The fossilised ‘London Artefact’ has gained notoriety in recent years following its display in an exhibition of anomalous artefacts in the year 2000. It is a perfect example of the anomalous nature of some archaeological discoveries. On the one hand, we are presented with a hammer, clearly of human design; While on the other hand, it is embedded in a rock found in a region formed of predominantly cretaceous rock.

The rock was found in June, 1934 sitting loose on a rock ledge beside a waterfall near London, Texas.

The site is part of a large geographical zone called the Edwards Plateau. It primarily consists of Cretaceous rock.

A recent radiocarbon-dating test was performed on a sample of wood removed from the interior of the handle. The results showed inconclusive dates ranging from the present to 700 years ago.

The sandstone, within which the hammer has become embedded was dated by dr. A. W. Med of the British Geological Research Centre.

The Hammer is identical to commonly used 19th century miners hammers, of American provenance.

It was soon pointed out by the geologist NCSE researcher John Cole that minerals dissolved from ancient strata can harden around a recent object, making it look impressive to someone unfamiliar with geological processes. He said of it:

The stone is real, and it looks impressive to someone unfamiliar with geological processes. How could a modern artefact be stuck in Ordovician rock? The answer is that the concretion itself is not Ordovician. Minerals in solution can harden around an intrusive object dropped in a crack or simply left on the ground if the source rock (in this case, reportedly Ordovician) is chemically soluble (Cole, 1985).

The Wolfsegg Iron, also known as the The Salzburg Cube, is a small cuboid mass of iron that was found buried in Tertiary lignite in Wolfsegg, Austria, in 1885.^[1] It weighs 785 grams and measures 67 x 67 x 47mm. Four of its sides are roughly flat, while the two remaining sides (opposite each other) are convex. A fairly deep groove is incised all the way around the object, about mid-way up its height. Originally identified as being of meteoric origin, a suggestion later ruled out by analysis, it seems most likely that it is a piece of cast iron used as ballast in mining machinery.

History

The Iron was reportedly discovered when a workman at the Braun iron foundry in Schondorf, Austria, was breaking up a block of lignite that had been mined at Wolfsegg. In 1886, mining engineer Adolf Gurlt reported on the object to the Natural History Society of Bonn, noting that the object was coated with a thin layer of rust, was made of iron, and had a specific gravity of 7.75. Other early studies of the object appeared in contemporary editions of the scientific journals Nature and L’Astronomie, the object identified as being a fossil meteorite. A plaster cast was made of the object shortly before the end of the 19th century, as the original had suffered from being handled, and had had samples cut from it by researchers.

Analysis

The object was analysed in 1966-67 by the Vienna Naturhistorisches Museum using electron-beam microanalysis, which found no traces of nickel, chromium or cobalt in the iron, suggesting that it was not of meteoric origin, while the lack of sulphur indicated that it is not a pyrite. Because of its low magnesium content, Dr. Gero Kurat of the Museum and Dr. Rudolf Grill of the Geologische Bundesanstalt of Vienna thought that it might be cast iron, Grill suggesting that similar rough lumps had been used as ballast in early mining machinery.

The cast is currently kept in the Oberösterreichischen Landesmuseen in Linz, Austria, where the original object was also exhibited from 1950 to 1958, while the original cuboid itself is held by the Heimathaus Museum of Vöcklabruck, Austria.

The Wolfsegg Iron is claimed by some as an out-of-place artifact (OOPArt), and it is often stated as a fact in paranormal literature that it disappeared without trace in 1910, from the Salzburg Museum.^[2][3] In fact, as mentioned above, it is at the Heimathaus Museum in Vöcklabruck, Austria, which is where the above photo was taken. Other writers also erroneously describe it as “a perfectly machined steel cube”.

Notes

Voor de ontdekking van het wiel en het moderne schrijven, deed een prehistorische beschaving in het noorden van Mesopotamië aan handel, bewerkte koper en ontwikkelde de eerste sociale klassen op basis van macht en rijkdom.

Bewijs van de beschaving welke de basis vormde voor het stedelijke leven zoals we dat nu kennen in het gehele Midden Oosten, ligt onder drie grote heuvels zo’n 5 kilometer van Raqqa in Sirië. Dit melden Amerikaanse en Sirische archeologen.

De heuvels, zo’n 17 meter hoog, omvatten zo’n 120 vierkante meter en behelzen hiermee ook de ruïnes van Tell Zeidan, een voor-stedelijke gemeenschap daterend van 6.000 tot 4.000 v.Chr.

In die tijd was er grotendeels één gemeenschappelijke cultuur, genaamd Ubaid, wat leidde tot het ontstaan van de eerste ware stedelijke centra in de daaropvolgende Uruk periode (4.000 tot 3.100 v. Chr.).

Voor archeologen is deze ontdekking een zegening.

Bron: Discovery.com

Archaeologists are stumped after finding a 100-year-old Swiss watch in an ancient tomb that was sealed more than 400 years ago. They believed they were the first to visit the Ming dynasty grave in Shangsi, southern China, since its occupant’s funeral.

But inside they uncovered a miniature watch in the shape of a ring marked ‘Swiss’ that is thought to be just a century old. The mysterious timepiece was encrusted in mud and rock and had stopped at 10:06 am.

Watches were not around at the time of the Ming Dynasty and Switzerland did not even exist as a country, an expert pointed out.

The archaeologists were filming a documentary with two journalists when they made the puzzling discovery. ‘When we tried to remove the soil wrapped around the coffin, suddenly a piece of rock dropped off and hit the ground with metallic sound,’ said Jiang Yanyu, former curator of the Guangxi Museum. ‘We picked up the object, and found it was a ring.

‘After removing the covering soil and examining it further, we were shocked to see it was a watch,’ he added.

The Ming Dynasty – or the Empire of the Great Ming – was the ruling dynasty in China from 1368 to 1644.

Source: mail online

One of archaeology’s most compelling mysteries is that of the 13 crystal skulls. The crystal skulls have been some of the most powerful mystical symbols in human history. Several “perfect” crystal skulls have been found in parts of Mexico and Central and South America. Together, they form a mystery as enigmatic as the Great Pyramids and Stonehenge.

Ancient skeletons discovered in Georgia threaten to overturn the theory of human evolution

For generations, scientists have believed Africa was the cradle of mankind.

Now a stunning archaeological discovery suggests our primitive ancestors left Africa to explore the world around 800,000 years earlier than was previously thought before returning to their home continent.

It was there – hundreds of thousands of years later – that they evolved into modern humans and embarked on a second mass migration, researchers say.

Archaeologists have unearthed six ancient skeletons dating back 1.8 million years in the hills of Georgia which threaten to overturn the theory of human evolution.

The Georgian bones – which include incredibly well preserved skulls and teeth – are the earliest humans ever found outside Africa.
The remains belong to a race of short early humans with small primitive brains who walked and ran like modern people.

They were found alongside stone tools, animal remains and plants – suggesting that they hunted and butchered meat.

Prof David Lordkipanidze, the direct of the Georgian National Museum, said: ‘Before our findings, the prevailing view was that humans came out of Africa almost 1million years ago, that they already had sophisticated stone tools, and that their body anatomy was quite advanced in terms of brain capacity and limb proportions. But what we are finding is quite different’

He said Africa was still the unchallenged cradle of mankind. But he added: ‘Georgia may have been the cradle of the first Europeans.’

Their discovery muddies the already complicated history of mankind.

Archaeologists believe that the first true humans – a race of squat people called Homo habilis – evolved in Africa around 2.5 million years ago. The were followed by a taller athletic species called Homo erectus who migrated out of Africa to colonise Europe and Asia.

Outside Africa their descendants are thought to have died out. But in Africa, they turned into modern man who began a second wave of migration around 120,000 years ago.

The new finds suggest Homo erectus left Africa far earlier than was previously estimated and lived for a while in Eurasia.

The new ancestors – found in Dmanisi – were around 150cm tall, and had brains half the size of modern people’s.

‘While the Dmanisi people were almost modern in their body proportions, and were highly efficient walkers and runners, their arms moved in a different way and their brains were tiny compared to ours,’ he told the British Science Festival at Surrey University.

‘Their brain capacity is about 600 cubic centimeters. The prevailing view before this discovery was that the humans who first left Africa had a brain size of about 1,000 cubic centimeters.

‘Nevertheless they were sophisticated tool makers with high social and cognitive skills.’

The first Dmanisi fossils were found in 2001. The most recent has only just been unearthed and its details have yet to be published in a scientific journal.

Prof Lordkipanidze said the Dmanisi bones may have belonged to an early Homo erectus which lived in Georgia before moving on to the rest of Europe.

Or the early humans may then have returned to Africa, eventually giving rise to our own species, Homo sapiens, he said.

‘The question is whether Homo erectus originated in Africa or Eurasia, and if in Eurasia, did we have vice-versa migrations? This idea looked very stupid a few years ago, but not today,’ he told the British Science Festival.

Source: Dailymail.co.uk

Early humans had feet like ours and left lasting impressions in the form of 1.5 million-year-old footprints, some of which were made by feet that could wear a size 9 men’s shoe.

The findings at a Northern Kenya site represent the oldest evidence of modern-human foot anatomy. They also help tell an ancestral story of humans who had fully transitioned from tree-dwellers to land walkers.

“In a sense, it’s like putting flesh on the bones,” said John Harris, an anthropologist with the Koobi Fora Field School of Rutgers University. “The prints are so well preserved .”

Almost human
Harris and other colleagues report in the Feb. 27 issue of the journal Science on finding several footprint trails within two sedimentary rock layers. An upper sedimentary layer included two trails of two prints each, one group of seven prints, and a variety of isolated prints. The lower layer had a trail of two prints and a single isolated print likely from a smaller, juvenile human.

The researchers identified the footprints as probably belonging to a member of Homo ergaster, an early form of Homo erectus. Such prints include modern foot features such as a rounded heel, a human-like arch and a big toe that sits parallel to other toes.

By contrast, apes have more curved fingers and toes made for grasping tree branches. The earliest human ancestors, such as Australopithecus afarensis, still possessed many ape-like features more than 2 million years ago — the well-known “Lucy” specimen represents one such example.
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