Thursday, July 28th, 2005

Time	Event
12:21a	Holy Phallus! A tip of the Blog to  Philoillogica  for this article. It gives new meaning to 'tool' making man. Ancient phallus unearthed in cave By Jonathan Amos BBC News science reporter It may also have been used to knap, or split, flints More details A sculpted and polished phallus found in a German cave is among the earliest representations of male sexuality ever uncovered, researchers say. The 20cm-long, 3cm-wide stone object, which is dated to be about 28,000 years old, was buried in the famous Hohle Fels Cave near Ulm in the Swabian Jura. The prehistoric "tool" was reassembled from 14 fragments of siltstone. Its life size suggests it may well have been used as a sex aid by its Ice Age makers, scientists report. "In addition to being a symbolic representation of male genitalia, it was also at times used for knapping flints," explained Professor Nicholas Conard, from the department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, at Tübingen University. "There are some areas where it has some very typical scars from that," he told the BBC News website. Researchers believe the object's distinctive form and etched rings around one end mean there can be little doubt as to its symbolic nature. The Hohle Fels bird Enlarge Image "It's highly polished; it's clearly recognisable," said Professor Conard. The Tübingen team working Hohle Fels already had 13 fractured parts of the phallus in storage, but it was only with the discovery of a 14th fragment last year that the team was able finally to put the "jigsaw" together. The different stone sections were all recovered from a well-dated ash layer in the cave complex associated with the activities of modern humans (not their pre-historic "cousins", the Neanderthals). The dig site is one of the most remarkable in central Europe. Hohle Fels stands more than 500m above sea level in the Ach River Valley and has produced thousands of Upper Palaeolithic items. Female forms, such as the 30,000-year-old Venus of Willendorf are more common Some have been truly exquisite in their sophistication and detail, such as a 30,000-year-old avian figurine crafted from mammoth ivory. It is believed to be one of the earliest representations of a bird in the archaeological record. There are other stone objects known to science that are obviously phallic symbols and are slightly older - from France and Morocco, of particular note. But to have any representation of male genitalia from this time period is highly unusual. "Female representations with highly accentuated sexual attributes are very well documented at many sites, but male representations are very, very rare," explained Professor Conard. Current evidence indicates that the Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany was one of the central regions of cultural innovation after the arrival of modern humans in Europe some 40,000 years ago. The Hohle Fels phallus will go on show at Blaubeuren prehistoric museum in an exhibition called Ice Art - Clearly Male. Current Mood: mischievous (Comment on this)
12:33a	Secrets of Stonehenge Scientists seek fresh chance to dig up Stonehenge's secrets Robin McKie, science editor Sunday July 24, 2005 The Observer It is over 50 years since substantial excavations have taken place at Stonehenge and more than two decades since the small-scale excavations,' the report notes. This research gap needs to be rectified. Crucially, science can now reveal rich details about prehistoric people from their remains. This is demonstrated by the 'Amesbury Archer', recently found in a 4,000-year-old grave, one of Europe's richest, near Stonehenge. He was surrounded by about 100 items, including golden hair ornaments - some of the earliest gold objects found in Britain. But his teeth provided the real surprise. Tests on their enamel, formed in early childhood and which contains telltale chemical signatures from local soil and rocks, showed the archer came from the Alps while the ornaments found in his grave were traced to Spain and France. This discovery suggests that metalworkers from the Continent had already begun to trade and work in tin, copper and other metals in Britain 4,000 years ago and may have played key roles in building Stonehenge. The monument appears to have been the centre of major activity by travellers roaming across Britain, Ireland and the Continent. Archaeologists now want to hunt down the remains taken from barrows around Stonehenge: some may be in local museums, others in private hands. 'Some people probably have them under their beds,' said Miles. Armed with these materials, scientists could then recreate much of our ancient past. It might even be possible to make facial reconstructions of some individuals. Stonehenge took at least 1,000 years to build and its use clearly changed over the millennia. Recent studies suggest it may have been 'Christianised' in the first millennium AD and at one point was used as a place of execution by the Anglo-Saxons to judge from the primitive gallows, dated to around the 7th century, found there. Some scientists have even argued that the great circles could have been used as an astronomical observatory or a computer. This idea is generally dismissed by the report, although the alignment of its stones to the rising midwinter sun, a date associated with the return of light and warmth, is widely accepted. The great stone circles are therefore concerned with death and rebirth. Built mainly by Stone Age peoples, without the aid of metals, Stonehenge became the focus of intense interest a few centuries later when metal-working Bronze Age craftsmen from across Europe arrived in the neighbourhood. During this period Stonehenge appears to have become the fashionable place to be buried. Indeed, it may be that the area was split into a Land of the Living, where ceremonial parties were held by relatives, and the Domain of the Dead, with Stonehenge at its centre, where people were buried. Current Mood: creative (1 Comment | Comment on this)

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