HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: shapiro-david@CS.YALE.EDU (David Shapiro)
Subject: Teeth (Was Re: Diet of early humans)
Organization: Yale University
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 17:11:40 GMT

Teeth actually can say quite a lot about human diet, although in the time that
we have evolved from hunter-gatherers to agriculturalists the teeth themselves
have not changed enough to be of significance.  However, teeth do develop in
annual layers, and one can study the nature of the layers (thickness, striae,
etc.) and from that make a rather good assessment of diet.  One phenomenon
which has been linked to the onset of agriculture is a dramatic decrease in
the intake of usable iron (which comes from meat and dairy products -- 
our bodies can't handle vegetal iron).  This results in certain identifiable
changes in dentition, as well as porosity resulting from the anemia.  
Furthermore, if one is lucky enough to find teeth in relatively pristine
condition, the wear patterns will indicate what component of the diet was meat.

Obviously, this does not say everything: it is possible for a non-
agriculturalist to develop iron-deficiency anemia.  However, the archaeological
record indicates that it was not a major problem for entire populations over
extended periods of time prior to the onset of agriculture.

--
David Shapiro
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
From: prs@turing.acs.virginia.edu (Phillip R. Scarr)
Subject: Re: Earliest Building
Organization: The Turing Project, Charlottesville Virginia.
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 02:08:03 GMT

In article <1992Apr15.123321.7433@waikato.ac.nz> higham@waikato.ac.nz writes:
>In article <1992Apr14.024107.6003@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, prs@turing.acs.virginia.edu (Phillip R. Scarr) writes:
>> In article <1992Apr13.193648.4696@unocal.com> stgprao@xing.unocal.com (Richard Ottolini) writes:
>>>In article <1992Apr8.203852.7190@ee.gatech.edu> ldh@eedsp.gatech.edu (Lonnie D Harvel) writes:
>>>>Just as a matter of curiosity, when and where were the
>>>>first buildings (interpreted loosely)?  I guess we need
>>>>to add a "what" to the above question.
>>>
>>>Aboriginal structures made of bone and some stone have been found in the CIS
>>>somewhere dating 20+ thousand years ago.  These would be similar to semi-permenant
>>>structures such as tepees by American Indians or wood houses in the Amazons.
>>>
>>>Some stone buildings have been found in the Middle East some 9,000 years old.
>> 
>> I recall that there is some evidence (although sketchy) that there are
>> structures from England and northern France which date to Mesolithic
>> (i.e. Homo Habilis) times.  I can't recall any details but the evidence
>
>The mesolithic period, generally accepted to fall between the palaeolithic and
>the neolithic is usually dated to around the 9th/10th millenium BC in England
>(Star Carr 9500 BC). This was the period after the end of the ice age in Europe,
>the so-called age of foraging and hunting. This wasn't of course, Homo habilis,
>a hominid found in contexts dated much, much earlier (ER 1470- at ca. 2 mya).
>Homo habilis remains are  not found  in the British isles or France.
>
>Tom.
>
>> was pretty good.
>> 
>> 	-Phil

Quite right.  I meant to say middle paleolithic.  I believe there ARE
remains in Europe and I have just found the reference: Scientific
American from May of 1969.

"A Paleolithic Camp at Nice" by Henry de Lumley.  The abstract says:

	Construction work on the French Riviera has uncovered the
remains of man's earliest-known construction work: huts put up by
hunters who visited the shore of the Mediterranean some 300,000 years
ago.

I'd say that earns the earliest structure award.

	-Phil
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
From: stgprao@xing.unocal.com (Richard Ottolini)
Subject: Re: neanderthal blood samples & DNA
Originator: stgprao@xing
Organization: Unocal Corporation, Anaheim, California
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 14:53:31 GMT

I was just reading in Nature some scientists claim to have found 150 m.y. old
proteins in a dinosaur fossil.  Other scientists say it is recent contamination.

I think it is difficult to do the kind of mitochronial DNA analysis 
reported in literature on tiny amounts of dead material.  The difficulty lies
in seperating out the mitchondria.  Conventional methods use emzymes to loosen
up the cells, then centrifuges to seperate the components.  Dead material is
dry and too small.
Forensic DNA analysis use PCR to replicate tiny amounts of DNA, then markers
and electrophloris techniques to produce a pattern of marked material.
It is likely that a PCR technique will pick up the much larger quantity
of nuclear DNA in unseparated material.  Comparative evolutionary studies
haven't really been done on nuclear material *yet* because of the complexity
of nuclear material compared to mitochonria, but I'm sure it will happen in
the future as the tools get better.

Does anyone know if there is a marker for only the Y chromosome, so there
would be a chance of determining the sex of the blood?  That might be
interesting.
From: techsy005@spacm1.spac.spc.com (Fred Franceschi)
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
Subject: Re: Cave Paintings, Magic or Instruction ?
Date: 14 Apr 92 16:12:41 PDT
Organization: Security Pacific Automation Co., LA, CA

In article <6156@geocub.UUCP>, costabel@balthaza.greco-prog.fr (Martin Costabel) writes:
> In article <1992Apr10.165348.29845@panix.com>, beww@panix.com (Brian
> Wood) writes:
> |> 
other comments here.
> |>
> 
> No. There are many easily accessible parts of the caves where
> they could have made nice instructional paintings, but they didn't.
> Instead they frequently used places where the "students" would
> have had to creep for half an hour to reach the classroom and
> then only one of them would have been able to see the blackboard.
>   
There are recent studies that indicate that meditation about a "skilled"
task, in the form of "thinking the actions" can improve skills. This can
be applied to coordination tasks such as flying an airplane. If I
remember correctly, meditating the task has a training effectiveness of
about 80% of actually doing the task. (If you know the task already.)

It is possible that drawings of animals in a remote location would
be beneficial to a person planning to hunt. The hunter could
refresh himself on how to approach the animal(s), how close
to get, kill zones on the animal, etc. In effect, re-live the last
kills and mentally plan and make the future kill.

Possibly the drawings were made by persons who intuitively knew what
some of our social scientists are now rediscovering.
-- 

Fred Franceschi
techsy105@spacm1.spac.spc.com
    
My statements may not be my companys.
Brilliant, witty saying goes here.
From: johnnyb@ims.com (Johnny Battle)
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
Subject: Re: Cave Paintings, Magic or Instruction ?
Date: 15 Apr 92 16:42:28 GMT
Organization: Integrated Measurement Systems, Inc.

In article <mmHwupp6@cs.psu.edu>, okunewck@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu (Phil OKunewick) writes:
|>    Cave painting is a practice which is still carried on today.
|> 
|>    Unfortunately.
|> 
|>    But, if one believes that a better understanding of the past can be
|> drawn from what's going on in the present, then ancient cave painting
|> can possibly be compared to modern cave painting.

I like this train of thought.  But wouldn`t painting on the walls of your
home be more analoglus?  The ones who do that around my house are my kids.
I wonder how many of the bird pictures and hand outlines drawn by ancient 
man were actually drawn by ancient kids.  Of course, the beauty and 
sophistication of paintings like the ones in France argue against it 
having been done by kids (on the other hand, young Picasso did some 
impressive stuff).  The painters also appear to have sometimes built
scaffolding to stand on (like Michaelangelo in the Sistine), and they
placed many of the paintings deep in the caves, in relatively 
inaccessible areas.  These facts seem to indicate that they were neither
the idle drawings of children nor the hurried defacements of graffiti
painters.
From: kirk.hardesty@matrix.sbs.com (Kirk Hardesty) 
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
Subject: RE: Basic Concepts in Arc
Date: 5 Apr 92 21:11:00 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The MATRIX BBS - Birmingham, AL - 205-323-2016
Reply-To: kirk.hardesty@matrix.sbs.com (Kirk Hardesty) 

To:pat@mtl.mit.edu
   >that the only cultures I have studied first-hand are
   >the Newari of Nepal and local Native American Indians in
   >Massachusetts.  My thesis is on the cultural
   >evolution of the ideology of the Puritans as
   >expressed in their gravestones.


Forgive my intrusion, but I was not aware that any tribes remained
intact in Massachusetts or anywhere in the NorthEast.

From what tribe(s) do they descend?  How much of the native culture
remains?  Do the children desire participation in native or modern
society, or a blend of both?

Native Americans in Alabama are coming out.  I have been told that the
grandparents and great-grandparents refused to admit their heritage for
their own protection, but today there are many who are proud and angry.

Kirk
---
 . SLMR 2.0 . We are all descended from indigenous peoples.
                                                   
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
From: kiran@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Kiran Wagle)
Subject: Re: Cave Paintings, Magic or Instruction ?
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 92 00:52:20 GMT

In <1992Apr10.165348.29845@panix.com> beww@panix.com (Brian Wood) writes:
>   I wonder if perhaps these images were intended for
>instructional purposes. Surely it would be safer to show young,
>up and coming hunters where to aim their throws by using these
>early "graphic teaching aids" than to attempt a marksmanship
>lecture in the face of a charging beast.

This idea is discussed in _Bionomics_, a new economics book with lots
of interesting ideas in it.

-- 
"The truffle is not an outright aphrodisiac, but it may in certain
 circumstances make women more affectionate and men more amiable."
                                                ...Brillat-Savarin
From: bill.grantham@matrix.sbs.com (Bill Grantham) 
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
Subject: RE: BASIC CONCEPTS IN ARC
Date: 8 Apr 92 20:12:00 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The MATRIX BBS - Birmingham, AL - 205-323-2016
Reply-To: bill.grantham@matrix.sbs.com (Bill Grantham) 

-> Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
-> From: "Stephen C. Miller" <stcmille@copper.ucs.indiana.edu>
-> Subject: Re: BASIC CONCEPTS IN ARC
-> Message-ID: <1992Apr5.111734.21587@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
-> Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1992 11:17:25 -0500
->
-> In article <613.704.uupcb@matrix.sbs.com>
-> bill.grantham@matrix.sbs.com (Bill Gr >        Yes I agree that what
-> is considered traditonal by a culture can >and is emic but doesn't
-> that tell you something about the culture?  The >fact THEY see
-> certain aspects of their society as traditional would >seem to
-> suggest that for what ever reason it is important to them to >believe
-> that something is "traditional."  After all isn't "tradition"
-> >closely linked to cultural identity?  One of those aspects of
-> society >that seperates "us" from "them" and enforces societal
-> cohesion? >Bill.
-> >
->
-> I certainly agree that its important to look at what is called
-> traditional by any culture.  All I ask is that we not take their word
-> for it when seeking to understand history.  Look for instance at the
-> "traditional" culture of the plains Indians, devoted to buffalo
-> hunting and including highly elaborated religious stuff.  All of
-> which would have been fundamentally impossible without the horse and
-> was also exacerbated by all kinds of population pressure - things
-> which only occurred after Europeans had extensively colonized the new
-> world.  In what sense were these plains cultures traditional?  Well,
-> they had traditions - they just weren't as old as they seemed...
A point well made Steve.  I'm not suggesting that all things that seem
"traditional" should be considered traditional but many aspects of
society that are believed to be traditional by the people themselves are
often rooted in past traditions though I agree that historical events
can and do modify "traditions."  But are we simply to disregard some
aspects of society simply because we can't verify their traditional
origins?



                  
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
From: "Stephen C. Miller" <stcmille@copper.ucs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Re: LIVEING NEANDERTHALS?
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 12:15:11 -0500

C. Loring Brace, the rhyming paleontologist, gave a lecture here at IU
yesterday in which he put forth a pretty strong case for Neanderthals
having evolved into H.s.sapiens.  No replacement at all, just evolution
due to things like cooking and other technologies.  Claimed that the
various scenerios of punctuation and war were "medieval" and
anti-evolutionary.  Interesting talk.
-- 
--------------------
=Steve Miller	 		    stcmille@copper.ucs.indiana.edu
		(Former rock star turned grad student)
  Happyhappy joyjoy happyhappy joyjoy happyhappy joyjoy happyhappy joyjoy
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
From: annick@cortex.physiol.su.oz.au (Annick Ansselin)
Subject: Re: Diet of early humans
Organization: Department of Physiology, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 04:43:41 GMT

In <1992Apr15.211546.20082@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:


>:that their teeth are also omnivore-teeth, i.e. that they have
>:meat-eaters' incisors.  This would point to plant-eating as being a
>:later development for them.)

Incisors are good for plant as well as meat
>eaters; plant parts also need to be cut to be eaten. A cow or a horse
>eats grass by clipping off whatever it gets into its mouth, for
>example, and rodents are adapted to gnawing through such things as the
>shells of nuts. So having incisors is no demonstration of meat eating.

I think the original poster must have had canines in mind. These are the
sharp, long pointed teeth on the side (missing in herbivores).
Useful in catching and holding prey as well as tearing.
Apes have these as do carnivores. It must be remembered that there are few
herbivorous apes (if any). Although they may have a basic vegetarian diet,
they also eat insects and small animals.
From: jrblack@ns-mx.uiowa.edu (James Roger Black)
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
Subject: Re: Examining an ancient(?) text
Keywords: scrolls medieval
Date: 11 Apr 92 03:54:47 GMT
Organization: University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

In article <18417@smoke.brl.mil>, chidsey@smoke.brl.mil (Irving Chidsey) writes:
|> 
|> 	No, the letter that I am referring to was from a bishop somewhere
|> away from the Holy land to one near there, saying that he had heard of some
|> recently discovered documents, and he wondered if they included any of 
|> several books that were quoted in the epistles in the same way that Old
|> Testament books are quoted.  I am pretty sure that none of the 'apocraphyl'
|> gospels, acts, or epistles was meant.  My hazy memory is that it was more
|> like one of the lost intertestamental works, similar to some found in the
|> caves.

From "Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls" by Hugh J. Schonfield, London, 1956,
p. 48:

  Teicher [Journal of Jewish Studies, Vol. II, No. 2, p. 89f] has rightly
  drawn attention to a letter written in 819 A.D. by Timotheus, Metropolitan
  of Seleucia, in which he relates 'that Jews from Jerusalem, seeking
  admission to the Church, had told him that, about ten years before (i.e.,
  at the beginning of the ninth century), a cave was discovered near Jericho
  containing a hoard of Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible and other writings,
  and that these manuscripts were taken by Jews to Jerusalem.' ... We also
  know of a similar discovery of manuscripts in this region in the third
  century, as reported by Origen.

Apparently the caves were looted several times in the ancient and medieval
periods.  Schonfield has suggested that these discoveries were not only a
source of inspiration for the Karaite movement, but also for the plethora
of intertestamental material that flooded into the slavic churches during 
the middle ages.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Roger Black                                             roger-black@uiowa.edu
 Disclaimer:                My employer doesn't even know I have any opinions.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: prs@turing.acs.virginia.edu (Phillip R. Scarr)
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
Subject: Re: Earliest Building
Date: 14 Apr 92 02:41:07 GMT
Reply-To: prs9k@virginia.edu
Organization: The Turing Project, Charlottesville Virginia.

In article <1992Apr13.193648.4696@unocal.com> stgprao@xing.unocal.com (Richard Ottolini) writes:
>In article <1992Apr8.203852.7190@ee.gatech.edu> ldh@eedsp.gatech.edu (Lonnie D Harvel) writes:
>>Just as a matter of curiosity, when and where were the
>>first buildings (interpreted loosely)?  I guess we need
>>to add a "what" to the above question.
>
>Aboriginal structures made of bone and some stone have been found in the CIS
>somewhere dating 20+ thousand years ago.  These would be similar to semi-permenant
>structures such as tepees by American Indians or wood houses in the Amazons.
>
>Some stone buildings have been found in the Middle East some 9,000 years old.

I recall that there is some evidence (although sketchy) that there are
structures from England and northern France which date to Mesolithic
(i.e. Homo Habilis) times.  I can't recall any details but the evidence
was pretty good.

	-Phil
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
From: wbennett@hamp.hampshire.edu
Subject: Legalities of Finds
Organization: Hampshire College
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 12:12:31 GMT

Anyone have any legal or anecdotal information of the legal ramifications
of finds on US soil. I'm also interested in the legal differences (if any)
between the following:

	1. Discovery of a neolithic Amerind settlement site on my land.
	2. Discovery of a neolithic Amerind burial site on my land.

Basically, I'm looking for a protocol for dealing with the possibility that
assures appropriate care of the site, and clearly fulfills my legal
responsibilities - what ever they are.

I realize that I can come up with this info if I spend a good afternoon in
the library, but I'd rather get a running start.

Thanks!
		wbennett@hamp.hampshire.edu
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
From: "Stephen C. Miller" <stcmille@copper.ucs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Re: Basic Concepts in Archaeology
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 14:56:46 -0500

In article <1992Apr7.183251.28297@athena.mit.edu> pat@mtl.mit.edu (Patricia E. Varley) writes:
>and won!
>
>Which brings me to another point that was put to me in an
>earlier post.  How would you understand the Indians of North
>America in the Middle Woodland Period.  How does studying 
>society in the same place help you in a historic sense? 
>Quite a number of anthropologists/archaeologists have lived
>with modern societies for precisely this reason.  Lewis Binford
>pioneered this by living with the Nunamiut in the 1970's.  He
>collected an enormous amount of empirical dataa on human exploitation
>of animals that is applicable to archaeological sites in places
>other than Alaska.  
	From what I hear, BTW, Binford's actual fieldword was quite
limited.  And he was there during a time when almost no men were around,
because they had all left for employment elsewhere.  Makes his data more
suspect than is generally realized.

>They are:  continuing dynamics of local 
>adaptations can result in considerable variation in sites; interregional 
>variations are relected in different archaeological remains.  Yet
>the people of one site are well aware of the differences of their 
>neighbors; the adaptive strategies and the factors affecting decision
>making may remain constant, even if the archaeological remains
>show great variability; changes in stone tool frequencies or pottery
>may reflect no great change in adaptation.  So it is impossible to
>tell what the local adaptation through time is without understanding
>the strategies.  This type of understanding can be gotten from sites 
>where such data is still available.
>
Well said.
When I wrote the example about the plains Indians I was aware that this
might come out as a rejoinder.  I was not trying to put down the
ecological or ethnographic analogy points of view.  In fact, I support
them both - when judiciously applied.  The problem is that ethnographic
analogy is very tricky.  People in the past have often acted differently
for cultural reasons.  But this is not to say that the techniques are
useless.  A fascinating article a couple years ago in Scientific
American figured out how iron furnaces in west Africa worked by getting
present day residents to figure out the process.  The results were
encouraging.

>of theoretical approach we can.   The faculty from these
>schools teach here along with the Director and staff.  I have
>contacted many of them and put the question to them:  Do you
>use ethnographies, are they still of value to archaeological
>sites?  There has not been one negative answer yet.  I intend
>to get more than just a yes or no answer from them.  I'll let
>people who are interested know what they have said (more than
>just a yes).
>

Sure - publish away!


-- 
--------------------
=Steve Miller	 		    stcmille@copper.ucs.indiana.edu
		(Former rock star turned grad student)
  Happyhappy joyjoy happyhappy joyjoy happyhappy joyjoy happyhappy joyjoy
From: cortese@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: Large felines in Greece and Italy?
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 14 Apr 92 23:33:15 GMT

In article <1992Apr6.140720.23575@lgc.com> cl@lgc.com (Cameron Laird) writes:
>In article <1992Apr1.180512.2106@beaver.cs.washington.edu> louns@cs.washington.edu (Michael Lounsbery) writes:
>>Is there any PHYSICAL evidence of large felines as indigenous to the lands
>>of the northern Mediterranean (Greece, Italy, etc.)?
>			.
>			.
>			.
>>that leopards or lions were wild in the region, and if so, how late was it
>>before they were extirpated?
>			.
>			.
>			.
>Lions had a remarkably wide distribution until
>quite recently--say, two millenia before present.
>They were all over Africa, and most of southern
>Eurasia.  I don't know when the last wild lions
>in Greece died, but it can't have been more than,
>say, 2200 year ago, and there's a chance it was
>closer to 1000 years BP.  They became extinct in
>Italy somewhat earlier.  A good mammalogist
>should have references for more details.
>
>Tigers still were found on the shores of the
>Caspian late in the nineteenth century, and there
>were jaguars (!) around San Francisco Bay at the
>beginning of the twentieth.  There were cheetahs
>in Europe in recent prehistoric times, and perhaps
>later.  I recall nothing about leopards.

Don't know about the northern Med, but we used to have mountain lions
even in Pennsylvania a couple of hundred years ago . . .  

Regards,
Janis C.


Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
From: stgprao@xing.unocal.com (Richard Ottolini)
Subject: Re: Earliest Building
Originator: stgprao@xing
Organization: Unocal Corporation, Anaheim, California
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 14:15:44 GMT

In article <1992Apr16.020803.4115@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> prs@turing.acs.virginia.edu (Phillip R. Scarr) writes:
>"A Paleolithic Camp at Nice" by Henry de Lumley.  The abstract says:
>
>	Construction work on the French Riviera has uncovered the
>remains of man's earliest-known construction work: huts put up by
>hunters who visited the shore of the Mediterranean some 300,000 years
>ago.

I am skeptical about anything pre-homo sapiens sapiens (100K BP).
There are cases where people have over-interpreted the evidence, e.g.
natural gravel as tools.  Is there a scientific reference for this find?
From: bill.grantham@matrix.sbs.com (Bill Grantham) 
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
Subject: RE; STOLECKI ARTICLES
Date: 5 Apr 92 01:12:00 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The MATRIX BBS - Birmingham, AL - 205-323-2016
Reply-To: bill.grantham@matrix.sbs.com (Bill Grantham) 

I believe Ralph spells his last name "Solecki" if this helps.
Bill.