while back and he uncovered a dinosaur.

Not just any dinosaur, but one of about five known specimens that has been well preserved – mummified - because of the sandy soil and dry climate when nature buried it 65 million years ago. Scientists are now delicately trying to carve the mummy out of the sandstone formation where it was found.

Just yesterday, I had the chance to watch an Egyptian mummy from the Walters Art Gallery go through CT scanner at the University of Maryland Medical Center. It was one of those stories I really enjoyed working on because it involved watching hands-on work.

So much science, health and medicine reporting involves talking to people AFTER they’ve done whatever work they’ve done. The challenge becomes keeping that kind of story from being too dry.

Yesterday, I didn't have to worry about that so much. The story meant watching and describing how a museum staff packs up and moves an extremely delicate  2,900 year-old mummy through city streets. There’s more on the Walters project here and more on the dinosaur mummy here.

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Credit: AP photo

Scientists in Greece say they've found evidence of brain surgery gone wrong -- brain surgery performed 1,800 years ago. The picture above, supplied by the Greek government, is of the burial site of an early patient. a young woman whose head was probed. She didn't survive. 

 It always amazes me that surgeons performed surgery without anesthesia, hacking off limbs and boring into heads and bones.  I think I'd rather die.

History is filled with grisly details, and the history of medicine is no exception.

 There's more on the ancient Greek surgery here.

Posted by Dennis O'Brien at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

Credit: Will Kirk/JHU

Every year, a group of students from Johns Hopkins University goes to Egypt to tour the country, get a look at some ancient sites and take part in an archeological dig.

Continue reading "Hopkins students dig Egypt" »

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Credit: Frank Franklin II

I love when scientists crack wise.

Analysis of the enamel on a tooth found in Greece shows the Neanderthal who chewed with it had wandered 12 miles from where he was born 40,000 years ago, German researchers announced this week. Tooth enamel retains strontium, a metal found in food and water, and ratios of it will vary from one area to the next.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute reported the findings as evidence that Neanderthals lived in broad and extensive networks.

Continue reading "When scientists crack wise" »

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Credit: Los Angeles Times

Researchers in Peru have unearthed the remains of an ancient culture that built 60-foot walls to protect themselves from the Incas and apparently fortified them with the remains of dead ancestors. The Chachapoya, known as the "cloud warriors" of ancient Peru, are believed to have thrived from around 800 to about 1540. The Los Angeles Times story about excavation efforts is here.

Posted by Dennis O'Brien at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)