|
Sent
free to subscribers to nzaawebsubscribers at yahoogroups.com
RSS link for this
news:
The
New Zealand archaeological Wiki.
archaeopedia.com
Want to be an archaeologist? -
our page on Careers
in Archaeology will help.
More
Touring
New Zealand? - look at this page - Archaeological
Sites for the Cultural Tourist. More
|
Friday, April 29, 2005
Jawbone hints at earliest Britons, NZ Link
A piece of jawbone that has lain in Torquay Museum, Devon, for nearly 80 years could be the oldest example of a modern human yet found in Europe.
The Kent's Cavern specimen was thought to be about 31,000 years old, but re-dating shows it is actually between 37,000 and 40,000 years old.
However, the early dates lead the team behind the research to wonder if the jawbone is actually from a Neanderthal.
A new examination of the fragment along with DNA analysis could sort this out.
The re-dating of this specimen puts it at the very dawn of the arrival of modern humans in Europe" said Tom Higham f the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit.
Sir Arthur Keith, who was then Britain's leading anatomist, identified the specimen - known as Kent's Cavern 4 - as that of a modern human (Homo sapiens). It has by and large been accepted as such ever since.
The real significance of Kent's Cavern 4 was not recognised until the 1980s, when radiocarbon dating revealed its age to be 31,000 years old.
Glue contamination
However, the recent discovery that the bone had been strengthened with paper glue (probably soon after it was excavated) placed that radiocarbon age in doubt.
Now, Roger Jacobi of the British Museum and Tom Higham of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit have obtained new radiocarbon dates for animal bones in cave sediments just above and just below where the jaw fragment was.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Austronesians migrated from Taiwan, says archaeologist
Austronesian-speaking people across the Asia-Pacific region originated from Taiwan, an Australian academic said yesterday.
Professor Peter Bellwood, director of the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at Australian National University, said archaeological evidence proved that ancestors of today's Austronesian-speaking people, numbering about 300 million, migrated from Taiwan to Pacific Rim areas.
Bellwood became convinced of his conclusion after completing fieldwork recently in the northern Philippine's Batan Island and the Yer Bac prehistoric site in northern Vietnam, where he found pieces of penannular jade rings and earthenware that can be linked to prehistoric Taiwan.
In a speech delivered at the National Museum of Prehistory in Taitung, Bellwood said that jade was not produced in most of the Austronesian-speaking areas except for Taiwan and the pieces of penannular jade rings found in both Batan and Yer Bac were similar to those found in Hualien, eastern Taiwan."
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Gene project can bring only good
(Opinion) The use of genetics in research has proved to be a powerful but highly controversial tool. The considerable benefits promised by science, such as improved health and better nutrition, always raise equally compelling concerns about ethics and the unplanned effects on the environment.
But genetic research is not just about looking forward to a brave new world free of disease and malnutrition, it can also help to solve some of mysteries of the human past. For instance, recent DNA studies back theories that all humans came out of Africa and that they had common ancestors.
The second category arises from worries about how interpretations of the past can affect the future. Wellington lawyer Moana Jackson questioned the project’s motives in these terms: "I’m sure part of it will be to try to strengthen some of the existing theories about the arrival of indigenous peoples in various countries, and that has a sordid history because it has been used to diminish indigenous rights."
Once again, this is not a sufficient reason for rejecting the project. It is hard to see how a refinement of the date that a particular land, say New Zealand, was originally settled can have a material effect on people’s rights in the 21st century. Regardless of whether the Maori came 800 or 1200 years ago, it was still long before Pakeha first set foot on these shores.
Pitched against these dubious objections are more powerful reasons to support the Genographic project. The quest for origins and explanations is an essential part of what it is to be human. If human beings are to fully understand themselves they need to know where they came from. In the past the answers were related as myths, but science has gradually replaced myth with fact. Thanks to archaeology and some genetic research, we already know humans came from Africa.
Monday, April 25, 2005
Maori alarm at gene project
Dr Paul Reynolds of Auckland University's Maori research centre, Nga Pae o te Maramatanga, urged Maori to boycott the project because it implied that people's origins could be traced in their genes.
'This type of research is colonisation as usual,' he said.
'Indigenous people will be saying we already have our stories about our origins, so we don't need a scientific rationale to justify our origins.
'And of course the collection of DNA through blood samples goes against our view of the body as tapu, or sacred, which also leads on to the misuse of the body and body parts by some researchers.' "
CT scan unmasks mummy
An ancient Egyptian at Auckland Museum has had the benefit of that most modern of medical inventions, CT scanning, to help solve the mystery of her identity.
The name, gender, occupation and probable age of the mummy were revealed during a four-year process to preserve the remains, which also involved repositioning some of the bandages and building a special low-oxygen display case. "
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Australia ICOMOS Conference 2005
Corrugations: The Romance and Reality of Historic Roads
First Announcement & Call for Papers
SAVE THESE DATES!
25th 28th November 2005
The Australia ICOMOS Conference Corrugations: The Romance & Reality of Historic Roads will be held this year in Melbourne, 25-28th November. Information about the call for papers is now available from the website at www.corrugations.net.au . The online registration will be up and running soon.
Roads tie us together, and hold great cultural significance, but what bumps have there been along the way, and what rough patches do we face in their future conservation? The Corrugations Conference aims to explore a range of themes, and facilitate discourse on the emerging issues of historic roads and their conservation.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Monday, April 18, 2005
Court limits work at historic site
The Environment Court has stopped part of a $160 million development near Tauranga, ruling that building is banned on a site of historic, cultural and archaeological importance.
But the developers are still allowed to go ahead with their 28ha development of the wider area, which the court said would destroy other parts of the land.
Developers Papamoa Junction went to court to oppose the Historic Places Trust?s refusal to allow it to destroy part of an archaeological site. "
Thursday, April 14, 2005
ASHA Conference 2005
'The City and the Bush'
Melbourne, 29 Sept - 2 Oct 2005
The 2005 ASHA conference will be held at La Trobe University's city campus, adjacent the vibrant Queen Victoria Market precinct. The theme will be reflected in walking tours of public archaeology interpretive displays on some of Melbourne's recent archaeological excavations, a visit to the new Heritage Victoria Conservation Laboratory, and a post-conference field-trip to heritage sites and wineries on the Mornington Peninsula.
Papers are now being sought for this conference. People are invited to consider offering a paper and/or organising a session. There
will be a poster session for students and a prize for the best student paper presented. If you are interested in offering a paper or
poster please send a title, 100 word abstract, and your contact details. Session organisers are asked to provide a session title, list of
participants and their contact details, and titles and abstracts for all papers. The closing date for abstracts is 1 August 2005.
For further information, and to send in abstracts, contact Sam Spiers
Archaeology, La Trobe
University, Melbourne, Australia 3084, srspiers@yahoo.com.au
Geneticists take 'moon shot' of historic travel across globe
A genetic project to map the origins of humanity began yesterday with a global effort to collect DNA samples from thousands of people across the world.
The aim is to trace the big migrations that have taken place over the past 100,000 years as our ancestors moved out of Africa to populate the planet.
By analysing the tiny differences between the DNA of indigenous people alive today, scientists hope to build a map of the migratory routes that our distant relatives took when exploring new places to live.
The Genographic Project will run for at least five years and cost tens of millions of pounds, according to its director Spencer Wells, a population geneticist. "
Friday, April 08, 2005
Study will put Opotiki's heritage on the map
More of Opotiki’s historical places will be on the national heritage “map” after a comprehensive study of the town centre, which starts this month.
A project team that includes conservation architects, historians and an archaeologist will work together over the next few months on the most in-depth survey ever made of Opotiki’s heritage.
Monday, April 04, 2005
New Zealand Archaeology: "Archaeology in New Zealand
Vol 48(1) out now:
Notes and News
Fieldwork
Jack Golson, Macmillan Brown Lecture
Nigel Prickett, Taranaki landscapes
John McCraw, Goldfields Whitelaw Turbines
Phil Moore, Waihi obsidian"
|
Become
a Member of the N.Z. Archaeological Association
|
Members
get our quarterly magazine, Archaeology in New Zealand and discounts on publications
and events. |
|
|
This
message is intended to be compliant with New Zealand Law: The Unsolicited
Electronic Messages Act 2007. Please communicate with the webmaster on any
issues that may arise in this regard.
|
Opinions
in items linked in this column are not those of the Association.
An
archive of news posts can be accessed at http://www.nzarchaeology.org/blog/archive/
|
|
