Thursday, February 16, 2012

Hot Links

Archaeologists in Spain believe they made have found the first cave art painted by Neandertals. Currently none is known and the only firm evidence we have of any Neandertal art are some recently discovered painted sea shells. This is thought to be the painting of a seal or sea lion. The evidence is somewhat circumstantial. Radiocarbon assays from features near the paintings date to 43,500 - 42,300 BP and Neandertals inhabited the area until 37,000 BP. The pigment in the paintings hasn't been directly dated yet, though that is planned after 2013. It will be interesting to see if this holds up.


Did you see the pictures of this tiny chameleon? It's one of four new species of reptiles discovered in Madagascar.

A British archaeologist thinks she may have found the Queen of Sheba's gold mine.

Archaeologists in France have excavated an intact German dugout from the World War I Western Front. It was collapsed by shellfire in 1918 and contained the remains of 34 German soldiers. Their equipment and personal effects were found in an excellent state of preservation. Click through the links to see some very interesting pictures.

I enjoyed these unintentionally hilarious answers to high school exam questions from the UK. The first one listed was my favorite:

Q. Name the four seasons
A. Salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That "Neandertal painting" is RIDICULOUS--I did that painting when I was in Spain several decades ago(I think I was about 4 years old.....)--I am happy to say my artistic talent has improved considerably since then--I can represent a seal MUCH better now with a crayon! And I am only 1/16th Neandertal, so imagining that was done by a purebred is somewhat exagerrated.....;)...L.B.

Anonymous said...

Okay, I wuz just jokin'--I never been to Spain(but-I'd-kinda-like-ta-go-there)....L.B.