More Ancient Discoveries When we talked about evolution, scientists had set ideas. Most of them thought there were two types of early homo sapiens. These were smart ones and not as smart ones. The smart ones were thought to live near the water and live on seafood and in a more moderate climate and the not so smart ones were said to live inland. The scientists believed the beneficial oils in fish helped in brain development. The problem is when you have a theory without proof, it is often proven wrong even if it takes quite a while to happen. This is what happened to the theory I am telling you about. This theory went out the window when sites on the coast which dated to 125,000 years ago were compared to inland sites of the same age and evidence was found that the brain power of each group was about the same. Scientists were very surprised when they found a salt factory. Why you might ask? Perhaps the reason was it was 6,000 years old. It was found in the UK in Yorkshire and is far older than even Stonehenge. It is the oldest one found in Great Britain. It is felt that this find will rewrite our understanding of the Neolithic era in Britain. Before this find the oldest site which showed salt production in Britain was dated at 1,400 B.C. Salt was considered extremely valuable and sometimes people would be paid for their work with salt. Salt was an efficient means for preserving meat so it could be stored. Sometimes ancient solutions to ancient problems can be adapted to problems we have today. Take the Roman Lycurgus Cup for example. The Romans wanted to create a cup which would change colors when the light hit it. They were actually able to do it using a form of nano technology which has amazed scientists today. Their success in this field has become an inspiration for a company developing complex antennas for satellites. The company believes they can adapt the Roman find to create much cheaper antennas and more efficient ones. Sometimes something is found which is ancient and in an incredible state of preservation. A bronze helmet which was believed to have been created in the sixth century B.C. has been found in Haifa Bay, Israel. It was found when the harbor was being dredged. While the helmet did have some discoloration on it, the image of a peacock was still visible above the nose piece. It is thought the helmet might have been worn by an ancient Greek officer during the Persian wars. The peacock etched into the helmet denotes someone of substance had the helmet made. A Titanosaur fossil was discovered in Argentina and is one of the oldest ever found. It was found in Patagonia. The dinosaur was part of a family of huge plant eating animals. A family member was the Brachiosaurus. They had long necks and tails and were about 66 feet long. The age of the find was about 140 million years. The idea of Neanderthals being dumb brutes has been disappearing over the years. We have been finding out more about them as time goes by. We even found out we were wrong in thinking they didn’t have the power of speech. What is next, will we find out they created some of the things we have been giving credit to homo sapiens for? Now it is being said both Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens in Nubia used the exact same technology. This is incredible in a way. It means both races were even in technology at one time, but eventually humans would pull ahead and for some reason Neanderthals would all get wiped out. Why? That question is the 64 million dollar question. When the treasures of history start to disintegrate scientists try and do their utmost to reverse this and preserve the objects. This becomes even more difficult when we are talking about collections of structures such as a city. Many things come into play. The expense is a factor, so is the fact as humans walk through ruins and such, their very presence effects the buildings after a while. One of the most famous city countries of all time was Babylon and it is in bad shape. It is a World Heritage Site, declared so by the United Nations. Being located in Iraq makes it even harder to save it. Some of the city was taken back to other countries. When Saddam Hussein tried to preserve Babylon, he used cement and this further damaged the city. It is also said when we built a base near the city it harmed it. There is still hope of saving the city however, as the World Monuments Fund is looking into a way to save it. Archaeologists exploring a site related to the Aztec culture have found a tower made of skulls. They had previously found well over 480 skulls there and now have found another 119. The Aztecs liked their trophies and seemed to enjoy the grisly ones the most. It is believed this was a trophy rack holding the heads of the sacrificed victims. Amazingly, when I talked about humans and nano technology and the Roman Cup, it was not the first object made using nano technology. The first known object dates back to 600 B.C. The technology was used in a coating that covered ancient pottery. The evidence was found on pottery shards found at a dig at Keeladi, Tamil Nadu in India. It just blows the mind these ancient people could be working with nano technology and being able to get pieces of anything down to nano technology size. This is precisely why the coating has lasted the 2,600 years so far. Scientists wonder what tools could have possibly created these coatings. There was a theory the early earth was impossible to live on. The idea was the first 500 million years on earth was hell. That idea is changing and now many scientists are saying the average temperature for that time period was between -25 degrees Celsius and 85 degrees Celsius. This could mean the earth was habitable at a time we never suspected. If it was, there certainly wouldn’t be any evidence to show the remains of intelligent life that long ago. What could this mean to us? It could mean there were several intelligent civilizations on the earth before we were. We are talking about a span of about 4 billion years. This could certainly change the entire history of the earth as we know it, or should I say thought we knew it.
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