“That’s what SHE said!”

The study of jokes and riddles written in ancient languages we barely understand is, well, a little tricky. But in a recent paper in the journal Iraq, Middle East scholars Michael Streck and Nathan Wasserman describe and interpret some thigh-slappers scrawled on a badly damaged tablet from Babylon, circa 1500 BC. The scribe’s cuneiform is on the sloppy side. The translations are uncertain, too—but no doubt the humor will still shine through. Here’s one riddle for your pleasure:

The deflowered (girl) did not become pregnant
The undeflowered (girl) became pregnant (-What is it?)

The answer is, of course, is “auxiliary forces.” That was your guess too, right? No? If it makes you feel better, Wasserman and Streck didn’t really get it, either.

(more…)

Is there any limit to the cool things you can do with Microsoft’s Kinect? Just last month we told you about students in Switzerland that used the device to create a gesture-controlled quadrocopter; now, students in California are looking to employ the Kinect in archaeological digs in Jordan.

(more…)

Far before the looming pyramids and the learned librarians at Alexandria, Egyptian civilization sprung up from the fertile banks of the Nile. Long predating the Inca empire and the sprawling structures of Macchu Picchu, Andean civilization emerged from a whole bunch of llama poop.

For civilizations to take root, people need to have enough food on hand to put time and energy into activities like waging war, building stuff, and composing epic poetry. In the high and rugged Andes, growing that much maize—the staple crop of ancient South America—isn’t easy. That’s what llama droppings are for, a new study suggests.

(more…)

No dessert, caveman child, until you finish eating your human. Digging around in a Spanish cave called Gran Dolina, archaeologists have found butchered humans’ fossilized bones. Researchers say the bones show that cave dwellers skinned, decapitated, and enjoyed other early humans, before throwing their remains into a heap with animals bones from other meals.

The study, which appeared this month in Current Anthropology, says the 800,000-year-old Homo antecessor bones could indicate the most “ancient cultural cannibalism … known until now.” Adding to the nightmare: National Geographic reports that the hungry cavemen had a penchant for kids, since the 11 cannibalized humans uncovered were all youngsters. They speculate that the kiddos were easier to catch, and eating them was a good way to stop competitors from building their families.

Study coauthor José María Bermúdez de Castro, of the National Research Center on Human Evolution, told National Geographic that marks near the base of some skulls hint that the diners decapitated humans to get the brain goodness inside.

“Probably then they cut the skull for extracting the brain…. The brain is good for food.”

The researchers believe that eating other humans wasn’t a big deal back then, and probably wasn’t linked to religious rituals or marked by elaborate ceremonies. They draw that conclusion from the fact that butchered human bones were tossed in the scrap heap along with animal remains.

There is some debate as to how frequently human was on the menu, but these researchers note that the Sierra de Atapuerca region had a great climate and that cannibalism didn’t likely result from a lack of alternatives. I guess our ancestors were just that tasty.

Related content:
Discoblog: For Early Europeans, Cannibalism Was One Perk of Victory
Discoblog: Mad Cow Fears Keep Euro Sperm Out of U.S.
Discoblog: To Fight Cancer, Ovarian Cells Eat Themselves
80beats: New Guinean Cannibals Evolved Resistance To Mad Cow-Like Disease

Image: flickr / joanna8555

Move over, Dr. Quinn. Sure, the fictional television doctor could perform surgeries in the Old West using nothing more than a spoon–but one researcher now argues that inhabitants of a small village in Turkey sliced skulls over 4,000 years ago, using shards of volcanic glass.

Working in a Bronze Age graveyard in Ikiztepe, Turkey, archaeologist Önder Bilgi has uncovered 14 skulls with rectangular cut marks. He believes the Ikiztepe people used obsidian “scalpels,” found elsewhere on the site, to treat brain tumors and fight-related head injuries, and to relieve pressure from hemorrhaging.

Bilgi also told New Scientist, which has a complete interview, that the skulls’ healing indicates that some patients survived at least two years after their surgeries. Though this isn’t the oldest evidence of brain surgery (researchers have found a hole drilled into a Neolithic skull), Bilgi argues that the Ikiztepe rectangular skull openings are much more “sophisticated.”

Bilgi, who in an earlier study analyzed arsenic absorption in Ikiztepe bones to determine their metalworking skills, told New Scientist that the tools themselves aren’t too worse for multiple millennial wear:

“The blades are double-sided, about 4 centimetres [1.6 inches] long, and very, very sharp. They would still cut you today.”

Related content:
Discoblog: Brain Surgery Enables Woman to Run 100-Mile Races
Discoblog: Why Michael Jackson Might Be Buried Without His Brain
Discoblog: Military Members to Donate Their Brains to Science
Discoblog: Will Drilling a Hole in Your Head Cure Alzheimer’s?

Image: flickr / Mykl Roventine

In 1991, German hikers found a surprise on an Alpine trail: a dead body. It turned out the man had died some time ago–around 5,000 years earlier. Researchers guessed from his scattered belongings that the iceman had died a lonely death from the cold and an arrow wound in his shoulder. But now, based on the way his belongings were scattered and the timing of his last meal, some archaeologists think the iceman named Ötzi may have had a proper funeral.

Though many previous studies have looked at the body itself, ScienceNOW reports that archaeologist Alessandro Vanzetti and his team looked at all of the iceman’s gear. They used a modeling technique called spatial point pattern analysis to make a map of how Ötzi’s goods–including axe, dagger, quiver, backpack, and unfinished bow–got to their final resting places. Specifically, the analysis determines how Ötzi’s surroundings froze and thawed over time. The researchers say the scattering is consistent with a ceremonial burial and that Ötzi’s tribe may have placed his possessions around him on a nearby stone platform. The study, which ScienceNOW calls “provocative,” appears in Antiquity Journal.

(more…)

World Trade Center construction workers dug up something unexpected this week: an 18th century sailing ship.

Plans for the new Trade Center require workers to unearth parts of lower Manhattan left undisturbed during construction of the original buildings. During part of this dig, in an area between Liberty and Cedar Streets, beams of wood rose from the mud. Yesterday, archaeologists confirmed that 20 to 30 feet below street level, a 30-foot ship chunk has rested for more than 200 years.

It’s not unusual for such artifacts to hide under large coastal cities. As a young city’s population grows, inhabitants look for any way possible to extend the city’s borders, transforming dirt and trash poured into the water into prime real estate. As The New York Times reports, this isn’t the first ship uncovered in Manhattan. In 1982, New Yorkers discovered a 1700s sailing vessel that had been hiding under 175 Water Street.

(more…)

As archaeologists dug up the ancient corpse, something looked a little off. For one, it didn’t have a head. Second, one of the skeleton’s arms looked like it supported a lot more muscle than the other. Third, it seemed a lion had chewed on it.

Meet a dead Roman gladiator. Archaeologists uncovered around eighty such skeletons in York, England over the past seven years. Though they admit that the 1,600- to 1,800-year-old corpses might have had other origins, the researchers say all signs point to the ancient circus. A decapitated corpse suggests that individual got a thumbs down from the jeering crowds, the mismatched arms signify much swordplay, and the bite marks imply that a lion, tiger, or bear had taken a taste in battle.

Michael Wysocki, who examined the remains in the forensic anthropology laboratory at the University of Central Lancashire, discussed those tell-tale bite marks with CNN:

“Nothing like them has ever been identified before on a Roman skeleton…. It would seem highly unlikely that this individual was attacked by a tiger as he was walking home from the pub in York 2,000 years ago,” he said.

One other clue comes from the fact that the skeletons, despite their violent lives and deaths, had what appears a ceremonial burial, resting in their graves with some great ancient goodies (i.e. horse bones and cow remains, the believed leftovers from a feast). Still, archeologists speculate that none of these fighters were the stars of their day, and that many bit the dust after only one or two battles.

“You’re seeing the losers instead of the Russel Crowes,” archeologist Kurt Hunter-Mann said in a CNN video.

Related content:
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Blue is for losers
DISCOVER: Dressed to Kill
DISCOVER: Gladiators Get a Thumbs Up
DISCOVER: Thumb and Thumber

Image: flickr / storem

The cargo from a Roman ship sunk off the coast of Sardinia more than 2,000 years ago will finally be put to use–it will become a shield for a neutrino detector. In Italy, 120 lead bricks recovered from the shipwreck will soon be melted to make a protective shield for Italy’s new neutrino detector, CUORE (Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events).

The ancient lead, which is useful because it has lost almost all traces of its natural radioactivity, has been transferred from a museum in Sardinia to the national particle physics laboratory at Gran Sasso. After spending two millennia on the seabed, the lead bricks will now be used in an experiment that will take place beneath 4,500 feet of rock.

Nature News writes:

Once destined to become water pipes, coins or ammunition for Roman soldiers’ slingshots, the metal will instead form part of a cutting-edge experiment to nail down the mass of neutrinos.

From slingshots to particle physics–we humans have come a long way in 2,000 years.

(more…)

It’s amazing what artifacts you can find buried in the ice. (No I’m not talking about that leftover turkey that’s been in your freezer since last Thanksgiving. Though if you consider that an historical find, more power to you.)

Last month Discoblog brought you the story of the century-old whiskey that British explorer Ernest Shackleton left on Antarctica, which New Zealanders recovered and plan to replicate. Now scientists have analyzed a soup can found in the Canadian Arctic that dates to around the time of the famous Franklin Expedition, and could point to how its members met their doom.

(more…)