Humans made their first tentative steps towards farming 23,000 years ago, much earlier than previously thought.
Stone Age people in Israel collected the seeds of wild grasses some 10,000 years earlier than previously recognised, experts say.
These grasses included wild emmer wheat and barley, which were forerunners of the varieties grown today.
A US-Israeli team report their findings in the latest Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
We're not sure the 'farming origins' headline is really appropriate. Simply because they were eating a lot of grasses doesn't mean they were controlling their growth, i.e., agriculture. Nonetheless, this brings up an important issue in archaeology, namely the whole 'origins of agriculture' debate. At this juncture we could go into a long extended diatribe on just what we think about the subject, but that would make us look dry, boring, and opinionated.
Instead, we will opt to link to a dry, boring, and opinionated review of a book from several years ago that made a novel attempt to set up a theoretical structure to explain the origins of agriculture. To wit, David Rindos' The Origins of Agriculture: An Evolutionary Perspective. We were first introduced to this book in graduate school, by one R.C. Dunnell (linked left) who has been attempting to build Darwinian evolutionary theory into archaeological explanation. The link here provides a pretty good review of both the book and the history of studies into the agriculture question.
Search for Aztec Homeland Clouded in Myth, Politics
The mythical homeland of Mexico's Aztecs -- an island known as Aztlan -- has eluded historians for centuries, and the quest to find it has become shrouded in political spin and scholarly speculation.
Like the lost Atlantis and Camelot, Aztlan may or may not have existed, but fervent believers have sought it from the desert of Utah to a mangrove swamp in western Mexico.
Academics agree that the Aztecs, a warlike tribe with a passion for human sacrifice, wandered the badlands of central Mexico for years before founding what is now Mexico City around 1325 and then forging the greatest empire of the ancient Americas.
Well, we know where it is. . . .
More jerks American Indian Historic Sites Looted
Mysterious petroglyphs etched in hundreds of volcanic boulders east of Reno have survived the elements for centuries. Volunteers are now hoping the artifacts will survive the ravages of modern man.
The American Indian artwork -- depicting bighorn sheep and stick-people figures -- is endangered by vandals and collectors as Nevada's sprawling growth and a soaring number of off-road vehicles have taken civilization to the doorstep of once remote backcountry sites.
The volunteers are mobilizing to preserve the 4,000-year-old site in a corner of the parched Pah Rah Range claimed by the Paiute and Washoe tribes. They also are expanding their efforts across the state.
Mapping Stonehenge 5,000 years of Stonehenge
It has stood - in various incarnations - for some 5,000 years on the Salisbury Plain in southern England. It has drawn and inspired astronomers, druids and 'wannabe' druids, ancient and modern pilgrims, and even overenthusiastic heavy metal bands whose amplifiers go to eleven.
Stonehenge is one of the world's most famous man-made creations, but there has never been a website which offered virtual visitors a thorough tour of the monument and its environs, until now. The Stonehenge World Heritage Site Interactive Map brings visitors into the center of the circles, and also introduces them to the archaeological context of the surrounding countryside.
Launched on June 11 (and referred to by its creators as a 'microsite'), the Stonehenge Map was designed as a supplement to a larger Stonehenge feature at the Web home of English Heritage (An organization dedicated to protecting England's "historic environment"). But even standing on its own, the Map offers extensive coverage of the famous circles of stones, as well as a roughly 5 x 3-mile area of adjacent landscape - providing both a geographical and historical setting for the ruins.