Science and Religion Today » Discoveries

Scientists Discover Oldest Known Dinosaur Relative

Heather Wax — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:12:18 +0000

An international team of researchers has found that the closest relatives of dinosaurs were more distinct creatures than they had expected. In the journal Nature, the team, including Randall Irmis of the Utah Museum of Natural History and the University of Utah and Sterling Nesbitt of the University of Texas at Austin, describes a proto-dinosaur that was rather squat, walked on four legs, probably ate plants or a combination of plants and meat, and lived around 10 million years earlier than dinosaurs.
The species, called Asilisaurus kongwe (derived from “asili”—Swahili for ancestor or foundation; “sauros”—Greek for lizard; and “kongwe”—Swahili for ancient) is the first proto-dinosaur recovered from the Triassic period in Africa. The first bones of Asilisaurus were found in 2007, and fossil bones of more than a dozen of the creatures were recovered from a single bone bed in southern Tanzania.
Asilisaurus kongwe is part of a newly recognized group known as silesaurs, which were scattered across the globe during the Triassic period, before the continents had separated, a write-up of the research notes. Silesaurs are the closest relatives of dinosaurs, analogous to the relationship between humans and chimps. The oldest dinosaurs discovered so far are 230 million years old, and the presence of their closest relatives 10 million to 15 million years earlier implies that silesaurs and dinosaurs of the bipedal, carnivorous sort had already diverged from a common ancestor by 245 million years ago. Silesaurs lived side by side with early dinosaurs throughout much of the Triassic period. Other relatives of dinosaurs may have also originated much earlier than previously thought, the researchers believe.

Was the Bible Written Earlier Than Scholars Think?

Heather Wax — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:19:55 +0000

Gershon Galil of the University of Haifa has deciphered the earliest known Hebrew inscription, dating from to the 10th century B.C., written on a shard of clay found near the Valley of Elah in Israel. This makes it possible, he says, that parts of the Bible could have been written that far back, centuries earlier than scholars now believe.
As Galil explains:

It can now be maintained that it was highly reasonable that during the 10th century BCE, during the reign of King David, there were scribes in Israel who were able to write literary texts and complex historiographies, such as the books of Judges and Samuel.

Here is the English translation of the inscription, which is similar in content to a number of biblical passages:

1′ you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].
2′ Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]
3′ [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]
4′ the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.
5′ Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.

Exposed Ancient Quarry—Now With Pics!

Heather Wax — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:35:00 +0000

Check out these pictures from the 2,000-year-old quarry found in the Jordan valley near Jericho (courtesy of the University of Haifa). The artificial underground cave was uncovered by a team from the university headed by biblical archaeologist Adam Zertal (who previously led the excavation of foot-shaped structures in the valley). A number of engravings were found in the cave, including Byzantine cross markings (pictured above left), Zodiac symbols (pictured below left) and Roman letters, and Zertal says it’s possible the cavern was an early monastery. —Heather Wax

Hear More About "Ida"

Heather Wax — Tue, 26 May 2009 12:44:00 +0000

Listen to Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, on the Culture Shocks radio show today at 4 p.m. She’ll talk about the significance of Darwinius masillae (aka “Ida”), the 47 million-year-old primate fossil unveiled last week with much hype, and explain why the fossil is “spectacular but not a missing link.”
The program is hosted by the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Very Old Primate Fossil Is Very Big Deal

Heather Wax — Wed, 20 May 2009 11:56:00 +0000

Say hello to “Ida,” the small, 47 million-year-old fossil unearthed in Germany and unveiled yesterday at a news conference in New York. She’s a fascinating and important find—and she’s now a media darling (thanks to a huge publicity campaign), with her own Web site, book, and History Channel documentary.
Why is she so fascinating, besides the fact that she’s so old? Her anatomy puts her at a bridge point between two groups of primates: the haplorhines, which include monkeys, apes, and humans, and the strepsirrhines, which include lemurs. Ida, formally known as Darwinius masillae, has features from the strepsirrhine line (like lemurs) but is more related to the human evolutionary line, the research team argues. They say she appears to be a very early haplorhine, with forward-facing eyes, opposable thumbs, fingertips with nails, and an ankle bone like ours, only smaller. While her skeleton is like a lemur’s, she doesn’t have the characteristic “grooming claw” on her second toe or a fused row of teeth called a “toothcomb.”
She’s also remarkably well preserved. Ida is about 95 percent complete, which means scientists have been able to get lots of information from her. They’re able to see almost all her bones, remnants of tissue and hair, and what she had for her last meal (fruit and leaves).

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How Early Did Humans Think Symbolically?

Heather Wax — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:00:00 +0000

A few years ago, I wrote a story about shell beads found in South Africa’s Blombos Cave. Before they were found, the accepted wisdom was that humans in Europe began making symbolic art and decoration 40,000 years ago, but these beads dated back about 75,000 years. With the discovery, scientists began to reconsider when symbolic thinking began and the “timing of the appearance of one of the behaviors that seems more distinctive of the human species, that of artificially changing the appearance of our body using techniques such as personal ornamentation, tattooing, scarification, body painting,” said Francesco d’Errico, a member of the team and a researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research in France.
Now, a group of archaeologists has found a bunch of older shell beads in a limestone cave in eastern Morocco. Shell ornaments were found in 82,000-year-old deposits in the cave a couple years back, and other perforated shells, some also covered with red ochre, have been discovered in even earlier layers. What’s striking, the researchers say, is that the same species of shell was used both there and in South Africa, two regions that are far from each other.
Finding the older Moroccan beads is “exciting,” says University of Oxford archaeologist Nick Barton, who led the research team, “because they show bead manufacturing probably arose independently in different cultures and confirms a long suspected pattern that humans with modern symbolic behavior were present from a very early stage at both ends of the continent, probably as early as 110,000 years ago.’’
The findings will appear in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews. —Heather Wax

Discovery Linked to Biblical Stone Structures

Heather Wax — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 12:25:00 +0000

In the Jordan valley, researchers from the University of Haifa have found five structures, each designed in the shape of a giant human “foot.” The structures, says archaeologist Adam Zertal, who led the team, “are the first sites that the People of Israel built upon entering Canaan and they testify to the biblical concept of ownership of the land with the foot.” The foot, he says, was a symbol used to mark ownership of a territory, control over an enemy, and a link between people and the land.
The stone structures, it’s believed, could be connected with what’s known in the Bible as”gilgal” (in Hebrew), sites that were used for ceremonial assemblies and rituals. The excavated “feet” seem to have been built at the right time, and are the right shape and size to have been used for human gatherings. “I am an archaeologist and only deal with the scientific findings,” Zertal says, “so I do not go into the additional meanings of the discovery, if there are any.”
Here’s what’s neat: The Hebrew word for “foot”—regel—is also used to refer to a festival, holiday, and ascending to see the face of God. The Hebrew term “aliya la-regel,” which literally means “ascending to the foot,” has come to be known as a “pilgrimage” in English. Eventually, “aliya la-regel” became associated with Jerusalem—which became Israel’s religious center—but it seems the “foot” structures in the Jordan valley could be the source of the term. “Now, following these discoveries,” Zertal says, “the meanings of the terms become clear. Identifying the ‘foot’ enclosures as ancient Israeli ceremonial sites leads us to a series of new possibilities to explain the beginnings of Israel, of the People of Israel’s festivals and holidays.” —Heather Wax

Earliest Nuclear Family Found—Embracing

Heather Wax — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:27:00 +0000

A team of researchers has found the oldest molecular genetic evidence of a nuclear family, in one of four graves dating back about 4,600 years to the Stone Age. Using DNA analysis, the researchers identified the remains in one grave as a mother, father, and two sons ages 8 or 9 and 4 or 5. A second grave contained three children, two of which who had the same mother, though they are buried with another woman, likely a paternal aunt or possibly a step-mother. In total, the remains of 13 people were found, all of whom were interned at the same time.
Evidence—like a stone projectile point found embedded in the vertebra of one female and the defense injuries to the forearms and hands found on several of the bodies—suggest that the community was violently attacked by another group. It’s believed that those who survived the raid later returned and, using their knowledge of the familial bonds among the dead, took great care to bury the dead according to their relationships in life. Several pairs were arranged face to face, with their arms and hands linked.
The graves were discovered at the early farming site of Eulau in Germany. Before humans began to farm, which caused them to stay in one place, they lived as nomadic hunters and gatherers—and the basic unit of social organization, anthropologists believe, was not the nuclear family, but rather the band or tribe. “By establishing the genetic links between the two adults and two children buried together in one grave, we have established the presence of the classic nuclear family in a prehistoric context in Central Europe—to our knowledge the oldest authentic molecular genetic evidence so far,” says Wolfgang Haak of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide, who led the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Their unity in death suggests a unity in life. However, this does not establish the elemental family to be a universal model or the most ancient institution of human communities.” —Heather Wax

Stone Believed to Hold Soul of the Dead

Heather Wax — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:29:00 +0000

University of Chicago archaeologists working in southeastern Turkey have found a chiseled stone monument, or “stele,” that commemorates the life—and, it was believed, holds the soul—of an eighth-century royal official named Kattamuwa. The funeral monument, which includes an incised image of the man and an inscription, is believed to be the first written evidence that the people in that region believed the soul was separate from the body. The slab is 800 pounds, three feet tall, and two feet wide.
The archaeologists found no evidence of a burial or tomb in the remains of the ancient city of Sam’al (near the Syrian border), but they have found cremation urns dating to the same period in neighboring excavation sites. The archaeologists think the people in Sam’al also practiced cremation—a practice that breached biblical law, according to Semitic cultures like the Jews, who felt the body and soul were inseparable.
The stone’s inscription, which was translated by Dennis Pardee, a professor of Near Eastern languages and civilization at the University of Chicago, reads, in part: “I, Kuttamuwa, servant of [the king] Panamuwa, am the one who oversaw the production of this stele for myself while still living. I placed it in an eternal chamber [?] and established a feast at this chamber [?]: a bull for [the god] Hadad, a ram for [the god] Shamash and a ram for my soul that is in this stele.”
In the chiseled picture, a bearded man (presumably Kuttamuwa) wears a tasseled cap and fringed cloak, and raises a cup of wine with his right hand. He’s sitting in front of table full of food, believed to symbolize the afterlife he expected to enjoy, and the inscription calls on his descendants to regularly bring food for his soul—further evidence that the people in this ancient city believed the soul lived not in the bones of the dead, as in traditional Semitic thought, but in the stone. (In front of the stone, archaeologists found food remains and fragments of the same type of bowls depicted in the picture.)
The stele was discovered last summer at a site called Zincirli (pronounced Zin-jeer-lee) by the Neubauer Expedition, led by David Schloen of The Oriental Institute. Later this week, Schloen and Pardee will present their findings in Boston at meetings of the American Schools of Oriental Research and the Society of Biblical Literature. —Heather Wax

The Oldest Church in the World?

Heather Wax — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:55:00 +0000

In an underground cave in Jordan, archaeologists think they’ve found what might be the oldest Christian church. The space, underneath the St. Georgeous Church in Rihab, dates back to the first century and appears to have served as a refuge—and the site of rituals—for Christians fleeing persecution in Jerusalem. In an inscription on the floor, they call themselves the “70 beloved by God and the divine.”
There are living quarters and a cistern, which would have provided water for the refugees, as well as what the archaeologists are calling a “chapel.” It contains a circular area of seats known as an “apse,” which has been found in another cave once used for Christian worship. If they’re right about the date, which has yet to be confirmed, the chapel will be two hundred years older than what currently stand as the earliest examples of Christian churches. —Stephen Mapes