1.
Dordogne
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Dordogne is a department in southwestern France, with its prefecture in Périgueux. The department is located in the region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine between the Loire Valley and the Pyrenees, and is named after the great Dordogne river that runs through it and it roughly corresponds with the ancient county of Périgord. The county of Périgord dates back to when the area was inhabited by the Gauls and it was originally home to four tribes, the name for four tribes in the Gaulish language was Petrocore. The area eventually known as the county of Le Périgord. The Petrocores took part in the resistance against Rome, the earliest cluzeaux, artificial caves either above or below ground, can be found throughout the Dordogne. These subterranean refuges and lookout huts were large enough to shelter entire local populations, according to Julius Caesar the Gauls took refuge in these caves during the resistance. After Guienne province was transferred to the English Crown under the Plantagenets following the remarriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152, the county had been torn apart and, as a consequence, that modeled its physiognomy. During the calmer periods of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the finest Gothic and Renaissance residences were built in Périgueux, Bergerac and Sarlat. In the countryside, the nobility had the majority of the more than 1200 chateaux, manors, at the time, Bergerac was one of the most powerful Huguenot strongholds, along with La Rochelle. and even Josephine Baker. A number of ruins have retained the memory of the tragedies took place within their walls. Several of the castles and châteaux are open to visitors and some of such as Bourdeilles and Mareuil. Saint-Léon-sur-Vézère, Connezac, Saint-Jean-de-Côle, La Roque-Gageac and many others are real jewels of architecture, as for the old quarters of Périgueux or Bergerac, restored and developed into pedestrian areas, they have regained their former charm. A number of towns, such as Brantôme, Issigeac, Eymet. A special mention should be made in respect to Sarlat. Dordogne is one of the original 83 departments created on 4 March 1790 during the French Revolution and it was included from the former province of Périgord, the county of Périgord. Its borders would continue to change over the subsequent decades, in 1793 the communes of Boisseuilh, Coubjours, Génis, Payzac, Saint-Cyr-les-Champagnes, Saint-Mesmin, Salagnac, Savignac, Saint-Trié and Teillots were transferred from Corrèze to Dordogne. In 1794 Dordogne ceded Cavarc to Lot-et-Garonne, later in 1794 Dordogne gained Parcoul from Charente-Inférieure. Following the restoration, in 1819, the commune of Bonrepos was suppressed and merged with the adjacent commune of Souillac in Lot, but at some stage the victim died, and following a trial four individuals identified as culpable were in turn condemned to die by guillotine
2.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Henry Christy
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Henry Christy was an English banker and collector, who left his substantial collections to the British Museum. Trained to business by his father, Henry Christy became a partner in the house of Christy & Co. in Gracechurch Street and he was still a board member of the bank at the end of his life, despite other activities. Henry contributed to the success of the firm, known as W. M. Christy & Sons Ltd. once his father took it over. Christy also innovated with woven silk rather than beaver for the manufacture of top hats, Christy was a philanthropist, active in the Great Famine and other causes. With other Quakers Christy took the approach of buying seeds for other vegetable crops, with committee members Robert Forster and Samuel Fox, he also lobbied the government for practical help in improving Irish fisheries. He was one of the founders of the Aborigines Protection Society and he was also a committee member of the British and Foreign School Society. Christy was also involved in numerous learned societies and he belonged to both the Ethnological Society of London and the Anthropological Society of London, representing different strands arising from early ethnology. He became a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1856, and he took part in both the archaeological societies of the period, and the Royal Geographical Society. In 1850 Christy began to visit foreign countries, among the fruits of his first expedition to the East were an extensive collection of Eastern fabrics, and a large series of figures from Cyprus, which are now in the British Museum. After the Great Exhibition of 1851, Christy began the study of tribal peoples, in 1852, and again in 1853, he travelled in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. The public collections of antiquities at Stockholm and Copenhagen were a revelation to him, the year 1856 was devoted to America. Travelling over Canada, the United States, and British Columbia, Christy met Edward Burnett Tylor in Cuba, and they went on together to Mexico and their Mexican travels were described by Tylor in his Anahuac. In 1858, the antiquity of man was proved by the discoveries of Boucher de Perthes on flint implements in France, Christy joined the Geological Society that year. He went with the French palæontologist Edouard Lartet in the examination of the caves along the valley of the Vézère, remains are embedded in the stalagmites of these caves. Thousands of specimens were obtained, some of them being added to Christys collection, the sites they investigated included Le Moustier, the Abri de la Madeleine, both important type sites. In April 1865, Christy left England with a party of geologists to examine some caves which had recently been discovered in Belgium. While at work he caught a severe cold, a subsequent journey with M. and Mme. Lartet to La Palisse brought on inflammation of the lungs, of which he died on 4 May 1865 and he also left £5000 which established the Christy fund that allowed the British Museum to purchase many more artefacts, with a sum of money to be applied to public exhibition
5.
World Heritage Site
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A World Heritage Site is a landmark which has been officially recognized by the United Nations, specifically by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Sites are selected on the basis of having cultural, historical, scientific or some form of significance. UNESCO regards these sites as being important to the interests of humanity. The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common culture, under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund. The program was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the Worlds Cultural and Natural Heritage, since then,192 state parties have ratified the convention, making it one of the most adhered to international instruments. As of July 2016,1052 sites are listed,814 cultural,203 natural, in 1959, the governments of Egypt and Sudan requested UNESCO to assist their countries to protect and rescue the endangered monuments and sites. In 1960, the Director-General of UNESCO launched an appeal to the Member States for an International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, the campaign, which ended in 1980, was considered a success. The project cost $80 million, about $40 million of which was collected from 50 countries, the projects success led to other safeguarding campaigns, saving Venice and its lagoon in Italy, the ruins of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, and the Borobodur Temple Compounds in Indonesia. UNESCO then initiated, with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the United States initiated the idea of cultural conservation with nature conservation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, the Convention came into force on 17 December 1975. As of June 2016, it has been ratified by 192 states, including 188 UN member states plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See, Niue, a country must first list its significant cultural and natural sites, the result is called the Tentative List. A country may not nominate sites that have not been first included on the Tentative List, next, it can place sites selected from that list into a Nomination File. The Nomination File is evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and these bodies then make their recommendations to the World Heritage Committee. There are ten selection criteria – a site must meet at least one of them to be included on the list, up to 2004, there were six criteria for cultural heritage and four criteria for natural heritage. In 2005, this was modified so there is now only one set of ten criteria. Nominated sites must be of outstanding value and meet at least one of the ten criteria. Thus, the Geneva Convention treaty promulgates, Article 53, PROTECTION OF CULTURAL OBJECTS AND OF PLACES OF WORSHIP. There are 1,052 World Heritage Sites located in 165 States Party, of these,814 are cultural,203 are natural and 35 are mixed properties
6.
Lascaux
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Among some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic works of art depicted are primarily large animals, typical local and contemporary fauna that corresponds with the fossil record. The paintings are the combined effort of many generations, and despite continuing debate, Lascaux was inducted into the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list in 1979, as element of the Prehistoric Sites and Decorated Caves of the Vézère Valley. On September 12,1940, the entrance to the Lascaux Cave was discovered by 18 year old Marcel Ravidat, Ravidat returned to the scene with three friends, Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel, and Simon Coencas, and entered the cave via a long shaft. The teenagers discovered that the walls were covered with depictions of animals. Galleries that suggest continuity. Those include the Hall of the Bulls, the Passageway, the Shaft, the Nave, the Apse, the cave complex was opened to the public in 1948. By 1955, carbon dioxide, heat, humidity, and other contaminants produced by 1,200 visitors per day had visibly damaged the paintings, as air condition deteriorated fungi and lichen increasingly infested the walls. Consequently the cave was closed to the public in 1963, the paintings were restored to their original state, a full range of Lascauxs parietal art is presented at the Centre of Prehistoric Art at Le Parc du Thot. Ochroconis lascauxensis is a species of fungus of the Ascomycota phylum, in May 2012 officially described and named after the locality of its first emergence, the Lascaux cave. It was along with a closely related second species Ochroconis anomala, first observed in 2000 inside the cave, no official announcement on the effect and/or progress of attempted treatments has ever been made. As of 2008, the cave contained black mold, in January 2008, authorities closed the cave for three months even to scientists and preservationists. A single individual was allowed to enter the cave for 20 minutes once a week to monitor climatic conditions, in 2009 it was announced, Mould problem stable. In 2011 the fungus seemed to be in retreat after the installment of an additional, in its sedimentary composition, the Vézère drainage basin covers one fourth of the département of the Dordogne, the northernmost region of the Black Périgord. Before joining the Dordogne River near Limeuil, the Vézère flows in a south-westerly direction, at its centre point, the rivers course is marked by a series of meanders flanked by high limestone cliffs that determine the landscape. The Lascaux valley is located some distance from the concentrations of decorated caves and inhabited sites. This is the highest concentration in western Europe, the cave contains nearly 2,000 figures, which can be grouped into three main categories, animals, human figures, and abstract signs. The paintings contain no images of the landscape or the vegetation of the time. Charcoal may also have used but seemingly to a sparing extent. In other areas, the colour was applied by spraying the pigments by blowing the mixture through a tube, where the rock surface is softer, some designs have been incised into the stone
7.
Archaeological site
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Sites may range from those with few or no remains visible above ground, to buildings and other structures still in use. Beyond this, the definition and geographical extent of a site can vary widely, depending on the period studied and it is almost invariably difficult to delimit a site. It is sometimes taken to indicate a settlement of some sort although the archaeologist must also define the limits of human activity around the settlement, any episode of deposition such as a hoard or burial can form a site as well. Development-led archaeology undertaken as cultural resources management has the disadvantage of having its sites defined by the limits of the intended development, even in this case however, in describing and interpreting the site, the archaeologist will have to look outside the boundaries of the building site. According to Jess Beck in “How Do Archaeologists find sites. ”The areas with a number of artifacts are good targets for future excavation. The most common person to have found artifacts are farmers who are plowing their fields or just cleaning them up often find archaeological artifacts, many people who are out hiking and even pilots find artifacts they usually end up reporting them to archaeologist to do further investigation. When they find sites, they have to first record the area and if they have the money, there are many ways to find sites, one example can be through surveys. Surveys involve walking around analyzing the land looking for artifacts. ”This helps archaeologists in the future. In case there was no time, or money during the finding of the site, archaeologists can come back, archaeologist can also sample randomly within a given area of land as another form of conducting surveys. Surveys are very useful, according to Jess Beck, “it can tell you where people were living at different points in the past. ”Geophysics is a branch of survey becoming more and more popular in archaeology, because it uses different types of instruments to investigate features below the ground surface. It is not as reliable, because although they can see what is under the surface of the ground it does not produce the best picture, Archaeologists have to still dig up the area in order to uncover the truth. There are also two most common types of survey, which is, magnetometer and ground penetrating radar. Magnetometry is the technique of measuring and mapping patterns of magnetism in the soil and it uses an instrument called a magnetometer which is required to measure and map traces of soil magnetism. The ground penetrating radar is a method that uses radar pulses to image the subsurface and it uses electro magnetic radiation in the microwave band of the radio spectrum, and detects the reflected signals from subsurface structures. There are many tools that can be used to find artifacts. This tool is helpful to archaeologists who want to explore in a different area. They can use this tool to see what has already been discovered, with this information available, archaeologists can expand their research and add more to what has already been found. Traditionally, sites are distinguished by the presence of artifacts and features
8.
Rock shelter
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A rock shelter is a shallow cave-like opening at the base of a bluff or cliff. In arid areas, wind erosion can be an important factor in rockhouse formation, erosion from moving water is seldom a significant factor. Many rock shelters are found under waterfalls, Rock shelter formation types Rock shelters are often important archaeologically. Because rock shelters form natural shelters from the weather, prehistoric humans often used them as living-places, and left behind debris, tools, in mountainous areas the shelters can also be important for mountaineers. In western Connecticut and eastern New York, many shelters are known by the colloquialism leatherman caves. Sandstone can be used as shingles for roof tops when possible, the Cumberland stitchwort is an endangered species of plant which is found only in rock shelters in Kentucky and Tennessee. Gatecliff Rockshelter Kinlock Shelter Mesa Verde Overhang Roc-aux-Sorciers Shelter Rock Walnut Canyon
9.
Neanderthal
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Neanderthals, or more rarely Neandertals, were a species or subspecies of archaic humans in the genus Homo that became extinct about 40,000 years ago. Neanderthals and modern humans share 99. 7% of their DNA and are closely related. Neanderthals left bones and stone tools in Eurasia, from Western Europe to Central, from the 1950s to the early 1980s, however, Neanderthals were widely considered a subspecies of Homo sapiens and a minority of scholars still hold this view. Several cultural assemblages have been linked to the Neanderthals in Europe, the earliest, the Mousterian stone tool culture, dates to about 160,000 years ago. Late Mousterian artifacts were found in Gorhams Cave on the south-facing coast of Gibraltar, male Neanderthals had cranial capacities averaging 1600 cm3, females 1300 cm3, extending to 1736 cm3 in Amud 1. This is notably larger than the 1250–1400 cm3 typical of modern humans, males stood 164–168 cm and females 152–156 cm tall. Recent studies also show that a few Neanderthals began mating with ancestors of modern humans long before the out of Africa migration of present day non-Africans. Claims that Neanderthals deliberately buried their dead, and if they did, the debate on deliberate Neanderthal burials has been active since the 1908 discovery of the well-preserved Chapelle-aux-Saints 1 skeleton in a small hole in a cave in southwestern France. In 2013, scientists sequenced the genome of a Neanderthal for the first time. The genome was extracted from the bone of a 50. In 2016, elaborate constructions of rings of broken stalagmites made by early Neanderthals around 176,000 years ago were discovered 336 m inside Bruniquel Cave in southwestern France and this would have required a more advanced social structure than previously known for Neanderthals. Thal is a spelling of the German word Tal, which means valley. Nevertheless, Kings name had priority over the proposal put forward in 1866 by Ernst Haeckel, the practice of referring to the Neanderthals and a Neanderthal emerged in the popular literature of the 1920s. The German pronunciation of Neanderthaler or Neandertaler is in the International Phonetic Alphabet, in British English, Neanderthal is pronounced with the /t/ as in German, but different vowels. In laymans American English, Neanderthal is pronounced with a /θ/ and /ɔ/ instead of the longer British /aː/, during the early 20th century the prevailing view was heavily influenced by Arthur Keith and Marcellin Boule, who wrote the first scientific description of a nearly complete Neanderthal skeleton. During the 1930s scholars Ernst Mayr, George Gaylord Simpson and Theodosius Dobzhansky reinterpreted the existing fossil record, Neanderthal man was classified as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis - an early subspecies contrasted with what was now called Homo sapiens sapiens. The obviously unbroken succession of fossil sites of both subspecies in Europe was considered evidence that there was a slow and gradual evolutionary transition from Neanderthals to modern humans, contextual interpretations of similar excavation sites in Asia lead to the hypothesis of multiregional origin of modern man in the 1980s. Current scientific ideas hold that both evolved from a common African ancestor, Homo erectus
10.
Mousterian
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Mousterian is a name given by archaeologists to a style of predominantly flint tools associated primarily with Neanderthals. They date to the Middle Paleolithic, the part of the European Old Stone Age. The culture was named after the site of Le Moustier. Similar flintwork has been all over unglaciated Europe and also the Near East. Handaxes, racloirs and points constitute the industry, sometimes a Levallois technique or another prepared-core technique was employed in making the flint flakes, Mousterian tools that have been found in Europe were made by Neanderthals and date from around 160,000 BP and 40,000 BP. In North Africa and the Near East, Mouseterian tools were produced by anatomically modern humans. In the Levant, for example, assemblages produced by Neanderthals are indistinguishable from those made by Qafzeh type modern humans, possible variants are Denticulate, Charentian named after the Charente region, Typical and the Acheulean Tradition - Type-A and Type-B. The industry continued alongside the new Châtelperronian industry during the 45, Mousterian artifacts have been found in Haua Fteah in Cyrenaica and other sites in Northwest Africa. Contained within a cave in the Syria region, along with a Neanderthaloid skeleton, located in the Haibak valley of Afghanistan. Zagros and Central Iran The archaeological site of Atapuerca, Spain, gorhams Cave in Gibraltar contains Mousterian objects. Uzbekistan has sites of Mousterian culture, including Teshik-Tash, siberia has many sites with Mousterian style implements, eg Denisova Cave. Neanderthal extinction hypotheses Synoptic table of the old world prehistoric cultures Levallois technique Neanderthals’ Last Stand Is Traced — New York Times article
11.
Supraorbital ridge
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The supraorbital ridge or brow ridge, known as superciliary arches in medicine, refers to a bony ridge located above the eye sockets of all primates. In Homo sapiens sapiens the eyebrows are located on their lower margin, the supraorbital ridge is a nodule or crest of bone situated on the frontal bone of the skull. It forms the separation between the forehead portion itself and the roof of the eye sockets, normally, in humans, the ridges arch over each eye, offering mechanical protection. In other primates, the ridge is usually continuous and often rather than arched. The ridges are separated from the frontal eminences by a shallow groove, the ridges are most prominent medially, and are joined to one another by a smooth elevation named the glabella. Typically, the arches are prominent in men than in women. Behind the ridges, deeper in the bone are the frontal sinuses, the supraorbital ridges, being a prominent part of the face in some ethnic groups and a trait linked to both atavism and sexual dimorphism, have a number of names in different disciplines. In vernacular English, the eyebrow bone or eyebrow ridge are common. The more technical terms frontal or supraorbital arch, - ridge or - torus are often found in anthropological or archaeological studies, in medicine, the term arcus superciliaris or the English translation superciliary arch. This feature is different from the margin and the margin of the orbit. Some paleoanthropologists distinguish between torus and ridge, in anatomy, a torus is a projecting shelf of bone. Fossil hominins, in use of the word, have the frontal torus. The Spatial model proposes that supraorbital torus development can be best explained in terms of the disparity between the position of the orbital component relative the neurocranium. Much of the groundwork for the model was laid down by Schultz. He was the first to document that at later stages of development the growth of the orbit would outpace that of the eye. Consequently, he proposed that facial size is the most influential factor in development, with orbital growth being only secondarily affected by size. Weindenreich and Biegert argued that the region can best be understood as a product of the orientation of its two components, the face and the neurocranium. They proposed that during infancy the neurocranium extensively overlaps the orbit, as the splanchocranium grows, however, the orbits begin to advance, thus causing the anterior displacement of the face relative to the brain
12.
Occipital bun
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An occipital bun is a prominent bulge or projection of the occipital bone at the back of the skull. It is important in descriptions of classic Neanderthal crania. While common among many of humankinds ancestors, primarily robust relatives rather than gracile, some scientists suspect occipital buns might correlate with the biomechanics of running. Another theory attributes them to enlargement of the cerebellum, a region of the brain which mediates the timing of motor actions, there are still some human populations which often exhibit occipital buns. A greater proportion of early modern Europeans had them, but prominent occipital buns in modern populations are now relatively infrequent, bone terminology Terms for anatomical location PBS. org - Neanderthals on Trial
13.
British Museum
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The British Museum is dedicated to human history, art and culture, and is located in the Bloomsbury area of London. The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician, the museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759, in Montagu House, on the site of the current building. Although today principally a museum of art objects and antiquities. Its foundations lie in the will of the Irish-born British physician, on 7 June 1753, King George II gave his formal assent to the Act of Parliament which established the British Museum. They were joined in 1757 by the Old Royal Library, now the Royal manuscripts, together these four foundation collections included many of the most treasured books now in the British Library including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the sole surviving copy of Beowulf. The British Museum was the first of a new kind of museum – national, belonging to neither church nor king, freely open to the public, sloanes collection, while including a vast miscellany of objects, tended to reflect his scientific interests. The addition of the Cotton and Harley manuscripts introduced a literary, the body of trustees decided on a converted 17th-century mansion, Montagu House, as a location for the museum, which it bought from the Montagu family for £20,000. The Trustees rejected Buckingham House, on the now occupied by Buckingham Palace, on the grounds of cost. With the acquisition of Montagu House the first exhibition galleries and reading room for scholars opened on 15 January 1759. During the few years after its foundation the British Museum received several gifts, including the Thomason Collection of Civil War Tracts. A list of donations to the Museum, dated 31 January 1784, in the early 19th century the foundations for the extensive collection of sculpture began to be laid and Greek, Roman and Egyptian artefacts dominated the antiquities displays. Gifts and purchases from Henry Salt, British consul general in Egypt, beginning with the Colossal bust of Ramesses II in 1818, many Greek sculptures followed, notably the first purpose-built exhibition space, the Charles Towneley collection, much of it Roman Sculpture, in 1805. In 1816 these masterpieces of art, were acquired by The British Museum by Act of Parliament. The collections were supplemented by the Bassae frieze from Phigaleia, Greece in 1815, the Ancient Near Eastern collection also had its beginnings in 1825 with the purchase of Assyrian and Babylonian antiquities from the widow of Claudius James Rich. The neoclassical architect, Sir Robert Smirke, was asked to draw up plans for an extension to the Museum. For the reception of the Royal Library, and a Picture Gallery over it, and put forward plans for todays quadrangular building, much of which can be seen today. The dilapidated Old Montagu House was demolished and work on the Kings Library Gallery began in 1823, the extension, the East Wing, was completed by 1831. The Museum became a site as Sir Robert Smirkes grand neo-classical building gradually arose
14.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
15.
Cave painting
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Cave paintings are painted drawings on cave walls or ceilings, mainly of prehistoric origin, to some 40,000 years ago in Eurasia. The exact purpose of the Paleolithic cave paintings is not known, evidence suggests that they were not merely decorations of living areas since the caves in which they have been found do not have signs of ongoing habitation. They are also located in areas of caves that are not easily accessible. Some theories hold that cave paintings may have been a way of communicating with others, the paintings are remarkably similar around the world, with animals being common subjects that give the most impressive images. Humans mainly appear as images of hands, mostly hand stencils made by blowing pigment on a hand held to the wall. The earliest known cave paintings/drawings of animals are at least 35,000 years old and are found in Pettakere cave on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia, previously it was believed that the earliest paintings were in Europe. The earliest non-figurative rock art dates back to approximately 40,000 years ago, nearly 340 caves have now been discovered in France and Spain that contain art from prehistoric times. But subsequent technology has made it possible to date the paintings by sampling the pigment itself, the choice of subject matter can also indicate chronology. For instance, the reindeer depicted in the Spanish cave of Cueva de las Monedas places the drawings in the last Ice Age. The oldest date given to a cave painting is now a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old at Pettakere cave in Sulawesi. Indonesian and Australian scientists have dated other non-figurative paintings on the walls to be approximately 40,000 years old, the method they used to confirm this was dating the age of the stalactites that formed over the top of the paintings. The art is similar in style and method to that of the Indonesian caves as there were also hand stencils and this date coincides with the earliest known evidence for Homo sapiens in Europe. Because of the cave arts age, some scientists have conjectured that the paintings may have made by Neanderthals. The earliest known European figurative cave paintings are those of Chauvet Cave in France and these paintings date to earlier than 30,000 BCE according to radiocarbon dating. Some researchers believe the drawings are too advanced for this era, the radiocarbon dates from these samples show that there were two periods of creation in Chauvet,35,000 years ago and 30,000 years ago. In 2009, cavers discovered drawings in Coliboaia Cave in Romania, an initial dating puts the age of an image in the same range as Chauvet, about 32,000 years old. Some caves probably continued to be painted over a period of thousands of years. This was created roughly between 10,000 and 5,500 years ago, and painted in rock shelters under cliffs or shallow caves, though individual figures are less naturalistic, they are grouped in coherent grouped compositions to a much greater degree
16.
Armenia
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Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a sovereign state in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia. The Republic of Armenia constitutes only one-tenth of historical Armenia, Armenia is a unitary, multi-party, democratic nation-state with an ancient cultural heritage. Urartu was established in 860 BC and by the 6th century BC it was replaced by the Satrapy of Armenia, in the 1st century BC the Kingdom of Armenia reached its height under Tigranes the Great. Armenia became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion, in between the late 3rd century to early years of the 4th century, the state became the first Christian nation. The official date of adoption of Christianity is 301 AD. The ancient Armenian kingdom was split between the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires around the early 5th century, under the Bagratuni dynasty, the Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia was restored in the 9th century. Declining due to the wars against the Byzantines, the fell in 1045. An Armenian principality and later a kingdom Cilician Armenia was located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea between the 11th and 14th centuries. By the 19th century, Eastern Armenia had been conquered by the Russian Empire, during World War I, Armenians living in their ancestral lands in the Ottoman Empire were systematically exterminated in the Armenian Genocide. By 1920, the state was incorporated into the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, in 1936, the Transcaucasian state was dissolved, transforming its constituent states, including the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, into full Union republics. The modern Republic of Armenia became independent in 1991 during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Republic of Armenia recognises the Armenian Apostolic Church, the worlds oldest national church, as the countrys primary religious establishment. The unique Armenian alphabet was invented by Mesrop Mashtots in 405 AD, Armenia is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, the Council of Europe and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Armenia supports the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which was proclaimed in 1991, the native Armenian name for the country is Հայք. The name in the Middle Ages was extended to Հայաստան, by addition of the Persian suffix -stan, the further origin of the name is uncertain. It is also postulated that the name Hay comes from one of the two confederated, Hittite vassal states—the Ḫayaša-Azzi. The exonym Armenia is attested in the Old Persian Behistun Inscription as Armina, the ancient Greek terms Ἀρμενία and Ἀρμένιοι are first mentioned by Hecataeus of Miletus. Xenophon, a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and he relates that the people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians. According to the histories of both Moses of Chorene and Michael Chamchian, Armenia derives from the name of Aram, a descendant of Hayk
17.
Areni-1 cave
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The Areni-1 cave complex is located near the Areni village in southern Armenia along the Arpa River. In 2010, it was announced that the earliest known shoe was found at the site, in January 2011, the earliest known winery in the world was announced to have been found. Also in 2011, the discovery of a straw skirt dating to 3900 BC was reported, in 2009, the oldest brain was discovered
18.
Austria
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Austria, officially the Republic of Austria, is a federal republic and a landlocked country of over 8.7 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, the territory of Austria covers 83,879 km2. The terrain is mountainous, lying within the Alps, only 32% of the country is below 500 m. The majority of the population speaks local Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, other local official languages are Hungarian, Burgenland Croatian, and Slovene. The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty, from the time of the Reformation, many northern German princes, resenting the authority of the Emperor, used Protestantism as a flag of rebellion. Following Napoleons defeat, Prussia emerged as Austrias chief competitor for rule of a greater Germany, Austrias defeat by Prussia at the Battle of Königgrätz, during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, cleared the way for Prussia to assert control over the rest of Germany. In 1867, the empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary, Austria was thus the first to go to war in the July Crisis, which would ultimately escalate into World War I. The First Austrian Republic was established in 1919, in 1938 Nazi Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss. This lasted until the end of World War II in 1945, after which Germany was occupied by the Allies, in 1955, the Austrian State Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state, ending the occupation. In the same year, the Austrian Parliament created the Declaration of Neutrality which declared that the Second Austrian Republic would become permanently neutral, today, Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy comprising nine federal states. The capital and largest city, with a population exceeding 1.7 million, is Vienna, other major urban areas of Austria include Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck. Austria is one of the richest countries in the world, with a nominal per capita GDP of $43,724, the country has developed a high standard of living and in 2014 was ranked 21st in the world for its Human Development Index. Austria has been a member of the United Nations since 1955, joined the European Union in 1995, Austria also signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, and adopted the euro currency in 1999. The German name for Austria, Österreich, meant eastern realm in Old High German, and is cognate with the word Ostarrîchi and this word is probably a translation of Medieval Latin Marchia orientalis into a local dialect. Austria was a prefecture of Bavaria created in 976, the word Austria is a Latinisation of the German name and was first recorded in the 12th century. Accordingly, Norig would essentially mean the same as Ostarrîchi and Österreich, the Celtic name was eventually Latinised to Noricum after the Romans conquered the area that encloses most of modern-day Austria, around 15 BC. Noricum later became a Roman province in the mid-first century AD, heers hypothesis is not accepted by linguists. Settled in ancient times, the Central European land that is now Austria was occupied in pre-Roman times by various Celtic tribes, the Celtic kingdom of Noricum was later claimed by the Roman Empire and made a province
19.
Tischofer Cave
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The Tischofer Cave is a cave in the Kaisertal valley in the Kaisergebirge mountains in Austria. It was important locally as a place and weapons cache for local rebels during the Napoleonic Wars. The roughly 40 m long cave, which is about 8.5 m high at the entrance, was used during the Stone Age by bears and other predators as shelter and that makes the Tischofer Cave the oldest proven site of human occupation in Tyrol. Discoveries of human skeletons and tools also indicate that the cave acted as a copper smithy, the Tischofer Cave may be reached on foot via the Kaiser Path in the Kaisertal valley, a pathway secured with cable railings. It is recorded in the Tyrolean Cave Register as number 1312/001, article from Hofmann, Wege im Inntal with comprehensive description Die Tischofer Höhle im Kaisertal bei Kufstein at www. tirol-infos. at. Tischofer Höhle im Kaisertal at www. kaisergebirge-online. de
20.
Belgium
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Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe bordered by France, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and the North Sea. It is a small, densely populated country which covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres and has a population of about 11 million people. Additionally, there is a group of German-speakers who live in the East Cantons located around the High Fens area. Historically, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries, the region was called Belgica in Latin, after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, today, Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. It is divided into three regions and three communities, that exist next to each other and its two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia, Belgiums linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of governance, made up of six different governments. Upon its independence, declared in 1830, Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Belgium is also a member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD and WTO. Its capital, Brussels, hosts several of the EUs official seats as well as the headquarters of major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is also a part of the Schengen Area, Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy and is categorized as very high in the Human Development Index. A gradual immigration by Germanic Frankish tribes during the 5th century brought the area under the rule of the Merovingian kings, a gradual shift of power during the 8th century led the kingdom of the Franks to evolve into the Carolingian Empire. Many of these fiefdoms were united in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 14th and 15th centuries, the Eighty Years War divided the Low Countries into the northern United Provinces and the Southern Netherlands. The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs and this was the theatre of most Franco-Spanish and Franco-Austrian wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. The reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1815, although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 and for women in 1949. The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party, French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie
21.
Neolithic flint mines of Spiennes
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The mines were active during the mid and late Neolithic between 4,300 and 2,200 BC. Declared to be remarkable for the diversity of technological solutions used for extraction the site, discovered in 1843, the first excavations were undertaken during railway construction in 1867 and intermittent excavations have been carried out up to the present day. The Mines of Spiennes cover some 100 ha of downland four miles south-east of the city of Mons, the site is dotted with millions of scraps of worked flint and numerous mining pits, that Neolithic settlers have gradually turned into vertical mine shafts to depths of over 10 m. Research has illustrated Neolithic techniques for the cutting of the flint and the extraction of large slabs of flint, the nodules were extracted using flint picks. The stones were then knapped into rough-out shapes of axes, the SILEXS Interpretive Centre has opened in spring 2015. The rough-outs were exchanged over an area, about 150 km. Polishing strengthens the product, making the axe- or adze-head last longer. The smooth surface also aids the cutting action by lowering friction with the wood, the axes were used initially for forest clearance during the Neolithic period, and for shaping wood for structural applications, such as timber for huts and canoes. The site has been compared with Grimes Graves and Cissbury in the United Kingdom, and Krzemionki in Poland, however, different hard rocks were used for the polished stone axes. Examples include the Langdale axe industry, Penmaenmawr and Tievebulliagh, guillaume, Ph. Lipinski & A. Masson, Les mines de silex néolithiques de la Meuse dans le contexte européen. Musées de la Meuse, Sampigny 1987, F. Gosselin, Un site dexploitation du silex à Spiennes, au lieu-dit Petit-Spiennes. F. Hubert, Une minière néolithique à silex au Camp-à-Cayaux de Spiennes, F. Hubert, Lexploitation préhistorique du silex à Spiennes. Ministère de la Région wallonne, Direction générale de lAménagement du Territoire, du Logement et du Patrimoine, R. Shepherd, Prehistoric Mining and Allied Industries. Société de recherches préhistoriques en Hainaut, Minières néolithiques à Spiennes,1997 ICOMOS evaluation Collet, H. Les mines néolithiques de Spiennes, état des connaissances et perspectives de recherche. Section 10, The Neolithic in the Near East and Europe, actes du XIVème congrès UISPP, Université de Liège, Belgique,2 –8 septembre 2001 H. Collet, A. Hauzeur & J. Lech,2008. The prehistoric flint mining complex at Spiennes on the occasion of its discovery 140 years ago In P. Allard, F. Bostyn, flint mining in Prehistoric Europe, Interpreting the archaeological records. European Association of Archaeologists, 12th Annual Meeting, Cracow, Poland, 19–24 September 2006, H. Collet,2014. Les minières néolithiques de silex de Spiennes
22.
Scladina
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The caves in the area have been undergone systematic exploration since 1949. Scladina Cave was discovered in 1971 by cavers of the CAS, in 1978 the Scientific Council of the Prehistory Department of the University of Liège began to direct the excavations. Since the site has yielded numerous artifacts of Mousterian Neanderthal origin, amidst assemblages of stone tools, bones, after the initially clearing of the entrance the excavations uncovered two strata of Neanderthal occupation, the oldest dating back 130,000 years. The sediments yielded artifacts and Mousterian stone tools, the earliest were attributed to the Middle Palaeolithic, two Neanderthal occupation sites were identified, one dated to be 130,000 years old and the other 40,000 years. Modern humans infrequently occupied the site between 32,000 and 9,000 years ago and used the site as a place during the late Neolithic. Continued excavations since 1978 have produced a stream of findings that culminated in the discovery of the remarkable Sclayn child fossils in 1993. Sclayn cave site has been classified as a heritage site of Wallonia on 27 May 2009 and is since open to the public. Dated to be around 127,000 years old, the first fragment of the now nearly complete mandible, was found on 16 July 1993, a maxillary fragment and several teeth of the child were excavated in subsequent campaigns. A genetic sample was successfully extracted from one of the molars at a laboratory for ancient DNA and analyzed at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Initially it was suggested that the Scladina child was 2 to 4 years older than current estimates, some scholars, though debate universal periods of anterior tooth growth, as it is known that anterior tooth growth takes longer in great apes than in humans and varies among human populations. The study of the turned out to support the idea that extremely prolonged duration of human development is unique to Homo sapiens. This trend suggests to scientists the necessary prevalence of differing patterns of behavioral and social development as well. Neanderthal diet consisted to over 70% of meat, unlike that of contemporary Homo sapiens hunter-gatherer societies, although some cooked vegetables are evident. Provisioning techniques, made superior by extensive use, aided early Homo in pursuits of worldwide expansion. One large game evident in the diets of Scladina Neanderthals is bear, several bear bones were found amongst other stone tools and modifiers within the Scladina cave site. Wear marks on the bones,4 of the 6 bear bone tools which originated from a single femur, the idea is to correctly inform about prehistory, deemed to be still perceived as nebulous and mythical by the general public. The site and its center are open to the public all year round. Private groups, school classes are permanently granted access to the cave, the laboratory, list of human evolution fossils Scladina Cave Archaeological Center The Scladina cave Archéologie Andennaise SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION of tooth development
23.
Spy Cave
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Spy Cave is located near Spy in the municipality of Jemeppe-sur-Sambre, province of Namur, Belgium above the left bank of the Orneau River. Classified as a premier Wallonian Heritage site of the Walloon Region, the cave consists of numerous small chambers and corridors. Since the first amateur investigations during the late 19th century numerous amateur and professional archaeologists have carried out excavations, the excavation was conducted by Liège, archaeologist Marcel de Puydt and geologist Max Lohest. Paleontologist and zoologist Julien Fraipont published the description in the American Anthropologist journal. The assemblages of the oldest excavations have been mixed, that makes the interpretation of the palaeoenvironment difficult, in addition publications of de Puydt, Lohest and Fraipoint disagree on the number of layers of knapped flints. The hominid skeletons discovered during the first excavations have been named Spy I, a female, and Spy 2 and these were dated to around 36,000 years BP, although a Bayesian analysis in 2014 concluded that they were probably more than 40,000 years old. The identification of the remains of a Neanderthal child, Spy VI, was published in 2010, almost 12,000 faunal remains of the Pleistocene were discovered, including mammoth, horse, cave hyena, woolly rhinoceros, reindeer, and cave bear bones. All levels contained mammoth remains, including a number of molars. It has been suggested that the Neanderthal occupants brought mammoth heads to the site and ate the brains, because many of the molars were unworn, these would have been very young or newborn calves, killed in early spring, when plant food would not yet have been available. Evidence of occupation by Upper Paleolithic anatomically modern humans has also found at Spy. Pendants and perforated beads made from ivory, presumably by modern humans, were found in the cave. Goyet Caves Media related to Spy Cave at Wikimedia Commons
24.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
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Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina, and, in short, often known informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeastern Europe located on the Balkan Peninsula. Sarajevo is the capital and largest city, in the central and eastern interior of the country the geography is mountainous, in the northwest it is moderately hilly, and the northeast is predominantly flatland. The inland is a larger region and has a moderate continental climate, with hot summers and cold. The southern tip of the country has a Mediterranean climate and plain topography, Bosnia and Herzegovina is a region that traces permanent human settlement back to the Neolithic age, during and after which it was populated by several Illyrian and Celtic civilizations. Culturally, politically, and socially, the country has a rich history, the Ottomans brought Islam to the region, and altered much of the cultural and social outlook of the country. This was followed by annexation into the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which lasted up until World War I. In the interwar period, Bosnia was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and after World War II, following the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the country proclaimed independence in 1992, which was followed by the Bosnian War, lasting until late 1995. The country is home to three ethnic groups or, officially, constituent peoples, as specified in the constitution. Bosniaks are the largest group of the three, with Serbs second and Croats third, a native of Bosnia and Herzegovina, regardless of ethnicity, is identified in English as a Bosnian. The terms Herzegovinian and Bosnian are maintained as a rather than ethnic distinction. Moreover, the country was simply called Bosnia until the Austro-Hungarian occupation at the end of the 19th century, Bosnia and Herzegovina has a bicameral legislature and a three-member Presidency composed of a member of each major ethnic group. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is itself complex and consists of 10 cantons, additionally, the country has been a member of the Council of Europe since April 2002 and a founding member of the Mediterranean Union upon its establishment in July 2008. The name is believed to have derived from the hydronym of the river Bosna coursing through the Bosnian heartland. According to philologist Anton Mayer the name Bosna could be derived from Illyrian Bass-an-as which would be a diversion of the Proto-Indo-European root bos or bogh, meaning the running water. According to English medievalist William Miller the Slavic settlers in Bosnia adapted the Latin designation Basante, to their own idiom by calling the stream Bosna, the name Herzegovina originates from Bosnian magnate Stephen Vukčić Kosačas title, Herceg of Hum and the Coast. Hum, formerly Zahumlje, was a medieval principality that was conquered by the Bosnian Banate in the first half of the 14th century. Bosnia is located in the western Balkans, bordering Croatia to the north and west, Serbia to the east and it has a coastline about 20 kilometres long surrounding the city of Neum. It lies between latitudes 42° and 46° N, and longitudes 15° and 20° E, the countrys name comes from the two regions Bosnia and Herzegovina, which have a very vaguely defined border between them
25.
Badanj Cave
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Badanj Cave is located in Borojevići village near the town of Stolac, Bosnia and Herzegovina. This rather small cave has come to attention after the 1976 discovery of its cave engravings. The site is rock shelter or overhang recessed beneath a cliff that descends to the bank of the river Bregava. Two chronologically distinct strata of Palaeolithic occupation were identified beneath the surface layer, of particular significance was the discovery of a particular carving of the Badanj site, as it ranks among the oldest works of art in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The carving is cut into the surface of a large polished block of stone. Only the rear half of the body survives, with flanks typical for a horse and part of the body, the Badanj carvings include depictions of animals and symbols, as is typical of Mediterranean prehistoric art. The site was dated to the late Upper Palaeolithic and it is also designated as a National Monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2003
26.
Bulgaria
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Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, with a territory of 110,994 square kilometres, Bulgaria is Europes 16th-largest country. Organised prehistoric cultures began developing on current Bulgarian lands during the Neolithic period and its ancient history saw the presence of the Thracians, Greeks, Persians, Celts, Romans, Goths, Alans and Huns. With the downfall of the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1396, its territories came under Ottoman rule for five centuries. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 led to the formation of the Third Bulgarian State, the following years saw several conflicts with its neighbours, which prompted Bulgaria to align with Germany in both world wars. In 1946 it became a one-party socialist state as part of the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc, in December 1989 the ruling Communist Party allowed multi-party elections, which subsequently led to Bulgarias transition into a democracy and a market-based economy. Bulgarias population of 7.2 million people is predominantly urbanised, most commercial and cultural activities are centred on the capital and largest city, Sofia. The strongest sectors of the economy are industry, power engineering. The countrys current political structure dates to the adoption of a constitution in 1991. Bulgaria is a parliamentary republic with a high degree of political, administrative. Human activity in the lands of modern Bulgaria can be traced back to the Paleolithic, animal bones incised with man-made markings from Kozarnika cave are assumed to be the earliest examples of symbolic behaviour in humans. Organised prehistoric societies in Bulgarian lands include the Neolithic Hamangia culture, Vinča culture, the latter is credited with inventing gold working and exploitation. Some of these first gold smelters produced the coins, weapons and jewellery of the Varna Necropolis treasure and this site also offers insights for understanding the social hierarchy of the earliest European societies. Thracians, one of the three primary groups of modern Bulgarians, began appearing in the region during the Iron Age. In the late 6th century BC, the Persians conquered most of present-day Bulgaria, and kept it until 479 BC. After the division of the Roman Empire in the 5th century the area fell under Byzantine control, by this time, Christianity had already spread in the region. A small Gothic community in Nicopolis ad Istrum produced the first Germanic language book in the 4th century, the first Christian monastery in Europe was established around the same time by Saint Athanasius in central Bulgaria. From the 6th century the easternmost South Slavs gradually settled in the region, in 680 Bulgar tribes under the leadership of Asparukh moved south across the Danube and settled in the area between the lower Danube and the Balkan, establishing their capital at Pliska
27.
Bacho Kiro cave
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The Bacho Kiro cave is situated 5 km west of the town Dryanovo, Bulgaria, only 300 m away from the Dryanovo Monastery. It is embedded in the canyons of the Andaka and Dryanovo River, the cave is a four-storey labyrinth of galleries and corridors with a total length of 3,600 m,700 m of which are maintained for public access and equipped with electrical lights since 1964. An underground river has over time carved out the many galleries that contain countless stalactone, stalactite, galleries and caverns of a 1,200 m long section have been been musingly named as a popular description of this fairy-tale underground world. The formations succession, Bacho Kiro’s Throne, The Dwarfs, The Sleeping Princess, The Throne Hall, The Reception Hall, The Haidouti Meeting-Ground, The Fountain, the site has yielded the oldest human remains ever to be found in Bulgaria. Among one of the earliest known Aurignacian burials, two pierced animal teeth were found and ordered into the distinct Bachokiran artifact assemblage, radiocarbon dated to over 43,000 years ago, they currently represent the oldest known ornaments in Europe. With an approximate age of 46,000 years, human fossils consist of a pair of fragmented mandibles, whether these early humans were in fact Homo sapiens or Neanderthals is still disputed
28.
Devetashka cave
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Devetàshka cave is a huge karst cave around 7 km east of Letnitsa and 15 km northeast of Lovech, near the village of Devetaki on the east bank of the river Osam, in Bulgaria. The site has continuously occupied by Paleo humans for tens of thousands of years. Devetashka cave is located approximately 2 km from the village of Devetaki, a narrow path by the river lead from the village to the cave. It can also be accessed directly via Road 301 along a 400 m long dirt road, the site is 35 m wide and 30 m high at the entrance. The cave widens after around 40 m, forming a hall with an area of 2,400 m2. Earliest traces of human presence back to the Middle Paleolithic around 70,000 years ago. The site also contained one of the richest sources of Neolithic cultural artifacts, besides significant archaeological findings, Devetashka cave is provides a habitat for a wide diversity of faunal residents. During the breeding season of mammalian species in the cave from early June to the end of July, thirty-four species of mammals, four of which are included in the Red List and fifteen species of bats are to be found at the Devetashka cave. Devetashka cave was shown in the action movie The Expendables 2, the Supreme Administrative Court of Bulgaria declared that several activities during filming violated Bulgarias environmental regulations. A contractor hired by The Expendables crew was subsequently fined for trimming the shrubbery in front of the site, after a fatal accident during the filming of a stunt, the production team again clashed with the authorities over damages to the cave. Loud noises, bright lights, crowds of people and fires in close proximity to the cave might have caused the displacement of large numbers of bats from the cave, however, by late 2012, the majority of the bats had returned to the cave. Media related to Devetashka cave at Wikimedia Commons Devetashka Cave
29.
Magura Cave
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The Magura Cave is located in north-western Bulgaria close to the village of Rabisha,25 km from the town of Belogradchik in Vidin Province. Guided visits are conducted by the staff of Belogradchik municipality, to which the management of the cave was transferred in 2012 by the Bulgarian Council of Ministers, in 1984 the site was induced into UNESCOs tentative list of World Heritage. The total length of the 15 million year old cave is 2.5 km, the average annual temperature of the cave is 12 °C, except for one room where the temperature is always 15 °C. The air humidity reaches 80% and the displacement -56 m, the Magura cave was formed in the limestone Rabisha Hill. The morphology of the consists of one main gallery with six various-sized halls. The very spacious site also allows for music concerts to be held during Christmas, the inner temperature is constantly 11-12 °C. During the summers of 1974 and 1975 the cave was used for speleotherapy. Thirty patients slept in the cave for twelve nights, taking advantage of allergens absence, constant humidity. A part of the cave is now used for ageing sparkling and red wines, labelled Magura, bones from different prehistoric species like cave bear, cave hyena, fox, wolf, wild cat and otter have been discovered in the Magura Cave. Today, constant inhabitants of the cave is the collembola, as well as four types of bats, Cave paintings dating from the Epipaleolithic, late Neolithic, Eneolithic and early Bronze Age decorate some of the caves walls. The paintings have been estimated to be made between 10.000 and 8.000 years ago, the drawings represent important events of the society that had occupied the Magura cave, religious ceremonies, hunting scenes and depictions of deities which are unique on the Balkan peninsula. The Fertility Dance and the Hunting Ceremony rank among the most noteworthy paintings, one grouping from the Bronze Age has been interpreted as a solar calendar. The cave paintings allowed storing information about regional solar calendar, customs, religious festivals, contemporary imitations of possible fertility rites are reported — inscriptions in Latin and paintings made by treasure-hunters. The medium used to create the art was bat guano, more than 750 images have been identified. Painted signs can be organised into four groups, anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, geometric. For the first group, there are bitriangular silhouettes with raised rounded arms, archers, ithyphallic figures, copula, regarding zoomorpic items, there are caprids, bovids, dogs, ostrich-like animals and schematic linear quadrupeds. Few rayed circle figures, mainly the two unica of the so-called calendar scene, likely represent a sun depiction, taking count of some associated figures, it is possible to recognize dancing, hunting, and mating scenes. In the so-called Cult Hall a large dance and hunting scene is depicted, arranged in two main rows, these are the best known and most reproduced Magura Cave images
30.
Kozarnika
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Kozarnika or Peshtera Kozarnika is a cave in northwestern Bulgaria that was used as a hunters’ shelter as early as the Lower Paleolithic. It marks an older route of human migration from Africa to Europe via the Balkans. The cave probably keeps the earliest evidence of symbolic behaviour. Kozarnika cave is located 6 km from the town of Belogradchik in northwestern Bulgaria, on the slopes of the Balkan Mountains. It is opened to the south, at 85 m above the valley, with its length of 210 m, the cave is among the small-sized in the Belogradchick karst region. The Kozarnika cave project started in 1984, since 1996, it has been headed by Dr. Prof. Nikolay Sirakov and Dr. Jean-Luc Guadelli. In the ground layers, dated to 1. 6–1, the findings from Middle Paleolithic layers, rather bifacial points, dating from 300, 000–50,000 BP prove presence of hunters’ groups possibly of Homo neanderthalensis. Upper Paleolithic layers consist flint assemblages from the earliest European Gravette complex dating from 43,000 up to 39,000 BP belonging to Homo sapiens sapiens, magura Cave Bacho Kiro cave Sićevo Gorge Peștera cu Oase Vértesszőlős Proto-Indo-Europeans Campanian Ignimbrite Eruption Rincon, Paul
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Croatia
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Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a sovereign state between Central Europe, Southeast Europe, and the Mediterranean. Its capital city is Zagreb, which one of the countrys primary subdivisions. Croatia covers 56,594 square kilometres and has diverse, mostly continental, Croatias Adriatic Sea coast contains more than a thousand islands. The countrys population is 4.28 million, most of whom are Croats, the Croats arrived in the area of present-day Croatia during the early part of the 7th century AD. They organised the state into two duchies by the 9th century, tomislav became the first king by 925, elevating Croatia to the status of a kingdom. The Kingdom of Croatia retained its sovereignty for nearly two centuries, reaching its peak during the rule of Kings Petar Krešimir IV and Dmitar Zvonimir, Croatia entered a personal union with Hungary in 1102. In 1527, faced with Ottoman conquest, the Croatian Parliament elected Ferdinand I of the House of Habsburg to the Croatian throne. In 1918, after World War I, Croatia was included in the unrecognized State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs which seceded from Austria-Hungary, a fascist Croatian puppet state backed by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany existed during World War II. After the war, Croatia became a member and a federal constituent of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. On 25 June 1991 Croatia declared independence, which came wholly into effect on 8 October of the same year, the Croatian War of Independence was fought successfully during the four years following the declaration. A unitary state, Croatia is a republic governed under a parliamentary system, the International Monetary Fund classified Croatia as an emerging and developing economy, and the World Bank identified it as a high-income economy. Croatia is a member of the European Union, United Nations, the Council of Europe, NATO, the World Trade Organization, the service sector dominates Croatias economy, followed by the industrial sector and agriculture. Tourism is a significant source of revenue during the summer, with Croatia ranked the 18th most popular tourist destination in the world, the state controls a part of the economy, with substantial government expenditure. The European Union is Croatias most important trading partner, since 2000, the Croatian government constantly invests in infrastructure, especially transport routes and facilities along the Pan-European corridors. Internal sources produce a significant portion of energy in Croatia, the rest is imported, the origin of the name is uncertain, but is thought to be a Gothic or Indo-Aryan term assigned to a Slavic tribe. The oldest preserved record of the Croatian ethnonym *xъrvatъ is of variable stem, the first attestation of the Latin term is attributed to a charter of Duke Trpimir from the year 852. The original is lost, and just a 1568 copy is preserved—leading to doubts over the authenticity of the claim, the oldest preserved stone inscription is the 9th-century Branimir Inscription, where Duke Branimir is styled as Dux Cruatorvm. The inscription is not believed to be dated accurately, but is likely to be from during the period of 879–892, the area known as Croatia today was inhabited throughout the prehistoric period
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Krapina Neanderthal site
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The following tables give a brief overview of several notable hominin fossil finds relating to human evolution beginning with the formation of the Hominini tribe in the late Miocene. Deprecated classifications may be found on the fossils page, most of the fossils shown are not considered direct ancestors to Homo sapiens but are closely related to direct ancestors and are therefore important to the study of the lineage. Westview Press, Boulder CO. ISBN 978-0-8133-3482-0, cS1 maint, Multiple names, authors list Larsen, Clark Spencer, Matter, Robert M, Gebo, Daniel L. CS1 maint, Multiple names, authors list Smithsonian Human Origins Program, schultz, J. Phenetic Affinities Among Early Homo Crania from East and South Africa
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Vela Spila
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The Vela Spila cave, Cree, Vela Spila, Big Cave is situated above the town of Vela Luka on the island of Korčula, in Croatia on Pinski Rat hill at an elevation of approximately 130 m. The cave consists of an elliptically shaped cavern that measures 40 m in length,17 m in height, there are, similar to the Brillenhöhle in Germany, two openings in the roof of the cave which were caused by collapse at an yet undetermined time. Nikola Ostoic was the first person to describe the cave in modern literature, in 1856, he wrote Compendio Storico Dell Isola Di Curzola. A local historian, museum commissioner, and collector of antiquities, the cave has been mentioned in the Korčula Statute back in the 15th century. Scientific research of the started in the late 1940s. Marinko Gjivoje took up work at the site in 1949, in 1951, Marinko Gjivoje, Boris Ilakovac and Vinko Foretic started test excavations and the results were allowed the proposal to proceed. Based on these findings, Grga Novak decided to excavate in order to confirm the caves links with the island of Hvar. The explorations were carried out in September 1951 and he published his preliminary results in the Annals of the Yugoslav Academy. Since 1974, fieldwork were undertaken almost annually, initially led by Grga Novak, franko Oreb is a permanent member of the excavation crew and Dinko Radic joined the excavation in 1986. There is a sequence of sediments from the late Mesolithic to the Neolithic. Radiocarbon dated finds suggest seasonal human presence for hunting and the collection of resources from 20,000 years BC. Three child burials were discovered between 1986 and 1998 in the younger Mesolithic layers, further findings are dated between 13,500 and 12,600 BC. Eneolithic layers account for non-permanent human occupation of the cave, attributed to the Hvar Culture and this period is immediately being followed by a compact layer of the Bronze Age. The archeological finds are on display at the Centre for Culture in Vela Luka, in 2009 National Geographic featured an article about Vela Spila. In 1986, remains of two adults where found, scientific research dated their bodies back to late Neolithic times. The local towns people of Vela Luka called them Baba i Dida, further excavations between 2001 and 2006, produced 36 ceramic artifacts dated to the late Upper Palaeolithic period, about 17,500 to 15,000 years ago. These finds are the examples of ceramic figurative art in southeastern Europe during the Upper Palaeolithic. Croatia Vela Luka Korčula Drakonjina Spilja www. velaspila. hr Archaeologists uncover Palaeolithic ceramic art First Epigravettian Ceramic Figurines from Europe
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Vindija Cave
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Vindija cave is an archaeological site of occupation associated with Neanderthals and modern humans, located in the municipality of Donja Voća, northern Croatia. One of these Neanderthals was selected as primary source of DNA for the Neanderthal genome project, the cave is located roughly 20 km west of the city of Varaždin and 10 km north of Ivanec. It is estimated that Neanderthals lived there about 45, 000-32,000 years ago, Vindija includes a total of 13 levels dated between 150,000 years ago and the present, spanning the upper part of the Lower Paleolithic, Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic periods. The earliest recognized hominid occupations date to ca and this record of animals in the region has been used to establish data about the climate and habitat of northwest Croatia during that period. The site was first excavated in the first half of the 20th century, there are numerous archaeological and faunal remains with over 100 hominin discoveries that have been found at Vindija Cave. Specimens in Level G3, the lowest hominin-bearing level, are Neanderthals and are associated with exclusively Mousterian artifacts, specimens in Level G1 represent the most recent Neanderthals at the site and are associated with both Mousterian and Upper Paleolithic stone tools. Hominins in Level F are associated with Aurignacian and according to researchers look a little like both AMH and Neanderthal. Hominins in Level D (less than 18,500 years bp, the uppermost hominid-bearing strata in the cave, are associated with Gravettian culture artifacts, and represent only anatomically modern humans. In 2008, researchers reported that a complete mtDNA sequence had been retrieved from a bone of one of the Neanderthals recovered from Vindija Cave. The bone comes from level G3, and it was direct-dated to 38,310 ±2,130 RCYBP and their research suggests that the two hominins who occupied Vindija Cave at different times—early modern Homo sapiens and Neanderthals—were clearly separate species. A recent study reported in Quaternary International describes the data recovered from Vindija Cave. The fauna indicate that during the period between 60,000 and 16,000 years ago, the region had a moderate, broadly temperate climate with a range of environments. In particular, there seems to have no significant evidence for what was thought to be a shift to cooler conditions at the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum. These include a thinner and less projecting brow ridge, reduced facial size, more likely, the Vindija Neanderthals were in transition from the classic robust form to a more gracile one. Neanderthal genome project Peștera cu Oase Marina Biluš, archived from the original on 11 July 2012. Špilja Vindija Video about Vindija on YouTube Dekodiran DNK neandertalca iz špilje Vindija
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Cyprus
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Cyprus, officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the Eastern Mediterranean and the third largest and third most populous island in the Mediterranean. It is located south of Turkey, west of Syria and Lebanon, northwest of Israel and Palestine, north of Egypt, the earliest known human activity on the island dates to around the 10th millennium BC. Archaeological remains from this include the well-preserved Neolithic village of Khirokitia. Cyprus was settled by Mycenaean Greeks in two waves in the 2nd millennium BC, Cyprus was placed under British administration based on Cyprus Convention in 1878 and formally annexed by Britain in 1914. While Turkish Cypriots made up 18% of the population, the partition of Cyprus and creation of a Turkish state in the north became a policy of Turkish Cypriot leaders, following nationalist violence in the 1950s, Cyprus was granted independence in 1960. On 15 July 1974, a coup détat was staged by Greek Cypriot nationalists and elements of the Greek military junta in an attempt at enosis and these events and the resulting political situation are matters of a continuing dispute. The Cyprus Republic has de jure sovereignty over the island of Cyprus, as well as its territorial sea and exclusive economic area, another nearly 4% of the islands area is covered by the UN buffer zone. The international community considers the part of the island as territory of the Republic of Cyprus occupied by Turkish forces. The occupation is viewed as illegal under law, amounting to illegal occupation of EU territory since Cyprus became a member of the European Union. Cyprus is a major tourist destination in the Mediterranean, on 1 January 2008, the Republic of Cyprus joined the eurozone. The earliest attested reference to Cyprus is the 15th century BC Mycenaean Greek
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Czech Republic
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The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, is a nation state in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west, Austria to the south, Slovakia to the east and Poland to the northeast. The Czech Republic covers an area of 78,866 square kilometres with mostly temperate continental climate and it is a unitary parliamentary republic, has 10.5 million inhabitants and the capital and largest city is Prague, with over 1.2 million residents. The Czech Republic includes the territories of Bohemia, Moravia. The Czech state was formed in the late 9th century as the Duchy of Bohemia under the Great Moravian Empire, after the fall of the Empire in 907, the centre of power transferred from Moravia to Bohemia under the Přemyslid dynasty. In 1002, the duchy was formally recognized as part of the Holy Roman Empire, becoming the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1198 and reaching its greatest territorial extent in the 14th century. Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the whole Crown of Bohemia was gradually integrated into the Habsburg Monarchy alongside the Archduchy of Austria, the Protestant Bohemian Revolt against the Catholic Habsburgs led to the Thirty Years War. After the Battle of the White Mountain, the Habsburgs consolidated their rule, reimposed Roman Catholicism, the Czech part of Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany in World War II, and was liberated in 1945 by the armies of the Soviet Union and the United States. The Czech country lost the majority of its German-speaking inhabitants after they were expelled following the war, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia won the 1946 elections. Following the 1948 coup détat, Czechoslovakia became a one-party communist state under Soviet influence, in 1968, increasing dissatisfaction with the regime culminated in a reform movement known as the Prague Spring, which ended in a Soviet-led invasion. Czechoslovakia remained occupied until the 1989 Velvet Revolution, when the communist regime collapsed, on 6 March 1990, the Czech Socialistic Republic was renamed to the Czech Republic. On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully dissolved, with its constituent states becoming the independent states of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. The Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004, it is a member of the United Nations, the OECD, the OSCE, and it is a developed country with an advanced, high income economy and high living standards. The UNDP ranks the country 14th in inequality-adjusted human development, the Czech Republic also ranks as the 6th most peaceful country, while achieving strong performance in democratic governance. It has the lowest unemployment rate in the European Union, the traditional English name Bohemia derives from Latin Boiohaemum, which means home of the Boii. The current name comes from the endonym Čech, spelled Cžech until the reform in 1842. The name comes from the Slavic tribe and, according to legend, their leader Čech, the etymology of the word Čech can be traced back to the Proto-Slavic root *čel-, meaning member of the people, kinsman, thus making it cognate to the Czech word člověk. The country has traditionally divided into three lands, namely Bohemia in the west, Moravia in the southeast, and Czech Silesia in the northeast. Following the dissolution of Czechoslovakia at the end of 1992, the Czech part of the former nation found itself without a common single-word geographical name in English, the name Czechia /ˈtʃɛkiə/ was recommended by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs
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