When we think of old things, I wonder how many of us have ever considered the fact some of the water on this planet could be very ancient. The oldest water ever found in the world was found in Ontario, Canada by University of Toronto geoscientists. The water has been dated to about 2 billion years ago and was found in a mine. At first the scientists tested the water to a depth of 2.4 kilometers and found that water was about 1 billion years old. The next thing they did was go deeper. When they reached a depth of about 3 kilometers they found the water to be 2 billion years old. The age of water is calculated by the gas found in it. Scientists can calculate how much different gases have built up in water to calculate its age. In case you are wondering why scientists care about the age of water, the answer is simple. The older the water the more we learn about the conditions on the earth at the time. Not only was the water they found full of trace metals, but it was also 8 times saltier than sea water. The next thing scientists want to examine is whether the water might contain life.

Sometimes ancient people have done things which we just don’t understand and some of these people were the ancient Incas. It seems they practiced a procedure called multiple-trepanation. To put this more simply they cut holes in people’s skulls. Many skulls show multiple holes sometimes as many as five or more. The people lived in many cases as witnessed by the healed holes. No one really knows why these holes were made and the people who had the holes cut into their heads must have suffered, unless some sort of unknown anesthesia was used. There has been some thought over the years that procedures like this might have been used to release evil spirits from the body, weather this applies to what the Incas did can only be guessed at. The amazing thing is the amount of people who survived the procedure. The Inca had no knowledge of germs and microbes and one would have thought many if not all of their patients would have died from infections and yet many survived. Many people may not know this, but the oldest medical procedure is circumcision and the second is trepanation, the cutting of holes in the skull.

Many tiny ancient forms of life have been found preserved in amber. There have been multiple finds of flies, ants and other insects. What one wouldn’t expect to find is amber containing anything related to the larger animals of the time. Who would have believed a dinosaur tail would have been found in amber? A segment of a dinosaur tail was completely preserved in amber and it was covered with feathers. It was found by a paleontologist named Lida Xing of the China University of Geosciences, which receives partial funding from the National Geographic Society’s Expeditions Council. This has especially excited scientists, because the 99 million year old find shows the time when feathered dinosaurs were beginning to evolve into birds. The piece of tail was only 1.4 inches in length, but there was enough there to cause a lot of excitement. It contained 8 vertebrae.

Another find in southern China also had to do with feathered dinosaurs. Construction workers were building a school in Southern China near Ganzhou. As part of the construction it became necessary to plant an explosive charge and after the explosion something remarkable was revealed, it was the well preserved remains of a dinosaur which had only minimal damage due to the explosion. The species of dinosaur had never been seen before and it was nicknamed the “Mud Dragon.” The dinosaur has two legs and is part of the family of feathered dinosaurs known as oviraptorosaurus. There are no teeth in the head, but there is a sharp beak. Some dinosaurs of this type have crests of bone on their heads. It is believed these crests were used to attract mates. Scientists think it became stuck in the mud and died somewhere between 66 to 72 million years ago. This type of dinosaur was one of the last to appear before the dinosaurs were wiped out. Because the beast was stuck in the mud this attributed to its being so well preserved. Scientists believe this type of dinosaur was the most successful in its time period.

The theories about the relationship between humans and Neanderthals keeps changing. It was first postulated humans killed off the Neanderthals when they came into contact with them, because the humans had the superior brain power. It was said the Neanderthals did have the power of speech, but were not as innovative. Neanderthals are believed to have been around for over 500,000 years and coexisted with humans for about the last 30,000 years, but this theory is changing. Some scientists now think the period where humans coexisted with Neanderthals in Europe was only about 5,000 years long. They believe humans reached Europe somewhere between 45,000 to 43,000 years ago. As with so many of these theories they could be proven wrong at any time when new evidence is discovered. Why did the Neanderthals disappear in a relatively short time after humans came on the scene? The answer could be as simple as disease.

In the ancient world large cities 2,000 years ago were nowhere the size of a large city today, except for two exceptions which were the cities of Rome and Alexandria. Rome had over 1,000,000 residents and Alexandria had about half that amount. Why did so many people flock to Rome? It was probably because it had incredible modern conveniences for its time. Running water was available everywhere and so was apartment housing. Markets and stores were abundant and there was even a social life net for those who would have starved somewhere else. It was a desirable place to be with plenty of jobs and even had medical facilities. Alexandria had become the place to be if you were the educated elite. The library there contained most of the available scrolls of the time detailing different inventions, philosophy and just about everything else which had been put into written form. The city became very rich and was the place to be to try and make your fortune or show off your intelligence.