Ancient Tools Contradict Civilization Timeline

A long-standing question has stumped researchers: How did humanity come to inhabit the Islands of Southeast Asia (ISEA) such a long time ago?

The thought is that doing so would have required seafaring advancements beyond that considered likely during the Paleolithic era (Old Stone Age). But research shows that the ancient people of the Philippines and ISEA may have mastered seafaring before anyone else.

The evidence is stone tools excavated in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Timor-Leste. As far back as 40,000 years ago, there existed a technological sophistication in these ancient seafarers that rivals that of much later civilizations. The researchers say this challenges the believe that Paleolithic technical progress was centered in Africa and Europe.

Proving seafaring history is a trick endeavor. Organic wood and fiber—likely used in constructing seacraft—rarely survive in the archaeological record. But stone tools do. The most recent discovery shows traces of plant processing for the extraction of fibers. The fibers would have been used to make ropes, nets, and bindings, which are essential for building boats and open-sea fishing.

When you add in the discovery of fishing hooks, gorges (a fish book alternative), net weights, and the remains of tuna and sharks, it seems obvious a robust seafaring culture existed.

The presence of large open-sea fish at these sites indicate advanced seafaring techniques and knowledge of the time and routes of the migration of those species. There was a need for strong, well-crafted ropes and fishing lines.

The archaeologists believe these ancient seafarers made boats held together with ropes. The same rope technology would have been adapted for fishing.

Fossils and artifacts across the island proves that early humans moved across the open sea. But these scientists do not accept the theory that the prehistoric migrations were passive, that people drifted on bamboo rafts. Instead, they think the movement came from skilled navigators. They feel that direct or indirect evidence of boat-building is vital to understand human movement across island environments.

Such advanced maritime technology in prehistoric ISEA shows ingenuity. Their boat-building knowledge probably made the region a center for technological innovations tens of thousands of years ago. It would have laid the foundation for the maritime traditions that still thrive there today.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/archaeologists-found-ancient-tools-that-contradict-the-timeline-of-civilization/ar-AA1QBNgO?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=693f6c4211d9422bb32ac5d9db0e778e&ei=29

Atlantis?

Some scientists have found some ancient islands deep underwater in the Atlantic Ocean. Some experts believe the drowned landmasses may be the potential inspiration for the well-known myth of Atlantis. They have even gone so far as to call the find “Lost Atlantes”, after the fabled civilization that the gods drowned.

Some of these islands still have their beaches intact. They are located on an underwater mountain located around 1.4 miles (2.3 km) underwater off the coast of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands.

Researchers say that 56 to 34 million years ago, Los Atlantes was a series of islands topped by 3 now inactive volcanoes. When the volcanoes stopped erupting, the lava solidified and became denser, causing the islands to sink into the sea.

Despite the passing of millions of years, the islands have retained distinctive features, such as beaches, cliffs and sand dunes at the flat summit of the mountain. The sand which now covered the volcanic rock would have been deposited as the islands descended into the water.

Some of the beaches lie only 200 ft (60 meters) below the oceans’ surface. During the last ice age, when sea levels were far lower than today, the inactive volcanoes would have become islands again. These islands could have been colonized by wildlife, or even early people. When the ice age ended and sea levels rose, the islands sank again.

In my opinion, if there were people living on these islands during the last ice age, and at least some of them escaped when the sea levels rose, I’m sure they couldn’t resist telling anybody they met about their escape. Such a tale, handed down from generation to generation, could have easily become the myth we still know today.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/tripideas/the-origins-of-atlantis-discovered-off-the-coast-of-lanzarote/ar-AA1oIRiY?ocid=mailsignout&pc=U591&cvid=35a8ff97a59b43ddb693e2b85c252796&ei=79

The Dr Who Cruise Part 2

Monday, Oct 23 – A Day at Cocoa Key.

 

We got up at 7 and went to the buffet for breakfast. The ship had docked at Cocoa Key, but hadn’t given out any newsletters to tell us what to expect. We didn’t know when we could go ashore, or even what deck we needed to go to in order to do that.

Sunday, I had walked 12,250 steps, far more than the 2K I sometimes manage at home. My legs had ached all night and were still ackey, so I took a pain pill. But my legs still bothered me at 10:40 when we left the ship to look around the island. It wasn’t long before I admitted I needed to sit for a while. I found a lounge chair and sat down in the shade. Hubby went off to look around.

 About 1 ½ hours later, when he came back, my legs felt much better, and I was more alert. He was tired from walking almost 10K steps already, so he sat down to rest. I checked my steps, and I had already walked 7K steps. Hubby rested for about 15 minutes, then we walked back to the ship.

We went to Guest Services to ask about internet service. We had brought a laptop for Hubby to work on, but we couldn’t get Word to work because it ‘couldn’t confirm we had an account with Microsoft, so please connect to the internet.’ What a bummer. We don’t usually buy an internet package on a cruise ship because the service is so lousy. But he couldn’t work without Word, so we bought internet service for 1 day to see if that would solve the problem. After all, I had used the laptop for a couple of weeks when my desktop died, and it had worked fine, but it was always connected to the internet during that time.

 We took to our cabin the instructions for signing in, and I sat down to work with the laptop, getting it onto the internet. Hubby laid down on the bed and fell asleep. He almost never takes a daytime nap. He woke up about an hour later and asked how I was doing. I was done, and Word was working perfectly. He rolled over and went back to sleep for another hour. So I changed some color settings to see if he could see the cursor any easier. He had complained how hard it was to see a white cursor on a white background. I played some games, but the color was odd; red cards were black, and black cards were blue.

Hubby awoke about 3, and we went to the pizza place for a bite to eat. After returning to our cabin, he worked on his stories, and I worked on my blog.

About 6 o’clock, we left to explore a section of the ship we hadn’t been to yet, the Boardwalk. It had a carousel, a candy shop, a hot dog stand, a hamburger joint, a sports bar or two and a rock-climbing wall, so it didn’t take us long to explore it.

We still had a ½ hour before meeting the others for social hour. We thought about going to the floating bar and riding it from the 5^th deck to the 8^th deck, but it had already left deck 5 and hadn’t yet reached deck 8. So we returned to our cabin and got the special tumblers that proved we had a beverage package, and then came back for social hour. With a group as large as ours, it’s hard to find enough chairs in any 1 bar, but we did the best we could.

We had a nice dinner with 2 actors who played various monsters on Dr Who. Hubby did his interpretation of a social butterfly, flitting from table to table to talk to members of the talent and some fan writers about some ideas he had for a story. After dinner, we returned to our cabin, worked for about an hour, and then turned in.

Nutmeg, an Ancient Spice

Nutmeg was used in the Banda Islands (Indonesia) as long ago as 3500 years. Pottery from that date have  traces of nutmeg in them. It's not known if it was used for its fruit, as a spice or for medicinal purposes, but Neolithic Indonesian communities were clearly using it for something.

The Banda Islands consist of eleven small volcanic islands, and are part of the larger Maluku Islands group. These islands were the only source of nutmeg and mace production until the mid-19th century.

Nutmeg is the ground up seed of several tree species of the genus Myristica. Mace is another spice produced by grinding up the seed covering. These trees are also a commercial source of nutmeg essential oil and nutmeg butter. Indonesia is the main producer of nutmeg and mace, as the true nutmeg tree is native there.

If nutmeg is consumed in amounts exceeding the typical use as a spice, it may produce allergic reactions, dermatitis or have psychoactive effects. Although sometimes used in traditional medicine for various disorders, nutmeg is not used in medicines today.

Nutmeg has a distinctive pungent fragrance and a slightly sweet taste. It can be used to flavor baked goods, confections, puddings, potatoes, meats, sausages, sauces, vegetables and beverages such as eggnog.

Nutmeg trees are dioecious plants, which means individual plants are either male or female. The first harvest of nutmeg trees takes place 7-9 years after planting and the trees reach full production after 20 years.

Nutmeg is used as a spice in many cuisines. In Indonesia, it is used in spicy soups, in gravy for meat dishes, and in certain European derived dishes. In India, it is used in many sweet, as well as savoury, dishes. Ground nutmeg is also smoked in India for a different flavor. In Europe, nutmeg and mace are used in potato and spinach dishes, in processed meat products, in soups, sauces, baked goods and rice pudding. The Dutch add nutmeg to such vegetables as Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and string beans, as well as to mulled cider, mulled wine, junket (also known as curds and whey) and eggnog. Nutmeg is a common spice for pumpkin pie. In the Caribbean, nutmeg is sprinkled on top of drinks such as the Bushwacker, Painkiller, and Barbados rum punch.

The nutmeg fruit can also be eaten. It is used to make jam, or is finely sliced, cooked with sugar and crystallised to make a fragrant candy. Sliced nutmeg fruit is made with a sugary syrup liquid or dry coated with sugar to make a dessert. Nutmeg rind can be blended or boiled to make iced nutmeg juice. In India, this is used for juice, pickles and chutney.

Nutmeg essential oil is obtained by steam distillation of ground nutmeg. It is used in perfumes and pharmaceuticals. The oil is colorless or light yellow, and smells and tastes of nutmeg. It is used as flavoring in baked goods, syrups, beverages and sweets. When used to replace ground nutmeg, it doesn't leave particles in the food. The oil is also used in manufacturing toothpaste and cough syrups.

Nutmeg butter is obtained from the nut. It is a reddish-brown semisolid substance with the taste and smell of nutmeg. About 75% of nutmeg butter can be turned into a fatty acid. This can be used as a replacement for cocoa butter, can be mixed with cottonseed or palm oil, and has applications as an industrial lubricant.

In the sixth century AD, nutmeg spread to India, then to Constantinople. By the 13th century, Arab traders knew the origin of nutmeg was the Indonesian islands, but kept the location a secret from European traders.

In August 1511, Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Malacca on behalf of the king of Portugal. At the time, Malacca was the hub of Asian trade. In November of that year, Albuquerque sent an expedition of 3 ships to find the Banda Islands. Those ships arrived in early 1512 and remained for about a month, buying and filling their ships with nutmeg, mace and cloves. Although control of this trade by the Portuguese was not possible, they participated without a foothold in the islands.

In 1621, the Dutch East India Company waged battle with the Bandanese to obtain a monopoly on nutmeg. It is estimated the Bandanese went from a population of approximately 15,000 people to 1,000 people.

The British invaded and temporarily took control of the Banda Islands during the Napoleonic Wars. They busily transplanted nutmeg trees, complete with soil, to Sri Lanka and Singapore and other places. From those, they also transplanted trees, most notably to Zanzibar and Grenada. The Dutch eventually regained control of the Banda Islands, and kept it until World War II.

In 2019, 142,000 tonnes of nutmeg were produced. Indonesia, Guatemala and India produced approximately equal amounts, producing 85% of the global total.

Nutmeg intoxication may occur with side effects such as delirium, anxiety, confusion, headaches, nausea, dizziness, dry mouth, eye irritation, and amnesia. It takes several hours to reach maximum effect and may last for several days. Nutmeg overdose rarely causes death, but can if combined with other drugs.

The scent of nutmeg may attract pets, but it can be poisonous to them.

I'm not a huge fan of pumpkin pie, but I love a sprinkling of nutmeg in my eggnog. What about you? Do you have a favorite dish that uses nutmeg?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutmeg

Archeology, January/February 2019, page 25

Dominican Republic

 

Wednesday, 11/16 - Dominican Republic

We got up at 6:00 and went to the buffet for breakfast. After that, it was a looooong walk down the pier to find our shore excursion, Puerto Plata Culture, History and Heritage. Puerto Plata is either a city, or an area that has a city in it, I'm not sure which.

I had read the tickets wrong, and we arrived at the duty-free shops about an hour early. I remembered being at this particular group of shops at least twice before, but we have been on several Caribbean cruises, so it wasn't that surprising. John looked around at the shops while I sat in what shade I could find to gather my energy after yesterday's 'forced march'.

Thank goodness it was a bus tour, but I think most all the shore excursions here were, since the port was some 25 miles from the city.

The first stop on the tour was a rum factory, where we got to taste several versions of rum. I still think 9:30 AM is too early in the day for rum tasting. The tour started with a room full of rum casks. It was totally dark, except for small lines of lights outlining the path to follow to get to the exit. Then a small theater that could only seat about half the people who were on the tour. (I think there were 2 buses there at the same time.) After a movie about the history of this rum company, we were taken to another room, where they had some historical artifacts having to do with the rum-making process. It was here that they passed out little sample glasses, and gave us samples of about 8 tastes of their rum. The factory store was across the street. But we had already bought 4 bottles of rum during this cruise, so we decided we didn't need any more.

Next we were taken to a jewelry shop that specialized in amber and larimer jewelry. Larimer is only found on this island. We were sent inside for a chance to buy jewelry, but learning the price of one piece was enough to dissuade me from buying anything. I had a lot of trouble persuading the sales person I really wasn't interested in anything. When we came back out and got on the bus, we almost left behind a couple who had been paying for their purchase!

Somebody asked why there had been police there to steer us into and out of the store, and the tour guide said it was to make sure the pan-handlers and peddlers didn't bother us. The police presence left us with a strange, 'you are watched' kind of feeling.

Next, we went to the amber museum, which also has a permanent display on the art of making cigars. Of course there was a gift shop, and John bought... a pound of coffee!

Back on the street, I was wearing down, so I climbed back on the bus with a couple other people to wait. The rest of the group walked a few blocks to see 'Umbrella Street. After about 20 minutes, the bus went to pick up the others, and we started back for the pier. I caught a brief glimpse of Umbrella Street, and they had dozens of open umbrellas suspended over the street.

The Dominican Republic is the only port I remember where as we approached the gate to the port, a guard came aboard the bus and had to see everybody's ship-board card. To prove we had a reason for coming to the port, I suppose.

We reached the duty-free shops with about 37 minutes before we had to be on the ship. John wanted to buy me a Caribbean shirt that would fit me. He knew exactly what store had them. I didn't want another shirt, but to his surprise, I chose a Caribbean-style dress. (He was surprised. I was shocked! I swore off dresses decades ago!) Then we had that loooong walk back to the ship, which took us 7-8 minutes (I timed it). It was a very long pier.

We went to O'Sheehan's for a late lunch, then spent some time in the hot tub. About 7, we went to the theater for a dance show. This was our 'big night' on the ship, so I wore my new dress. The show was okay, the dancing was good, but I had trouble with the plot. I'm not sure it had one.

We left a few minutes before the end of the show to go to the other end of the ship, to the restaurant Cagney's, where we had dinner reservations. John was dragging on the way there, and had a little trouble understanding the menu. (It was past his usual bed time.) Since we were dining on a package plan, certain items on the menu were not available to us. We had a very nice dinner, and as we were walking out, we came across a couple who had been on the kayaking shore excursion with us, so we exchanged a few pleasantries with them. Then off to the cabin for the night.

Puerto Rico

Tuesday, 11/15 - Puerto Rico

It was raining when we went to deck 15 for breakfast. We had to try to run between the raindrops to get to the buffet. Of course that didn't work very well, so we got somewhat wet. And again when we went back to our cabin. But the rain didn't last long.

Our excursion today was the Mofongo and Mojito Experience. The group was large, so it got broken into 2 groups, and our group had to wait around for 15 minutes to let the first group get ahead of us. I was disappointed to learn it was a walking tour of the city, but I bravely set out with them, and was able to keep up for a while. Just as I (and John) were thinking we couldn't possibly keep up the pace much longer, we were led up to the 2nd floor of a 'cultural lounge', where we were seated around tables. Among talking about the history of their rum-making, they gave us appetizers and a mojito (which we hadn't liked on the ship, but these were good). Then they passed out big wooden mortars to everybody. Each had some cassava and a plantain chip in it. They gave us each a pestle and taught us how to grind the cassava and plantain chip into mush. Then they added a small ladle of chicken stew to the mush, and a fork to eat with. This was the mofongo, and it was quite tasty and very filling.

After lunch, they expected us to continue walking! I wanted a siesta. But I tried to keep up with the others. At one point we had to walk 2 blocks up a steep hill. I had to stop 3 times to catch my breath before I caught up to the others, who had stopped to wait for me.

Eventually, we came out on a hilltop near the bay, and we could see our ship sitting at the dock. It looked very far away. I was really dragging, but had no choice but to keep walking. The tour guide was worried about the time, so every time I caught up to the group, she immediately started off again. I didn't have a chance to catch my breath again. The closer we got to the ship, the further ahead the group got, and I didn't care. I didn't stop walking, even though my stomach got to feeling a little sick.

We finally made it to the dock, and John even had time to stop at the duty-free shop and buy a souvenir towel he had noticed earlier. I was wiped, and went to our cabin to lay down. After an hour, we went to deck 6 for cokes, then John went to deck 8 to read, while I returned to the cabin to lay down again.

About 5, we went to the main dining room for supper. Afterwards, we went to the mojito bar on deck 8 to try a couple flavored mojitos. We liked the spicy passion fruit mojito, but not so much the raspberry guava one, which seemed a little heavy on the alcohol.

Then we went to the theater for a comedy show. I thought there would be 2 comedians again, but there was only one. Back to our cabin for the night. I found I had walked 10,522 steps on this day. We went to bed at 8:30, but at 9:30, I got up to plug in my phone to recharge. At 10:00, I got up to take a tylenol, my legs were aching so much. Then up at 10:45 for another tylenol, and I could finally fall asleep.

Ur...

Okay, not a lot of information on this subject. Only to be expected, I suppose, since Ur is the name given to the very first super continent, which came into being about 3.1 billion years ago. At that time, the only life on Earth was single-celled, and some of it knew how to photosynthesize. And it’s called a super continent, though it was probably smaller than modern Australia.

It qualifies as a super continent because it incorporated all or nearly all pieces of land then in existence. More recently, scientists have started calling Ur and other small ‘super’ continents by the term super-cratons. The best I can figure is that a craton is a piece of land considered too small to be a continent.

Other scientists have postulated the existence of another super-craton at about the same time, which they have called Vaalbara, but apparently, the ideas of these two early cratonic assemblages are incompatible.

About 1,300–1,071 million years ago, Ur joined the continents Nena and Atlantica to form the supercontinent Rodinia. In one proposal, Ur remained the nucleus of East Gondwana until that supercontinent broke up. But in other proposals, India and East Antarctica did not collide until Rodinia formed 1,071 Million years ago. However, during that time period, the Earth’s mantle was 200 degrees C hotter than today, making many characteristics of modern tectonics rare or non-existent. This would preclude Roger’s 3 billion years ago supercontinent of Ur.

The proposal for the super-craton Vaalbara places two cratons, Kaapvall of southern Africa and Pilbara of western Australia, next to each other based on stratigraphic similarities. In Roger’s configuration of Ur, these two cratons were placed far apart during Gondwana, which is contradicted by widespread collisional events between Australia and Africa.

Yet another possible supercraton, Zimgarn, was proposed by Smirnov in 2013. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand the paragraph dealing with it, so I’m mostly ignoring it. After all, I’m supposed to be studying Ur.

Geological similarities in parts of India (Singhbhum and Dharwar), western Australia (Kilbaran and Pilbara), and southern Africa (Kaapvall and Zimbabwe) indicate these area were close together in the Mid-Archaean Era. Ur was named for the german prefix meaning “original” by Rogers because in his proposal, it was the first continent. Other Archaean continental assemblages are considerably younger. In some reconstructions, the various pieces of Ur stayed near each other until the break-up of Gondwana.

So, was there really an Ur, as proposed by Rogers? Should it really be called Vaalbara or Zimgarn? Or something else entirely? I didn’t find any indication of where it was located, and given how long it supposedly existed, it could have drifted quite a ways from its original location, but still, I would have liked to see some of that type of information.

How many planets do you suppose are out there with only single-celled life and 1 large island? With such a small land mass, would it be worth it to colonize it?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur_(continent)

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur_(supercontinent)

Man Made Islands

If you think man has only recently decided to build their own islands, think again. In Scotland, Wales and Ireland, they started doing it nearly 6,000 years ago. They are called crannogs and while some of them are partially natural,  quite a few were entirely artificial, built in lakes and estuarine waters. Crannogs are not like the prehistoric pile dwellings of the Alps, which were built on the shores and became inundated later. Crannogs were actually built in the water, forming artificial islands.

These new islands were used as dwellings for over five millennia, possibly to the early 18th century. Some were free-standing wooden structures, although they more commonly existed as brush, stone or timber mounds. However, in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, timber was unavailable, so their crannogs consisted of stone, with drystone architecture sitting atop the base stones. Today, crannogs typically appear as small, circular islets, 30 to 100 feet in diameter, covered in dense vegetation because they are inaccessible to grazing livestock.

Crannogs are wide-spread in Ireland, but are frequently undercounted in Scotland, as they can be called various things, depending on who you talk to. Mainland Scotland and the Scottish isles also refer to them in various ways. Previously unknown crannogs are still being found, as underwater surveys find completely submerged examples.

Crannogs were built with whatever material was most available in the immediate area. Several feet above the water’s surface, an ‘Atlantic roundhouse’ was built on the new island, connected to the shore by a causeway. At the time, most communication and travel was achieved by waterways. They may have served as simple farmsteads or as boltholes in times of danger. Their limited access may have served as a status symbol, and their inherited location would have implied legitimacy towards ownership of the surrounding landscape.

The earliest known crannog in Scotland appears to date from 3650 BC. It is interesting to note that crannogs were often reused after a period of non-use. Defense does not appear to be the major reason for building and living on a crannog, as there is little evidence of weapons or of destruction in the excavation of prehistoric crannogs.

I have to admit, I was unaware of any such method of building a home until I googled this word for information. My first thought is that it would be a wonderful home for a water spirit or for a child of a water spirit.

My second thought was that it could be useful as a toll bridge across a river, with a causeway or bridge going from the home to both banks. Why break your back every day for the rest of your life to ferry people from one side of the river to the other when you can work hard as a youngster to build a home and 2 causeways, and still collect tolls as you totter into old age?

The article also mentioned kings and lords living on crannogs, of crannog islets being enlarged repeatedly and therefore being home to an extended family. What about a city growing up on an ever-enlarging crannog? Lots of ideas from this one word.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crannog