This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: Independent (UK)
10-8-12
A Georgian woman who claimed to be 132-years-old - making her the world’s oldest human being ever - has died.Antisa Khvichava claimed to have been born on 8 July 1880, and had a Soviet-era passport and documentation to that effect, but her age was contested and never officially proven.She lived in the remote village of Sachino, in north-west Georgia, with her 42-year-old grandson and claimed to have retired from her job as a tea and corn picker in 1965 when she was 85.Mrs Khvichava claimed to be just 10-years younger than Russia’s first communist leader Vladimir Lenin, and to have been born a year before the death of the celebrated Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky....
Source: Smithsonian Magazine
9-5-12
The earliest known instance of cannibalism among hominids occurred roughly 800,000 years ago. The victims, mainly children, may have been eaten as part of a strategy to defend territories against neighbors, researchers report online in the Journal of Human Evolution. The new study shows how anthropologists use the behavior of modern humans and primates to make inferences about what hominids did in the past—and demonstrates the limitations of such comparisons....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
10-11-12
Mr Cameron will say Government is throwing its weight behind the commemorations of the beginning of the Great War in 1914.The announcement comes amid claims that Britain has been dragging its feet about the commemorations plans, compared with other countries, because of a row in Whitehall over which department will pick up the bill.Britain’s marking of the anniversary of the beginning of the “war to end all wars” is likely to focus on a new £4.5million permanent exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in south London.In keeping with the Government’s localism agenda, communities across the country will be encouraged to find their own ways of marking the centenary....
Source: Archaeo News
10-6-12
2,500 years ago the Steppes of Kazakhstan were the home to nomadic tribes, but one part of nomadic their lives were a little more permanent - where they were buried. Theses burial mounds, or 'kurgans' were anything up to 35 metres in diameter. Because the Steppes were subject to permafrost, the kurgans perfectly preserved all that was buried within them, although this later proved problematic when excavating and removing artefacts. Now an exhibition has been mounted at the Smithsonian in Washington DC (USA) to display some of the artefacts which have been uncovered in the past few decades.Because of their nomadic nature the tribes obviously revered the horse, which was vital to their lifestyle, and in one very interesting find an obviously wealthy and important man had been interred with 13 sacrificial horses. The horses were decorated in death, as in life, as extravagantly as their owner, with golden ornaments and expensive textiles. But even with these rich pickings very little is still known about their way of life and religion.The curator of the exhibition, archaeologist Alexander Nagel, is quoted as saying "Scholars are just beginning to learn more about the rituals practiced by these nomadic tribes. We do know that, later on, shamanism was practised and that it continued into the modern 19th. Century".
Source: Archaeo News
10-6-12
A team of social and earth science researchers, led by Dr Ellery Frahm, Marie Curie Experienced Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield (UK) Department of archaeology, have been making some remarkable discoveries in war torn Syria.The research has centred around a study of samples of volcanic glass (commonly known as obsidian). By using modern scientific methods, in particular X-ray analysis, the team has been able to accurately identify the point of origin of several artefacts made from the obsidian. The level of accuracy has been such that the precise location on a specific volcano can be determined. The techniques employed also included measuring the weak magnetic signals of each piece and comparing it to a known and recorded site....
Source: Archaeo News
10-2-12
A contract to build three life-sized Neolithic homes at Stonehenge in Wiltshire (England) has been put out to tender. English Heritage is inviting contractors to bid for the £60,000 project, which is part of a £27m scheme to improve the setting of the monument. Using authentic materials, the prehistoric homes will be based on those excavated at Durrington Walls. English Heritage said the buildings will provide a "real and tangible link for visitors to the distant past".The £27m scheme to build a new visitor centre and close the road alongside the ancient monument, was begun in July. But a 'key aim' for the new centre is to create "a sense of prehistoric people using, working and living in the landscape", an English Heritage spokesperson said.The recreated Neolithic buildings will form part of an interactive and experiential external exhibition at the 3,500-year-old World Heritage site which receives more than one million visitors a year. The prehistoric homes will be based on the foundations of dwellings discovered at Durrington Walls in 2007. The large settlement, dating back to 2600-2500 BC, was discovered under earthworks 3km (2 miles) from the stone circle....
Source: Archaeo News
10-8-12
According to archaeology Professor Vassil Nikolov, citing evidence from work done at the Provadia-Solnitsata archaeological site (Bulgaria) in summer 2012, Europe's oldest urban settlement is near Provadia, a town located about 40km inland from Bulgarian city of Varna.The team of archaeologists headed by Nikolov excavated stone walls estimated to date from 4700 to 4200 BCE. The walls are two metres thick and three metres high, and according to Nikolov are the earliest and most massive fortifications from European prehistory. Probably there were about 300 to 350 people living at the site in those times, living in two-storey houses and earning their living by salt mining.Today Provadia is an important salt centre. Estimates are that salt has been extracted in the area for about 7500 years. Nikolov said that salt was the currency of ancient times, both in terms of value and prestige....
Source: Archaeo News
10-10-12
Remains of a Bronze Age pathway have been discovered in Plumstead (South London, England) as part of the construction of Crossrail, a major new railway.The find was made near the rail project's Plumstead tunnel, close to Belmarsh prison where archaeologists discovered Britain's oldest known timber structure back in 2009. This new find includes two wooden stakes cut by early London hunters with an axe, and which may have been used to build a timber pathway, along with a stone hammer tool.But the discovery is not a surprise, as the Crossrail line - which will eventually link Abbey Wood to central London - follows the same route as a 3,500-year-old transport network. Made up of timber pathways, archaeologists think the route would have allowed hunters easier access to rich wildlife that lived on the lush wetlands.Crossrail's lead archaeologist Jay Carver said: "This is a very significant find and the first Bronze Age find on the Crossrail project. We know from other sites nearby that this area was probably crisscrossed by a network of pathways. As excavation works for the Plumstead tunnel portal got underway our archaeologists uncovered several wooden stakes and at least two that appear to have cut marks from a metal axe."...
Source: Think Progress
10-9-12
After Arkansas Republicans disavowed a book by state representative Jon Hubbard (R-AR) claiming slavery was “a blessing in disguise” for African Americans, Hubbard’s colleague, state Rep. Loy Mauch (R-AR) has been outed by the Arkansas Times for his pro-slavery, pro-Confederacy letters to the editor over the past decade. Mauch’s run for reelection this year is backed by the Arkansas Republican Party.In letters to the Democrat-Gazette, Mauch vehemently defended slavery and repeatedly suggested Jesus condoned it:If slavery were so God-awful, why didn’t Jesus or Paul condemn it, why was it in the Constitution and why wasn’t there a war before 1861? The South has always stood by the Constitution and limited government. When one attacks the Confederate Battle Flag, he is certainly denouncing these principles of government as well as Christianity....
Source: WaPo
10-9-12
WASHINGTON — 1859. 1910. 1924. 1937. 1948. 1961. 1971.The stroll up the gentle slope to the Home Plate Gate outside Nationals Park offers a concrete history of baseball in Washington, D.C., with the landmark years embedded into the sidewalk in huge red numerals.After 1971, understandably, there is a gap. It takes a few extra steps to get to the marker for 2005.If only those 34 years were that simple to traverse for the city’s long-suffering fans, specifically those who fought, lobbied and practically begged for the sport to return after the Senators left for Texas after the ‘71 season....
Source: WaPo
10-9-12
WASHINGTON — One of the most popular items at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington is being taken off display for a special loan to a London museum.Dorothy’s ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz” will have a special departure ceremony Tuesday. They are being sent on their first international trip to be part of an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London....
Source: AFP
10-6-12
SOFIA, Oct 06, 2012 (AFP) - Bulgaria, which has prided itself as being the only ally of Nazi Germany to save its 48,000 Jews from death camps, must now admit it allowed the killing of 11,000 Jews from territories under its control, researchers say.“You are a hero rescuer but also a brutal murderer and a cool persecutor. You cannot say the one without saying the other too,” Michael Berenbaum, founder of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, told a conference Friday in Sofia aimed at shedding light on this sombre page of Bulgaria's history.“Evil has no nationality. The elucidation of this subject will contribute to reconciliation in the Balkans,” Bulgarian political analyst Antony Todorov added.Historians say 11,000 Jews from Bulgarian-administered territories in what are now modern Macedonia and Greece did end up in Nazi death camps.But Bulgaria has used its reputation as an honourable exception and a Jewish saviour as the basis for building up ties with Israel, and both countries are preparing to mark next March the 70th anniversary of Sofia's refusal to send its Jews to be slaughtered by the Nazis.“This subject has been strongly exploited for political ends,” Bulgarian historian Nikolay Poppetrov said....
Source: WaPo
10-2-12
DALLAS — Growing up the son of sharecroppers in Mississippi, Charley Pride developed a love of country music that propelled him into a legendary career as one of its biggest stars.Now, items donated by Pride from throughout his life will become part of the Smithsonian’s upcoming National Museum of African American History and Culture, set to open in 2015. A gala reception will be held Wednesday in Pride’s hometown of Dallas to celebrate the museum gift, which includes a pair of Pride’s boots, one of his guitars and his Country Music Association male vocalist of the year award from 1971....
Source: AP
10-2-12
When the metal claw of a Bobcat tractor crashed into a human skull during a home improvement project in Georgetown last month, all work stopped. D.C. police were called, then the medical examiner.But shortly after officials analyzed the remains, found in an octagonal wooden coffin with rusted nails that was four to five feet below ground, it became clear that this was no crime scene. The dead simply had started to rise in Georgetown — again.For the second time in seven years, human remains have been unearthed in the 3300 block of Q Street NW. In 2005, masonry workers removing part of a Q Street rowhouse’s brick foundation found a jaw, some ribs and several joints. Experts later determined that they had been there at least 100 years, most likely placed in a grave lost to history....
Source: WaPo
10-3-12
GREENSBORO, Ga. — The last surviving Navy doctor who landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy during the D-Day invasion of World War II has died, according to a funeral director and a researcher.Dr. Joseph Lee Parker Jr., of Greensboro, Ga., died Sept. 27 at St. Mary’s Good Samaritan Hospital in Greensboro. He was 95.Kenneth Davey, who has done extensive research of military records associated with the Allied invasion, said the Waycross, Ga., native was the last surviving Navy physician who served on Omaha Beach....
Source: WaPo
10-3-12
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The $5 bill displayed for decades on Charles Fairbanks IV’s wall was long a treasured family heirloom from Alaska. Now, to the surprise of the grandson of a turn-of-a-century vice president, it’s also become a likely treasure trove.The rare find is expected to fetch as much as $300,000 at auction this month when a Texas auctioneer plans to put it up for bids in Dallas and online as part of the American Numismatic Association National Money Show....
Source: WaPo
10-4-12
There’s a sour note in the legacy of bluegrass music legend Bill Monroe, as the man who runs an annual festival in Monroe’s honor is locked in a legal battle with the county over who gets to use Monroe’s name.Campbell “Doc” Mercer can’t use Monroe’s likeness or name to promote The Jerusalem Ridge Bluegrass Music Festival, which he puts on annually to honor the “Father of Bluegrass.”Ohio County and the county industrial foundation lay legal claim to Monroe’s name and image, having bought the usage rights from the musician’s son 13 years ago....
Source: WaPo
10-4-12
LOS ANGELES — A film dramatizing the death of Osama bin Laden is set to debut next month on the National Geographic Channel, two days before the presidential election.“Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden,” from The Weinstein Co. and Voltage Pictures, will air Sunday, Nov. 4, the channel said Thursday. President Barack Obama faces Republican challenger Mitt Romney at the polls two days later.Weinstein co-chairman Harvey Weinstein is a prominent fundraiser for Obama’s re-election campaign, which has touted bin Laden’s death as an example of the president’s leadership....
Source: WaPo
10-5-12
NEW YORK — Muhammad Ali owned the night without saying a word.The boxing great was the guest of honor Thursday night at the 4th annual Norman Mailer Center benefit gala, which benefited the Norman Mailer Writers Colony, named for the late author. An old friend of Mailer, whose classic “The Fight” was an account of Ali’s stunning defeat of then-heavyweight champion George Foreman in 1974, Ali was in attendance to watch the first ever presentation of the Muhammad Ali Ethics Award. The $10,000 writing prize for college students is co-sponsored by the Mailer center and the Muhammad Ali center....
Source: WaPo
10-4-12
When it comes to historic preservation, every generation is dismissive of buildings from the recent past in favor of those that go further back in time.As Rice University architectural historian Stephen Fox put it, “Each generation has its own ignorance of recent stuff.”In the early 20th century, preservationists referred to the Victorian era as “the dark ages” and eschewed its buildings for colonial and federalist-styled ones that predated them, Fox said. Twenty-five years later in the 1950s and 1960s, the preservationists deemed all things Victorian to be the “cutting edge of taste,” but derided 30- to 40-year-old Art Deco-styled buildings as “too decorative.” In the 1970s and ’80s, this style was embraced for the same reason it was once dismissed....
