Recent Discoveries:Some May Change History.

A few interesting discoveries;some may result in many a historians worst nightmare;historical rewrite.

Archaeological find puts back settlement of Istanbul by 6,000 years.

Turkish archaeologists have found artifacts showing that Istanbul, earlier believed to be founded 2,700 years ago by the Greeks as Byzantium, is 8,500 years old, putting back the age of the settlement of the city by almost 6,000 years.

www.entertainmentandshowbiz.com...

Working at Mt. Lykaion, UA students and faculty are involved in what is considered the most important dig underway in Greece....

That project is not only informing researchers about the rituals and beliefs of those who lived in ancient Greece but also accentuating the significance of the mountaintop site in southwestern Arcadia, which contains an ash altar, a sanctuary, a stadium, bathhouses, a fountain house, stoa, a hippodrome and other structures....

Excavators of the altar have uncovered a great deal of material, including pottery evidence ranging in date from the 14th century through the 3rd century B.C. They also have found silver coins, a bronze hand figure holding a silver lightening bolt, Hellenic fineware and – a curious find – petrified lightning.

uanews.org...

Discovery of 14th century dock in UK turns history on its head.

A recently uncovered Roman structure at Richborough, England, which has been estimated to be a dock dating back to the 14th century, has turned history on its head, by proving that at the height of medieval Sandwich’s power and wealth as a port, boats were still mooring at Richborough.

According to a report in The Guardian, this discovery is unique because according to the conventional history of the site, Richborough had been completely filled with silt 800 years earlier, the once magnificent Roman fort and large town left abandoned and desolate.

www.entertainmentandshowbiz.com...

One of the earliest Roman villas unearthed in Hungary.

According to a report in All Hungary News, the site is of special importance, as it fits well into the line of villas previously found in the area, providing more information on the location and extension of villa farms around Aquincum.

www.entertainmentandshowbiz.com...

Ancient rock art rewrites Australian history.

An extraordinary collection of ancient rock art have suggested that the people of northern Australia have been interacting with seafaring visitors from Asia and Europe for hundreds, possibly thousands, of years.

According to a report in The New Zealand Herald, the paintings were found in the Arnhem Land, which juts out into the Arafura Sea at the top of Australia.

www.entertainmentandshowbiz.com...

Discovery of pharaoh's head could lead archaeologists to Ramses II temple.

A huge 3,000 year-old red granite head has been unearthed in Cairo of one of Egypt's greatest pharaohs, archaeologists have revealed.

Egypt's antiquities council said they believed the broken statue found at Tell Basta, 50 miles northeast of Cairo was of Ramses II. They hope the discovery will lead them to a major temple of the pharaoh in the area.

www.dailymail.co.uk...

Ancient fortress ruins uncovered in Peru's Amazon.

Remains of an ancient citadel dating back to the 16th and 17th century were found in the jungle province of Bagua, Amazonas, by an expedition composed of members of the Regional Directorate of Foreign Trade and Tourism (Dircetur) and the local tourism advisory committee.

www.livinginperu.com...

Archaeological Dig Uncovers Roman Mystery.

University of British Columbia archaeologists have dug up a mystery worthy of Indiana Jones, one that includes a tomb, skeletons and burial rites with both Christian and pagan elements.

This summer, Prof. Roger Wilson led excavations at Kaukana, an ancient Roman village located near Punta Secca, a small town in the south-eastern province of Ragusa in Sicily.

www.sciencedaily.com...

Ancient axe find suggests Copper Age began earlier than believed.

Archaeologists have found a 7,500-year-old copper axe at a Balkan site, which suggests that the Copper Age began earlier than believed.

“Until now, experts said that only stone was used in the Stone Age and that the Copper Age came a bit later. Our finds, however, confirm that metal was used some 500 to 800 years earlier,” she said.

www.entertainmentandshowbiz.com...

Ancient Phoenician harbour discovered off Sardinian coast.

Excavations have long been going on at the site of the city itself, on a peninsula overlooking the Bay of Oristano in western Sardinia, but this is the first time its waterfront has been located despite almost two centuries of hunting.

As well as an impressive sandstone wall 100 metres in length and four metres in width, the archaeologists discovered a basin carved in the rock, similar to Carthage’s man-made, protected inner harbour.

www.entertainmentandshowbiz.com...

Construction workers find Roman city of the dead.

Workers renovating a rugby stadium have uncovered a vast complex of tombs beneath Rome that mimic the houses, blocks and streets of a real city, officials said Thursday as they unveiled a series of new finds here.

Culture Ministry officials said that medieval pottery shards in the city of the dead, or necropolis, show the area may have been inhabited by the living during the Dark Ages after being used for centuries for burials during the Roman period.

ap.google.com...

Archaeologists sure have been busy in the past month.

it's kind of just a testament, and wake up call that everything we're taught about our history isn't going to be exactly true...since we're still learning new things even today.

Originally posted by jakyll
A few interesting discoveries;some may result in many a historians worst nightmare;historical rewrite.

As a matter of fact, "historical rewrite," far from being a historian's "worst nightmare," is actually a historian's dream come true.

How do you think Masters degrees and PhD's are earned?

Harte

Sakuraba

Exactly.Hard and fast theories cannot be kept when new discoveries such as the few in my list are being made.



Harte

I was referring to those who have made their reputations and lots've money from their theories,and who don't like to admit that they are wrong.

Everything you think you know about history is wrong. This is especially true in American Schools.

Its a fascinating subject that I've spent MUCH time researching as a History major. You would be SHOCKED if you knew all the ins and outs and truths about your heritage.

Maybe I'll start some threads in the Disinformation section or something about specific people/events in history that need to be re-written.

Actually, as a victim of the latest "fundamentally sound" economy, I have all the time in the world. Maybe I'll see if there's any interest in having some further research done on these facts....

I just don't know if ATS would appreciate the work I've done with this though. It doesn't seem like a typical ATS type subject.

Originally posted by Harte

Originally posted by jakyll
A few interesting discoveries;some may result in many a historians worst nightmare;historical rewrite.

As a matter of fact, "historical rewrite," far from being a historian's "worst nightmare," is actually a historian's dream come true.

How do you think Masters degrees and PhD's are earned?

Harte

I 2nd this.

A true Historian doesn't strive to memorize historic facts. A true Historian studies the past to understand the how/why. Any new discovery that reveals more truth about the past is typically welcome more than one would expect.

As a Public History major, I spend much much time trying to discover the smallest facts about what happened in the past. Without these tiny details, you can never fully understand the situation of people in the past, and can't fully understand what motivates them.

Everything you think you know about history is wrong. This is especially true in American Schools.

I agree with that,but only up to a point.

Rivalries,religions,reputations and jealousy have impacted on historical discoveries and theories.

Sometimes its just outright lies.For example;
A archaeologist was flying to see the Nazca lines,while over the mountains she noticed what looked like a 'pyramid.' (cannot remember the exact location,will try and find out)

Investigating this,the dig team found evidence of human life;wattling walls/fencing,pottery etc etc.
Now,before that dig no one knew anything about a people living in that area,there were no existing records etc,yet this woman wrote a book about these people.She wrote about who they were,how they lived and what they believed!

An impossibility with the evidence she had at hand.

reply to post by nj2day


well if its not appreciated in the light it should be here on ATS, Im sure the cats over at www.grahamhancock.com... would appreciate it.

OH I love this stuff ,on of my favorite things is the find that pushes a culture back eons before it is supposed to have existed .

Here's on of my favorites ,very under discussed just fascinating,maybe some day all historical papers will carry an 'as far as we know now' disclaimer!

goebleki tepe

As others pointed out, history books are being rewritten all the time, so it's nobody's nightmare. In scholarly circles we see a lot of "call for chapter" proposals focused on history (google for "call for chapters" and you'll see bunches.

It's not a nightmare for scholars that history gets rewritten -- it's fun and enlightening. It would be dull to write and rewrite the same story again and again and again, offering no new information and no new finds and no new insights.

invisiblewoman

OH I love this stuff ,on of my favorite things is the find that pushes a culture back eons before it is supposed to have existed .

I know.
As a proud history nerd i find it all fascinating.
many thanks for the links.



Byrd

As others pointed out, history books are being rewritten all the time, so it's nobody's nightmare. In scholarly circles we see a lot of "call for chapter" proposals focused on history

Of course they are,but i'm talking about major changes,and only some historians,not all.

Mention ancient cultures traveling over the ocean waves and some historians start frothing at the mouth and busting blood vessels.

Yes the way it is with history books soon they will be TV Guides rival,check every week

Originally posted by jakyll
Mention ancient cultures traveling over the ocean waves and some historians start frothing at the mouth and busting blood vessels.

And for very good reason.

There's simply little or no evidence for it.

I hope you don't think that the finds you posted in Northern Australia constitute such a pan-oceanic trade route?

The article you quote from there is really very much a bunch of hype in the headlines with nothing really new reported in the story.

The earliest boats mentioned in the article, fishing boats belonging to Macassan traders from Sulawesi, have long been known to have visited Australia:

Linguistic and genetic evidence shows that there has been long-term contact between Australians in the far north and the Austronesian people of modern-day New Guinea and the islands, but that this appears to have been mostly trade with a little intermarriage, as opposed to direct colonisation. Macassan praus are also recorded in the Aboriginal stories from Broome to the Gulf of Carpentaria, and there were some semi-permanent settlements established, and cases of Aboriginal settlers finding a home in Indonesia

The "prau" is the sort of boat the Macassans sailed.

The article you linked on this also states:

It also appears to rewrite Australian history, undermining the widely held assumption that the continent was isolated and largely unvisited until the First Fleet arrived in 1788.

Yet Australia was first definitively sighted by Europeans 102 years before that date, in 1606.

I wonder why that article reports it thusly?

Obviously in order to seem to say something that's simply not true.

Harte

There's simply little or no evidence for it.

A little evidence or a lot matters not.What does is that this evidence exists so therefore it is possible.

I hope you don't think that the finds you posted in Northern Australia constitute such a pan-oceanic trade route?

As little information has been given about these finds,its hard to know what they mean.But there is other evidence of travel between Australia and Asia.

Migration through the archipelago has always required that humans cross substantial stretches of open sea. But when did they first attempt to do this? There is a current controversial claim by a joint Dutch-Indonesian team that humans were contemporaries of stegodons, extinct elephant-like animals, at a site called Mata Menge on the Indonesian island of Flores. Stone flakes and stegodon bones have been found here in presumed association in deposits located just above a reversal of the earth's magnetic field dating to 730,000 years ago. Should this claim receive future support we will have to allow for the possibility that even Homo erectus was able to cross open sea, in this case the 15-mile-wide Strait of Lombok between Bali and Lombok.

That the Australian continent was first settled at least 30,000 years ago, by people who had to cross consecutive sea lanes in eastern Indonesia, was well known by the late 1960s. Research by the late Joseph Birdsell and by Geoffrey Irwin of Auckland University suggests that there were separate northern and southern routes, along which most islands would have been visible from their closest neighbors on clear days, leading from the Sunda Shelf islands towards Australia and New Guinea. If Australia was first reached from Timor, as seems likely, then a final sea crossing of about 55 miles, involving movement out of sight of land, would also have been required....

Many millennia later the Indo-Malaysian region again witnessed remarkable transfers of people and material culture. Three thousand years ago, Neolithic people exchanged New Britain obsidian across 2,400 miles to the site of Bukit Tengkorak in Sabah, northern Borneo. The Lapita people moved it for 2,100 miles eastward from New Britain to as far as Fiji. A new report in the journal Science claims that New Britain obsidian, excavated by archaeologist Stephen Chia of Universiti Sains Malaysia and analyzed by anthropologist Robert Tykot of the University of South Florida, reached Bukit Tengkorak much earlier, by 4000 B.C. No details of the dating are presented, however, and the claim remains unsubstantiated. During the original excavation of this site, by myself in 1987, we recovered a good series of radiocarbon dates and obsidian, identified by Roger Bird of the Australian Nuclear Sciences and Technology Organisation as coming from New Britain. At that time we concluded that the Bukit Tengkorak obsidian dated back no further than 1000 B.C. and was contemporary with the Lapita archaeological culture of the western Pacific (ca. 1500 to 300 B.C.).

www.archaeology.org...

reply to post by Harte


Well now hold on

now we have DNA links in to Europeans in American native ice age populations
the new theory is that they hugged the ice flows that then made a kind of link between Northern Arctic Europe and The Upper North American hemisphere.

they seal hunted and fished their way here in skin boats ,so the theory goes .I personally like this theory ,I they're onto something with this one

Also this place just to blow the minds of everyone who thinks it's all about Mesopotamia Caral

Originally posted by jakyll

There's simply little or no evidence for it.

A little evidence or a lot matters not.What does is that this evidence exists so therefore it is possible.

I didn't claim it was "impossible" did I?

Originally posted by jakyll

I hope you don't think that the finds you posted in Northern Australia constitute such a pan-oceanic trade route?

As little information has been given about these finds,its hard to know what they mean.But there is other evidence of travel between Australia and Asia.

Do you not find it the least bit odd that at first you claim:

Mention ancient cultures traveling over the ocean waves and some historians start frothing at the mouth and busting blood vessels.

but then go on to indicate the various Asian - Australian contacts with a link to Archaeology.org?

Who do you think wrote the article you linked to?

Originally posted by invisiblewoman
reply to post by Harte

 

Well now hold on

now we have DNA links in to Europeans in American native ice age populations
the new theory is that they hugged the ice flows that then made a kind of link between Northern Arctic Europe and The Upper North American hemisphere.

The Solutrean Hypothesis.

I'm aware of it and it is one of the reasons I said "little or no" evidence.

However, are you aware that the pertinant mtDNA haplogroup was found in only a small fraction of a single tribe of Native Americans (BTW, we have no "American Native Ice Age populations" to test) and that a similar (though not identical) haplogroup was subsequently identified in Northeast Asia?

So the mtDNA evidence is basically a wash.

Find a Solutrean point in North America and then we'll talk. It's what I'm waiting for regarding this hypothesis.

Originally posted by invisiblewoman
Also this place just to blow the minds of everyone who thinks it's all about Mesopotamia Caral

This is a straw man argument.

Nobody makes any claims regarding Mesopotamia at the expense of the culture that lived at Caral.

I think both of you would benefit by searching this section of ATS and seeing what's been posted here before. I doubt you surprised any longtime member here with your link to Caral.

Also, the Solutrean hypothesis has been gone over and over and over here at ATS.

Both of you - please note that I was responding to the idea that historians would "froth at the mouth" and "bust blood vessels" at the suggestion of trans-oceanic travel by ancient cultures. (Also please note that island hopping from Indonesia to Australia is hardly trans-oceanic travel.)

I very much disagree with this idea of "frothing" and "busting." Most historians (really the question would concern archaeologists, not historians) would ask for your evidence, that's all. And there is certainly little to none to be had.

Harte

Originally posted by nj2day
. . .

Maybe I'll start some threads in the Disinformation section or something about specific people/events in history that need to be re-written.

Actually, as a victim of the latest "fundamentally sound" economy, I have all the time in the world. Maybe I'll see if there's any interest in having some further research done on these facts....

I just don't know if ATS would appreciate the work I've done with this though. It doesn't seem like a typical ATS type subject.

Please do it . . .

I would appreciate it and be thankful. I love this stuff!