Archaeology: Camelids of South America: Llama and Alpaca

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Camelids of South America: Llama and Alpaca Feb 6th 2012, 07:59 I don't know about you, but I've always been confused about llamas and alpacas. In zoos I've visited, they looked pretty similar to me, and never having done much study on them, well, all I knew was they were domesticated in South America, somewhere high in the Andes. Right: Llama (Lama glama), photo by Elliot Brown. Left: Alpaca (Lama pacos), photo by Teo Romera It turns out they are pretty similar. The wild forms of the species evolved from the same creature some two million years ago. Both were domesticated in the same time and place, and, like their distant camel cousins, both were and are used for meat, and their dung was and is used for fuel. But each came from a different wild camel form and each has a distinct and very useful quality that made both of them vital for the survival of the cold climate Andean herders who turned them into domesticates. Read the history of Llamas and Alpacas Or their cousins, Bactrians and Dromedaries More Animal Domestication Stories

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Great Ball Court and Temple of the Jaguars

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Great Ball Court and Temple of the Jaguars Feb 6th 2012, 11:08 This photograph shows the south 1/2 of the ball court, the bottom of the I and a portion of the game walls. The tall game walls are on both sides of main playing alley, and stone rings are set high in these side walls, presumably for shooting balls through. Reliefs along the lower parts of these walls depict the ancient ball game ritual, including the sacrifice of the losers by the victors. The very large building is called the Temple of the Jaguars, which looks down into the ball court from the east platform, with a lower chamber opening outside into the main plaza. The second story of the Temple of Jaguars is reached by an extremely steep stairway at the east end of the court, visible in this photo. The balustrade of this staircase is carved to represent a feathered serpent. Serpent columns support the lintels of the wide doorway facing the plaza, and the doorjambs are decorated with typical Toltec warrior themes. A frieze appears here of a jaguar and circular shield motif in a flat relief, similar to that found at Tula. In the chamber is a now badly defaced mural of a battle scene with hundreds of warriors laying siege to a Maya village. The crazed explorer Augustus Le Plongeon interpreted the battle scene in the interior of the Temple of the Jaguars (thought by modern scholars to be the 9th century sack of Piedras Negras) as the battle between Prince Coh leader of Moo (Le Plongeon's name for Chichén Itzá) and Prince Aac (Le Plongeon's name for the leader of Uxmal), which was lost by Prince Coh. Coh's widow (now Queen Moo) had to marry Prince Aac and she cursed Moo to destruction. Afterwards, according to Le Plongeon, Queen Moo left Mexico for Egypt and becomes Isis, and eventually is reincarnated as--surprise! Le Plongeon's wife Alice. Mayanist Falken Forshaw comments: "The thinking now is that this court is not a place to play ball, being an "effigy" court for the purpose of ceremonial political and religious installations. The locations of the Chichen Itza ballcourts are set in the alignments of the windows of the Caracol's upper chamber (this is contained in Horst Hartung's book, Zeremonialzentren der Maya and very ignored by scholarship.) The ballcourt was also designed using sacred geometry and astronomy, some of the latter being published in journals. The playing alley is aligned using a diagonal axis that it N-S."

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Chichén Itzá (Mexico)

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Chichén Itzá (Mexico) Feb 6th 2012, 11:08 Chichén Itzá is a Maya civilization archaeological ruin in the Yucatán peninsula of Mexico. The site's architecture has both classic Puuc Maya and Toltec influences, making it a fascinating city to wander through. Built beginning about 700 AD, the site reached its heyday between about 900 and 1100 AD. Chichén Itzá, A Walking Tour Maya Civilization Toltec Civilization More on Chichén Itzá

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Mohenjo-daro (Pakistan)

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Mohenjo-daro (Pakistan) Feb 6th 2012, 11:08 Mohenjo-daro (also spelled Mohanjo-Daro and translated as "Mound of Mohan"; or Moenjo-daro "Mound of the Dead") is an important Indus civilization site, located in the Sindh province of Pakistan in the floodplain of the Indus River. The site is the largest of the known Indus cities, extending over an area of some 250 hectares, and its Indus occupations lasted between about 2600-1900 BC. The site is one of the best-preserved of the Indus civilization sites, with structures made primarily of fired adobe brick. Mohenjo-daro was first occupied about 3500 BC, and it was continuously occupied until between 1700 and 1300 BC, although the site was likely not completely abandoned until long after the Harappan occupation was ended. The people at Mohenjo-daro manufactured seals and beads, and worked copper, carved shell and ivory, and produced and stone tools. Stone carvings of seated male figures may represent ancestral leaders of the community, and may not in fact represent priests or kings despite such names as "priest king". Many other figurines, in the form of human and animal figurines were produced at Mohenjo-daro of terracotta, bronze, faience and shell. Archaeological Ruins at Mohenjo-daro The most prominent mound on the site is called the citadel; it measures 6.6 hectares in area and was surrounded by a fortified wall with a large brick gateway in the southeast corner. Excavations at Mohenjo-daro in the region of the citadel mound identified a large colonaded building with a specially designed water tank called 'the Great Bath'. South of the Great Bath is a massive building with solid brick foundations called 'the Granary' which probably operated as a large meeting place rather than for storage. Mohenjo-daro Research Mohenjo-Daro was first discovered in 1922 by R.D. Banerji. Large-scale excavations were undertaken JOhn Marshall, K.N. Dikshit, Ernest Mackay and others throughout the 1930s; the most recent was conducted by G.F. Dales in the 1950s. Sources The best place to read more about Mohenjo-daro is on the Harappa site, including several articles illustrated by an abundance of photos, from J. Mark Kenoyer. A Walk Through Mohenjo-daro Mohenjo-daro: An Ancient Indus Valley Civilization Metropolis Mohenjo-daro in Photographs

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Tell, Til, Tel, or Tal

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Tell, Til, Tel, or Tal Feb 6th 2012, 11:08 What is a Tell? Many of the oldest cities in the world are called tells (also spelled tel, til or tal). The word 'tell' is from the Arabic language, meaning mound or mount. Ancient cities, like modern ones, experience natural and cultural disasters, such as fires, earthquakes, and assaults from enemies. If a city's structures were demolished in prehistory, there was no way to remove all the demolition rubble; people built right on top of the ruins. In many ancient cities, such as the site of Hisarlik thought to be ancient Troy and shown in the figure, there are many many layers of old building debris, as citizens rebuilt again and again in the same locations. Archaeologists call the layers in an archaeological site the 'stratigraphy'. Modern Cities Modern cities today are also tells, although no-one calls them that. Beneath the streets of most modern cities have been found cemeteries, streets, and building foundations from centuries ago. For example, in New York City recently was discovered the 19th century streets and building foundations of the notorious Five Points neighborhood several feet below the modern city streets. The medieval remains of a hospital were discovered six feet below the modern surface of Spitalfields in London. Urban Archaeology Because of the complex stratigraphy found by archaeologists in modern cities, a special branch of archaeology has developed called urban archaeology, with its own set of tools and processes. Buried cities, whether modern or ancient, develop extremely complex stratigraphy as buildings fall and are rebuilt. One very useful tool archaeologists use to keep track of the levels in an urban or tell situation is called a Harris Matrix.

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: The Blue Mosque of Istanbul

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The Blue Mosque of Istanbul Feb 5th 2012, 11:08 Constantinople is the old name for Istanbul, the great city located in what is now Turkey. The first urban settlement at the site of Istanbul was founded as Greek colony about 658 BC, led by a fellow named Byzas from Megara. The town was then called Byzantium. In AD 330, Byzantium was reconfigured as the capital city of the Emperor Constantine the Great, head of the Byzantine Empire. It fell to the Ottoman Empire 1000 years later, in 1453. It was officially renamed Istanbul in 1923. The city has some of the most beautiful architecture in the world, from Greek, Byzantine, and Islamic civilizations. The Blue Mosque pictured here was built between 1609 and 1616 at the behest of Sultan Ahmet I, and is said to be patterned on the Hagia Sophia. Sources For more history of Constantine and his city, see N.S. Gill's article on Constantine the Great. More photos can be found at the Photo Gallery of the Blue Mosque, from About.com's guide to atheism.

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: RCYBP

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RCYBP Feb 5th 2012, 11:08 RCYBP stands for Radio Carbon Years Before the Present, although it is abbreviated in many different ways. It is a shorthand reference to the uncalibrated date recovered from carbon 14 dating. In brief, radiocarbon dating compares the amount of c14 in a dead animal or plant to the available carbon in the atmosphere. (See the glossary entry for more details). But, carbon in the atmosphere has fluctuated over time, and so raw RCYBP dates must be calibrated to a more accurate time value. In general, radiocarbon dates can be calibrated by using comparable dendrochronological dates or other known dating systems. Numerous software programs have been developed to complete the calibrations for the investigator, including a new online version of the best known software CALIB. Calibrated dates are typically listed in publications with the word "cal" after it. The correction data for calibrating RCYBP dates is derived from available dendrochronological records within a given region, a fact which has spurred the extension of tree ring research. The latest information about available correction dates is published in the journal Radiocarbon and available for download in a free file called IntCal04 Supplemental Data. Common Abbreviations for RCYBP: C14 ka BP, 14C ka BP, 14C ka BP, radiocarbon years, c14 years before the present, rcbp, carbon-14 years before the present, CYBP Common Abbreviations for Calibrated Dates: cal BP, cal yr. B.P. Sources Read more about the Radiocarbon Revolution, part of the Timing is Everything short course on archaeological dating. Also, see the online calculator called CALIB; the original program was developed by Minze Stuiver and colleagues over 20 years ago and is probably the best known. Also see the glossary entry for cal BP for additional information about how dates are calibrated. Reimer, P., et al. 2009 IntCal09 and Marine09 radiocarbon age calibration curves, 0-50,000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon 51(4):1111-1150. Reimer, Paula J. et al. 2004. IntCal04: Calibration Issue. Radiocarbon 46(3). Stuiver, Minze and Bernd Becker 1986 High-precision decadal calibration of the radiocarbon time scale, AD 1950-2500 BC. Radiocarbon 28:863-910. Stuiver, Minze and Gordon W. Pearson 1986 High-precision calibration of the radiocarbon time scale, AD 1950-500 BC. Radiocarbon 28:805-838. Stuiver, Minze and Paula J. Reimer 1993 CALIB User's Guide Rev. 3.0. Quaternary Research Center AK-60, University of Washington. This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology. Any mistakes are the responsibility of Kris Hirst.

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