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: Archaeo News
Oct 8, 2012
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: NYT
Oct 7, 2012
A doctoral student at Baruch College is studying the luminescent proteins of Bermuda fireworms, glowing green creatures that may have caught Christopher Columbus’s eye 520 years ago.At 10 p.m. on Oct. 11, 1492, Christopher Columbus saw a glimmer in the distance as he stood on the deck of the Santa María. The faraway flash was “so small a body that he could not affirm it to be land,” Columbus wrote, referring to himself in the third person.He called over two of his crew members, but the light was so faint that only one man could discern it. Staring harder, Columbus wrote, he “again perceived it once or twice, appearing like the light of a wax candle moving up and down, which some thought an indication of land.”...Related LinksHNN Hot Topics: Columbus Day
Source: NYT
Oct 7, 2012
As the New York Film Festival slides into its final weekend on Friday, the fall’s other major cinematic event opens on Thursday, just a few blocks away. Celebrating its 10th anniversary, “To Save and Project,” the Museum of Modern Art’s international celebration of film preservation, offers a dense and varied collection of films that feels like a festival in itself — one that, unlike most, isn’t subject to the tyranny of the present.
Source: NYT
Oct 7, 2012
[Vladimir Putin turns 60 this week.]...For leaders of the Kremlin, turning 60 is no small matter. It is a milestone heavy with history and symbolism, sometimes marked by elaborate ceremony and sometimes not, but one that inevitably reminds the public that a clock is ticking, that even the most powerful, larger-than-life figures eventually yield to the grip of time....Stalin’s 60th birthday in December 1939 was such a big deal that it overshadowed news of the war between Germany and the Allies, and the Soviet Union’s own war with Finland. A new official biography was released, with an initial print run of one million copies, and Stalin was given the Order of Lenin, then the country’s highest honor.When Khrushchev received the same award on his 60th birthday in 1954, it was part of a growing body of evidence that he was gaining the upper hand in a power struggle. On his 60th birthday in 1966, Brezhnev was given an even higher award, Hero of the Soviet Union. He died in office in 1982.
Source: NYT
Oct 7, 2012
DUNVEGAN, Ontario — Although it produced “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the War of 1812 does not get much attention in the United States. In Canada, however, the federal government is devoting surprising attention to the bicentennial of the conflict, which it describes bluntly in a new television commercial as an act of American aggression against Canada.Much about the war is fiercely debated by historians but one thing is clear: Canada was not yet a country at the time of the war, which pitted the United States against the British.
Source: Archaeo News
Oct 6, 2012
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
Oct 6, 2012
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: AFP
Oct 6, 2012
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: NYT
Oct 6, 2012
Early in the summer of 1952, after his first year of dental school at Emory University in Atlanta, Perry Brickman received a letter from the dean. It informed him that he had flunked out.Mr. Brickman was mystified. He had been a B-plus student in biology as an Emory undergraduate and had earned early admission to dental school. He had never failed a course in his life.Over the next few weeks of that summer, Mr. Brickman found out that three of his classmates had also been failed. All of them happened to be Jewish. Yet instead of fighting back, Mr. Brickman and his friends searched for other dental schools and swallowed a shame that lasted decades....
Source: WaPo
Oct 5, 2012
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: NYT
Oct 5, 2012
His name was Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, but you wouldn’t have known it from the speakers who paid tribute to him on Friday for his forceful, yet genial, guidance of The New York Times through more than three decades of turbulence and growth.From start to finish he was Punch, just Punch. It is how everyone knew him during his years as chairman and chief executive of The New York Times Company and publisher of its flagship newspaper.That boyhood nickname traveled with him throughout a life that ended last Saturday when he died at 86 after years of illness. And it was how he was referred to by relatives and former colleagues at a remembrance that was true to a man who prized orderliness and who, by all accounts, had scant interest in having people go on and on about him....
Source: NYT
Oct 5, 2012
A former manager at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in Manhattan was fired for raising health and security concerns at one of the most security-conscious places in the world, he claimed in a lawsuit filed on Friday.The former manager, Thomas Cancelliere, who was facilities director of the memorial, alerted his bosses that he believed that the water in the memorial’s signature fountains carried illness-causing bacteria, that exit gates were too narrow and could hinder an evacuation and that there were no security checks at a public garage directly below the off-site room where the memorial’s millions of visitors are screened, the lawsuit said....
Source: AP
Oct 5, 2012
he discovery of a tomb that experts believe might be that of a great Maya queen could redefine the understanding of women's political roles during the Classic Maya period, experts said Thursday.A team of U.S. and Guatemalan experts led by anthropologist David Freidel found a stone jar at a burial chamber in northern Guatemala that led them to believe it is the burial site of Lady K'abel, considered the military governor of an ancient Maya city during the 7th century...
Source: AFP
Oct 5, 2012
Archaeologists this week returned to Antikythera, the Aegean Sea island where sponge divers in 1900-1901 found the so-called Antikythera Mechanism, a remarkable 2nd-century BCE device that tracked the cycles of the solar system. "These are unexplored sea depths beneath a trade route known since antiquity," said Angeliki Simosi, head of Greece's ephorate of underwater antiquities."This is virgin territory," she told AFP. Believed to operate by crank and containing inter-meshing gears, the mechanism could be used to calculate eclipses and moon cycles. The technology was comparable to astronomical clocks that only appeared some 1,600 years later. It was found in the wreck of a cargo ship apparently carrying booty to Rome...
Source: AP
Oct 5, 2012
Mexican archaeologists say they have determined that the ancient Mayas built watchtower-style structures atop the ceremonial ball court at the temples of Chichen Itza to observe the equinoxes and solstices, and they said Friday that the discovery adds to understanding of the many layers of ritual significance that the ball game had for the culture.The structures sit atop the low walls of the court, where the Mayas played a game that consisted, as far as experts can tell, of knocking a heavy, latex ball with their elbows, knees or hips, through a stone ring set in the walls...
Source: AP
Oct 5, 2012
Hundreds of people gathered in the tiny Mississippi Delta town of Ruleville to dedicate a statue of civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer.Hamer died in 1977. She was known for saying she was "sick and tired of being sick and tired."...
Source: AP
Oct 5, 2012
Mexican archaeologists said Friday they uncovered the largest number of skulls ever found in one offering at the most sacred temple of the Aztec empire dating back more than 500 years.The finding reveals new ways the pre-Colombian civilization used skulls in rituals at Mexico City's Templo Mayor, experts said. That's where the most important Aztec ceremonies took place between 1325 until the Spanish conquest in 1521.The 50 skulls were found at one sacrificial stone. Five were buried under the stone, and each had holes on both sides - signaling they were hung on a skull rack....
Source: WaPo
Oct 4, 2012
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
Oct 4, 2012
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
Oct 4, 2012
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....
