The Tomb of Ptahme, which was discovered south of Cairo at Saqqara; Source: www.drhawass.com; Credit: Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA)

The 3,300-year-old tomb is believed to belong to a mayor of the ancient capital of Memphis.

It was originally discovered by artefact hunters in the 19th Century, who then lost the tomb’s location.

The tomb was located by a team of Egyptian researchers after a five-year search and they are hopeful mummified remains are still inside.

Nile hunt carvings

The tomb belongs to Ptahmes, who was also army chief, overseer of the treasury and a royal scribe under the Pharaohs Seti I and his son Ramses II, during the 13th Century BC.

“Since 1885 the tomb has been covered in sand and no-one knew about it,” Professor Ola el-Aguizy of Cairo University said.

“It is important because this tomb was the lost tomb.”

The 70m-long tomb, located in the Saqarra necropolis, contains carvings depicting Ptahmes and his family hunting and fishing on the Nile River.

The team is still looking for the main chamber where it is believed the mummified remains and sarcophagus of the occupants may still remain.

Source: BBC News

Skull Stw 53, that helped inspire the controversial new human-species designation; Source: National Geographic; Credit: Darren Curnoe

Though only fragmentary fossils from about six individuals have been found, upright-walking H. gautengensis is thought to have stood a squat three and a half feet (one meter) tall and weighed about 110 pounds (50 kilograms), according to Curnoe, an anthropologist at the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Compared with modern humans, the new species had proportionally long arms, a projecting face somewhat like a chimp’s, larger teeth, and a smaller brain—though not too small for verbal communication.

“While it seems possible that Homo gautengensis had language,” Curnoe said via email, “it would have been much more rudimentary than ours, lacking the complex tones and lacking a grammar, as all human languages have.”

Human But Not Habilis?

Though it’s said to be the oldest named human species, H. gautengensis, or “Gauteng man,” appears too late in the evolutionary time line to be our direct ancestor, Curnoe believes.

“Large-bodied hominins like Homo erectus, which are likely to be our ancestors, have been found dating to the same period as [some] Homo gautengensis”—which suggests H. erectus’s predecessor arose earlier than H. gautengensis, he said. Hominins, or hominids, are humans plus human ancestral species and their close evolutionary relatives.

Furthermore, Curnoe noted, human fossils some 300,000 years older than H. gautengensis have been found in East Africa and have yet to be classified.

“I think, in all honesty,” he said, “we don’t yet know which species was our earliest direct ancestor in the human evolutionary line.”

Even though H. gautengensis isn’t likely in our direct lineage, the potential new species had humanlike characteristics, according to Curnoe.

The anthropologist said he’s detected 40 features that appear to separate the bipedal creature from the more apelike human ancestors called australopithecines. The traits include “a much smaller face, with narrow teeth, and much smaller chewing muscles and jaws, compared to the australopithecines,” he said.

For decades scientists—including Curnoe—have assigned the fossils now marked H. gautengensis to Homo habilis (“handy man”). Believed to have arisen between 2 million and 1.5 million years ago, H. habilis is widely considered the oldest named human species.

But, he said, “after 14 years of work on the South African Homo record, I decided that there was a strong case for recognizing and naming a new species”—one separate from, and older than, H. habilis.

For one thing, H. gautengensis individuals have smaller brains—perhaps only a third the size of our own. The new species also has smaller teeth and jaws than H. habilis, which may indicate a different diet and lifestyle, Curnoe said.

H. Gautengensis a Sometime Swinger?

While H. gautengensis likely lived mainly on the ground, there’s evidence the human ancestor spent some time in the trees, Curnoe said.

Fossil traces of “inner-ear organs of balance suggest that there may have been a mixture of lifestyles,” with “some individuals engaging in regular arboreal behavior and others perhaps much more terrestrial,” Curnoe said.

Today it isn’t unusual for gorillas and forest baboons to show such behavior, with females typically climbing trees more than males, the anthropologist noted.

Tools … and a Touch of Cannibalism?

The H. gautengensis fossils were found alongside basic stone tools and evidence of the use of fire. The most complete human ancestor skull from the sediments associated with H. gautengensis is a widely studied mid-1970s discovery labeled Stw 53.

The stone tools would have been used for “‘de-fleshing’ and cutting open bones to access marrow, and probably also for digging and [preparing] plant foods,” he said. “They might also have been used for processing animal hides.”

Cut marks on the Stw 53 skull hint at darker practices—”that it was de-fleshed, either for ritual burial or cannibalistic consumption.”

Along with the burned bones of a prehuman of the genus Paranthropus found in the same cave, the marks suggest that “hominin was certainly on the menu ofHomo gautengensis,” Curnoe added.

But H. gautengensis wasn’t exclusively carnivorous. The new species had teeth apparently adapted for eating plant material that looks to have required plenty of chewing, according to the study, soon to be published in the human-biology journal HOMO.

New “Missing Link” Broken Already?

The new species hails from a region called the Cradle of Humankind, which also produced the recently announced Australopithecus sediba, said to be the “key transitional species” between the apelike australopithecines and the first human species.

But the new study casts doubt on those findings, Curnoe said.

The newfound Australopithecus—with its tiny brain and long, apelike arms and wrists adapted to life in trees—“is much more primitive than Homo gautengensis” yet they both “lived at the same time and in the same place,” he said.

Assuming A. sediba co-existed with the new early human species, then A. sediba is “less likely to be the ancestor of humans” than its proponents say it is—it’s simply too late in the fossil record‚ Curnoe argued.

Unruly Evolutionary Tree

Paleontologist Fred Spoor of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany agrees that H. gautengensis and A. sediba appear to contradict each other.

In fact, he noted, the A. sediba team had argued that Stw 53 is a more primitive skull than that of A. sediba. In other words, H. gautengensis may not be human at all but an apelike australopithecine.

Spoor, who wasn’t involved in either study, said experts have puzzled over Stw 53 for years.

For one thing, “there is not enough bone preserved to make an uncontroversial reconstruction” of the skull, Spoor said.

Furthermore, South African fossil hominins are much harder to date than those from East Africa, “where you have all these beautiful volcanic ash layers which you can date.”

The “bizarre specimen” doesn’t fit in with other known hominin skulls and may well signal a new species, he said—”a lot of people have suggested it.” But whether that new species is human or australopithecine will continue to be debated.

Study author Curnoe, for his part, said, “The real significance of the new species is that it shows just how complicated, how bushy, our evolutionary tree was.

“There were many different species living at the same time, and alongside our own species and ancestors, until really very recently.”

As for the fate of H. gautengensis, he said, “It is up to my colleagues to decide whether they are convinced that a new species is warranted and whether they will use [the designation] in their research.

“Ultimately, history will decide.”

Source: National Geographic

Fragments of engraved ostrich eggshells from the Diepkloof Rock Shelter. Credit: Pierre-Jean Texier, Diepkloof project

This fits with other recent suggestions of symbolism from South Africa. For example, last year researchers reported pieces of ochre etched with what may be abstract designs and dated to 100,000 years ago at Blombos Cave on the Southern Cape; similar etchings dated to about 77,000 years ago were previously reported from Blombos. The Blombos team argued that this represented a continuous, long-standing symbolic tradition, but some archaeologists question whether such etchings qualify as true symbolic behaviour.

Since 1999, a team led by pre-historian Pierre-Jean Texier of the University of Bordeaux in France has been working at another site, theDiepkloof rock shelter , on the Western Cape about 180 kilometers north of Cape Town. This shelter contains evidence of several cultures that used stone tools typical of modern humans. Over the past few years, the team has uncovered fragments from an estimated 25 ostrich eggs in 18 archaeological layers dated by two separate techniques to between 55,000 and 65,000 years ago. The fragments are etched with several kinds of motifs, including parallel lines with cross-hatches and repetitive non-parallel lines, the team reports online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Moreover, the team found that some of the patterns seem to have changed over time. The hatched-band motif is found only in the earlier 12 layers at Diepkloof and then disappears. The team also found a few eggshell fragments that appeared to have been pierced with a tool to make a hole in the top part of the egg. The researchers suggest that the large eggs, which had a volume of about 1 liter, might have been used as water containers, as hunter-gatherers in South Africa’s Kalahari Desert have used ostrich eggshells during historical times. The Kalahari people decorated the eggshells with engravings to indicate either who owned them or what they contained. The team concludes that the discovery “represents the earliest evidence of the existence of a graphic tradition among prehistoric hunter-gatherer populations.”

But is this really symbolism? Yes, says Stanley Ambrose, an archaeologist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. “The diversity of design motifs is impressive. It is an important new addition to the corpus of evidence for the development of modern human symbolic and artistic expression in Africa.”

Others aren’t so sure. The engravings could have been done for aesthetic purposes unrelated to symbolism, says Thomas Wynn, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. Researchers need to demonstrate that such engravings “require symbolic thinking,” rather than simply assuming that all such etchings are symbolic, says Wynn.

Source: Science Now (Science Magazine)

The adult male chimpanzee carrying his adopted son on his back; Source: Live Science; Credit: Tobias Deschner, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

The kind-hearted chimp parents were discovered in the Taï forest in the West African country Ivory Coast. The adoptive caregivers, both male and female, devoted large amounts of time and effort to protecting their young charges, without any obvious gain to themselves.

“I don’t know of any other cases of unrelated orphans being adopted,” said research leader Christophe Boesch of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany. He said the young chimps had lost their genetic parents to predation, injury and other causes.

Until now, some scientists have thought that altruism, or engaging in a costly behavior to aid another without any benefit to oneself, was strictly a human trait. In studies of captive chimpanzees — humans’ closest living relatives — instances of selfless giving are rare.

“Based on some of the captive studies, you see very strong claims that what makes humans special is this ability to cooperate and be altruistic toward one another,” Boesch told LiveScience. “In that sense the observation of Taï forest requires a big shift in our thinking about what makes us human, in the sense that this ability to be altruistic is something that we also see in chimpanzees.”

The finding does tie in to other research of chimps in the wild that found the animals often share food, even meat, which is a very valuable resource. While some experts have argued that this was proof of chimpanzee altruism, others countered that sharing food could be more of a tit-for-tat behavior, and that there’s no way to prove the receiving chimps don’t reciprocate later on.

But adoption seems like a stronger case for philanthropy, since the adoptive chimpanzee parents don’t seem to reap any immediate reward, and could likely survive on their own much easier without a youngling to care for, the researchers say.

The adult male chimpanzee sharing his food with his adopted male infant; Source: Live Science; Credit: Tobias Deschner, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

“Some adoptions of orphans by unrelated adults lasted for years and imply extensive care towards the orphans,” Boesch said. “This includes being permanently associated with the orphan, waiting for it during travel, providing protection in conflicts and sharing food with the orphan.”

Another notable aspect of the finding is that even though parenting normally lies in the domain of female chimpanzees, half of the adopting parents in the study were male. Only one of these turned out to be the genetic father of his child.

“What really surprised me in looking at the long-term data is to see that some of these adult males go really far in adopting a motherly role, carrying the baby on their back, sharing a nest, helping babies to climb trees, really caring a lot,” Boesch said. “Normally mothers do this, but not males.”

One adoptive male, Freddy, literally went out on a limb for his adopted child Victor.

“It was just an amazing sight to see such a big powerful male as Freddy bridging gaps in trees with his body to help the whimpering little Victor to reach the branches with fruits,” Boesch recalled.

One guess for why altruism seems rare in captivity, Boesch said, is that there just isn’t as much need — there is usually enough food, and enough care, for everyone to survive as-is. But in the wild, particularly the Taï forest, survival is not a given. The chimpanzees face fierce predation by leopards, and scant food resources. This tough situation may have inspired group solidarity and cooperation to survive.

Source: Live Science

Hundreds of bayonets and gun barrels were found while working on the Lovedale FET College in King Williams Town; Source: Daily Dispatch Online; Picture: Alan Eason

The R1.2 million three-phased classroom development was stopped in November after workers digging foundations came across a massive cache of Anglo-Boer War weapons.

Experts believed the find, which consisted of rifle barrels, bayonets, swords and burnt wooden rifle butts, was buried on the site by the British army after the war ended in 1902.

They said the college is situated on the site of the old Military Reserve, which traces its origins to 1847 when Sir Harry Smith, Governor of the Cape Colony, established King William’s Town as the administrative and military capital of British Kaffraria.

They said the weapons were buried by a British regiment after they abandoned the Military Reserve in 1913.

Amathole Museum curator of history Stephanie Victor suggested turning the cache into a tourist attraction.

“The institution should either cordon-off a section in their building, even if it’s by putting a glass floor over these weapons like they did at Golden Acre Shopping Mall in Cape Town.

“This would be an interesting tourist attraction for King,” she said.

She added that the weapons had rusted and her museum already had similar weapons.

Lovedale FET College manager Nicky Dickson said the delay by the SA Heritage Resources Agency (Sahra) to issue a certificate to continue with digging and construction work was costing them time and money.

“We stand a risk of losing a government subsidy as there is a cut-off time and this project could go down the tubes,” he said.

“The project is supposed to be completed in February this year, but this is still hanging like a sword over our heads.

“ It’s a sad story because by failing to complete these classrooms we’ll lose nearly 100 students and we’ll have to cut our staff complement.”

Dickson said they had spent a lot of money employing an archaeologist to perform an assessment of the site.

“We still don’t know what is going to happen to these weapons,” he said.

The institution was instructed by Sahra to cordon-off the site and immediately cease construction.

They were also told that an archaeologist would conduct research on the site and an excavation of the weapons would follow.

Sahra archaeologist Mary Leslie dubbed the find at the time as one of the country’s most interesting historical discoveries.

On Friday, Leslie said they had received a report from the archaeologist which recommended a phase two assessment.

“A review comment based on the archaeologist’s report will be handed over to the institution,” she said.

But Dickson said employing an archaeologist to conduct a phase two assessment would add to their costs.

“There are a lot of technicalities involved in this … the builder could say their time for construction is over and they want their money without construction being completed.

“This issue is taking a long time (and) we could lose out.”

Source: Daily Dispatch Online

A Shard of an Ancient Amphora; Source: Eurekalert

The scientists also studied the metallic fragments inside the 2,000-year-old vessel, which could be fragments of material used for iron-working. In 2005, a group of archaeologists from the UV discovered a sealed amphora among the remains at Lixus, an ancient settlement founded by the Phoenicians near Larache, in Morocco.

Since then, researchers from the Department of Analytical Chemistry at this university have been carrying out various studies into it components. The latest study, published recently in the journal Analytical Letters, focuses on the resinous material that sealed the vessel. There are remains of a circular rope-effect decoration around the mouth of the amphora, and on which some fingerprints of the craftsman who moulded it can still be seen.

It would probably have been sealed with a lid of cork or wood, of which nothing remains, possibly including a ceramic operculum, such as those found nearby.

“We have studied the substance that was used to seal the container using three different techniques, and we compared it with pine resin from today”, José Vicente Gimeno, one of the authors of the study and a senior professor at the UV, tells SINC.

The results confirm that the small sample analysed, which is 2,000 years old, contains therpenic organic compounds (primaric, isoprimaric and dehydroabietic acids), allowing this to be classified as resin from a tree from the Pinus genus.

The researchers have identified some substances that indicate the age of resins, such as such as 7-oxo-DHA acid, although this kind of compound was not abundant in the sample due to the amphora’s good state of preservation. In addition, Gimeno says that the archaeological resin of the amphora found was hard and blackish with yellow spots, unlike present-day resin, which is more malleable and orangey in colour, similar to the fresh sap of the tree.

Italic amphora in the Straits of Gibraltar

“The jar was found in an area that must have been the amphora store of a house from the period between 50 BCE and 10 CE”, Carmen Aranegui, coordinator of the excavations at Lixus and also a senior professor at the UV, tells SINC. The archaeologist, who has been working at the site for the past 15 years with the Institut National des Sciences de l’Archéologie et du Patrimoine of Rabat, says the amphora is Italic, probably from the region of Campania. It is currently being housed in the archaeological warehouse at Larache.

These jars were used as containers for wine or salted products, but after serving this purpose they could be re-used as watertight storage containers. The amphora found contains metallic fragments, and the scientists have analysed these too. According to the experts, it is likely that this vessel was undergoing a second use, protecting pieces of iron from corrosion, so that they could later be used in the iron-forging process in a local foundry at the time. Not far from this amphora, another has been found at Lixus bearing the mark in Latin ‘A.MISE’, which is the name of the person who made the jar, and has also been found on another similar one found in Cadiz, Spain.

“This was a period when there was great contact between these two cities on either side of the Straits of Gibraltar”, points out Aranegui.

Source: Eurekalert