Ancient World Review

Divers Retrieve Prehistoric Wood From Lake Huron

"Under the cold clear waters of Lake Huron, University of Michigan researchers have found a five-and-a-half foot-long, pole-shaped piece of wood that is 8,900 years old," according to Science Daily. "The wood, which is tapered and beveled on one side in a way that looks deliberate, may provide important clues to a mysterious period in North American prehistory."

7,000-Year-Old Village Discovered In Iowa

Ancient Death Valley Bacteria Revived In Lab

Remember the worries a while ago when CERN's Large Hadron Collider was started up? People were freaked out that the high-energy particle accelerator might create a micro black hole that would destroy the planet, but it turned out that nothing happened (nothing we know about, anyway). Well, here's something new to add to your list of apocalyptic nightmares that hasn't received a lot of media attention:

Just this month, researchers at Binghamton University (I think that's in New York) revived some "ancient bacteria trapped for thousands of years in water droplets embedded in salt crystals," according to Science Daily News. It's unclear whether these bacteria are really that old or whether they're modern-day contaminants, but in either case, it makes you wonder what they might be. Some prehistoric killer plague, maybe? Microscopic carnivores? Project scientists have apparently been working with these Death Valley samples (some of which go back over 100,000 years) for a long time already. "And the conditions inside these water droplets are ideally suited to preserving DNA."

2700-Year-Old Tomb Found In Mexico

"Archaeologists in southern Mexico have discovered the 2,700-year-old tomb of a dignitary inside a pyramid that may be the oldest such burial documented in Mesoamerica," according to the Guardian. "The tomb held a man aged about 50, who was buried with jade collars, pyrite and obsidian artefacts and ceramic vessels. Archaeologist Emiliano Gallaga said the tomb dates to between 500 and 700BC."

"'We think this is one of the earliest discoveries of the use of a pyramid as a tomb, not only as a religious site or temple,' Gallaga said."

"Pre-Hispanic cultures built pyramids mainly as representations of the levels leading from the underworld to the sky; the highest point usually held a temple.

"The tomb was found at a site built by Zoque Indians in Chiapa de Corzo, in southern Chiapas state. It may be almost 1,000 years older than the better-known pyramid tomb of the Mayan ruler Pakal at the Palenque archaeological site, also in Chiapas."

Ice Age America

Melting Ice Reveals Prehistoric Artifacts In Canada

"High in the Mackenzie Mountains, scientists are finding a treasure trove of ancient hunting tools being revealed as warming temperatures melt patches of ice that have been in place for thousands of years," according to Science Daily News.

The finds include "...2400-year-old spear throwing tools, a 1000-year-old ground squirrel snare, and bows and arrows dating back 850 years. Biologists involved in the project are examining dung for plant remains, insect parts, pollen and caribou parasites. Others are studying DNA evidence to track the lineage and migration patterns of caribou."

The Ruins Of Pumapunku In Bolivia

This video is from a History Channel program on Ancient Aliens, but it's still a good introduction to Pumapunku, one of the most mysterious archaeological sites in the world. Pumapunku was supposedly built by the Tiwanaku Culture, a Stone Age, pre-Columbian people who also built the site at Tiahuanacu--estimated (by some) to be over 17,000 years old, which would make it the oldest city on the planet. Mainstream archaeologists still can't explain the sophisticated construction techniques used at Pumapunku. Maybe the place WAS built by aliens. Who knows? Personally, I think that if the construction techniques were beyond the capabilities of the Stone Age Tiwanaku, then it's more likely that Pumapunku was built by a more advanced culture yet to be discovered.

DNA Analysis Of Human Hair Used To Reconstruct Extinct Paleo-Eskimo Face

"For the first time, the sequence of a near-complete nuclear genome has been obtained from the tissue of an ancient human," according to the journal Nature. "It comes from permafrost-preserved hair, about 4,000 years old, of a male palaeo-Eskimo of the Saqqaq culture, the earliest known settlers in Greenland." Note that the Saqqaqs apparently had no relation to the North American Paleo-Indians. "The analysis provides evidence for a migration from Siberia into the New World some 5,500 years ago, independent of the migration that gave rise to the modern Native Americans and Inuit."

"The researchers say the man, who lived 4,000 years ago, had brown eyes and thick dark hair, although he would have been prone to baldness," according to BBC News. The Saqqaq presumably crossed the Bering Strait land bridge thought to have formed during the Last Glacial Maximum, so they must have been energetic nomads to have reached as far as Greenland on the other side of the continent. This discovery proves, once again, that the schoolbook story of the discovery of North America has been grossly over-simplified, to say the least.

Mini Ice Age Happened In Months

"Around 12,800 years ago the northern hemisphere was hit by the Younger Dryas mini ice age, or 'Big Freeze'. It was triggered by the slowdown of the Gulf Stream, led to the decline of the Clovis culture in North America, and lasted around 1300 years," according to New Scientist. The end of the mini ice age also contributed to Europe's emergence from the so-called Dark Ages.

"Until now, it was thought that the mini ice age took a decade or so to take hold, on the evidence provided by Greenland ice cores...," but it now looks like the Big Freeze may have happened in just a few months--a dramatic and disastrous change, to say the least.

Regular and sometimes violent climate change has been a feature of this planet for millennia--something to keep in mind while you're freezing in the current blast of arctic weather. One of these days, we're likely to get a drop in temperature like this and we won't come out of it for a few thousand years. One way or another, it's only a matter of time before we enter a new Ice Age and when it comes it will probably be triggered by a slowing of the Gulf Stream, something which is apparently already happening.

A new ice age would be a calamity for the northern hemisphere, especially in places like Britain, which has already recorded temperatures as low as those found in Antarctica, according to the London Evening Standard. You can forget about global warming. Manmade global warming is just a scam created by globalists trying to create a world government with global taxes. In reality, the data show that the planet is experiencing widespread global cooling which could be caused by changes in the Gulf Stream, volcanic activity, solar radiation--nobody seems to know for sure. Whether this leads to another Big Freeze remains to be seen.

Diamond Find Supports Comet Extinction Theory

"Rare diamonds found buried on an island near southern California strengthen the controversial idea that comet impacts wiped out huge beasts and an early human culture in North America about 12,900 years ago," according to National Geographic News. "Similar 'nanodiamonds' found in sediments across North America were presented earlier this year as proof that space rocks colliding with Earth led to the ancient mass extinction."

According to the theory, comets falling on North America set off huge wild fires, "formed tiny diamonds in the soil," melted ice sheets, shut down ocean currents and led to a cooling trend that "killed off mammals such as saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, and mammoths and wiped out some of North America's earliest known human inhabitants, the Clovis Culture."