Ancient and Not So Much A really terrifying find was made in the Antarctic. No, it was not a UFO like the one people keep talking about, it was of a bird fossil. At this point you are probably thinking how could this be terrifying. The bird was an albatross and this one would have eaten the ancient mariner. We are used to hearing about flying dinosaurs, but this bird could have held its own against one. The wingspan was about 21 feet and its long beak was studded with sharp teeth. It certainly would have been a formidable foe. Scientists claim the bird was around for about 60 million years flying over the oceans on earth. One of the great mysteries about ancient structures is who built Stonehenge. Archaeologists have been trying to figure this out for years. Recently there was a breakthrough. Scientists compared the DNA of the remains of Neolithic people found all over Britain with the rest of the world and found it matched the ancient people of Anatolia which is now modern Turkey. There was a huge migration of these people to Britain about 6000 B.C. so apparently, they took the time when they got here to erect the monument and it probably had something to do with their religious ceremonies. It is believed they came by hugging the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. There is a saying which states a dog is not too old to learn new tricks. This also holds true for humans. The ancient races like the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians all had their water filtered. It turns out the Mayan civilization had a very advanced method to filter water and as hard as it is to believe we filter it the same way in some places. The Mayans used zeolite to filter their water. Zeolite makes an excellent filtration system. Today we have the computer revolution, but 6000 years ago it was the smelting revolution and one of the leaders in smelting metals was Israel. They had become the innovative world leader at the time. An amazing discovery was made by archaeologists in Israel and that was what is believed to be the first furnace. While this may not seem like a big deal to us, it was the equivalent of the first computer or the first airplane. This allowed the melting of ore and allowed Israel to create all sorts of objects from weapons to household items. I have to tell you what I think is a ridiculous story. Some scientists are excited about the story and it makes me wonder where common sense has gone. Scientists claim a group of monkeys sailed from Africa to South America. Were they there, did they see it, of course not? This is just one of the most outlandish theories I have ever heard. There had to be another reason why the remains of these monkeys were found in South America. Perhaps they developed at the same time as they did in Africa. Perhaps they crossed over the land bridge which existed about 13000 years ago or crossed over the frozen Bearing Straits somehow. Anyway, I wasn’t around then but I can almost guarantee they didn’t get together and signal they wanted to explore the ocean in a boat. Lastly maybe early humans brought them. Scientists were all excited when they discovered something inside a dinosaur egg which was totally unexpected. A Titanosaur sauropod egg was discovered with a hatchling that had a fully formed skull. Some dinosaurs looked different when they were born. For example, some had eyes in front but as they aged the eyes moved to each side of the skull. Scientists are expecting this fossil to become one of the most studied. The egg is the size of an ostrich egg. When we hear the term pyramid we normally think of Egypt, but as we are learning other places have pyramids and some may be even bigger than the Great Pyramid in Egypt. If I were to ask someone where are the most pyramids located, what do you think they would answer? They would say Egypt ninety-nine times out of a hundred, but they would be wrong. The most pyramids are located in Sudan. I admit there could be more pyramids under the sand in Egypt which are undiscovered, but the same is probably true in Sudan also. The pyramids of Meroe leave a lot to explore. They are believed to have been constructed in what was Nubia and are said to represent the last resting place of the royal black pharaohs of the ancient Kushite capital city of Meroe. A bunch of shipwreck objects were found off the coast of England. They were sent to be X-Rayed. Clothes were found with coins sewn into the linings. The objects were believed to come from a 300 year old shipwreck. The experts said finding these objects demonstrated the rich marine heritage of Kent, where the objects were found. The ship is known as the Rooswijk Wreck and sank in 1740. One of the things which always seem to excite researchers is the discovery of ancient maps. Someday this new map will be exciting them because this is the first time the lost continent of Zealandia was mapped. New Zealand researchers were able to map the ancient continent with impressive detail. Scientists have found that even though a day is 24 hours long today, it wasn’t always that long. They claim that 70 million years ago it was only 23.5 hours long. The year was 372 days long but the days were shorter. It was believed the SS Cotopaxi disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle in 1925, but this has turned out to be wrong. The wreck of the ship has turned up almost one hundred years later off the coast of Florida. It had been there for quite a while and the locals named it the Bear Wreck. The researcher who studied the wreck came to the conclusion it had to be the Cotopaxi because no other ships fit the description. There is always the slightest chance however he was wrong. One thing we keep finding out is it seems there have been many branches to the human race. Two skeletons which were found seem to indicate a lost branch. One third of their DNA is similar to the hunter gathers of the period and they are being called ghost relatives since the rest of their DNA is from a branch known as Ghost Modern, whatever that means.
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