Mousterian
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 the Near East. Handaxes 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 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, 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
Rhinoceros
A rhinoceros, often abbreviated to rhino, is one of any five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae, as well as any of the numerous extinct species. Two of these extant species are native to Africa and three to Southern Asia and they generally eat leafy material, although their ability to ferment food in their hindgut allows them to subsist on more fibrous plant matter, if necessary. Unlike other perissodactyls, the two African species of rhinoceros lack teeth at the front of their mouths, relying instead on their lips to pluck food. Rhinoceros are killed by humans for their horns, which are bought and sold on the market. East Asia, specifically Vietnam, is the largest market for rhino horns, by weight, rhino horns cost as much as gold on the black market. People grind up the horns and consume them believing the dust has therapeutic properties, the horns are made of keratin, the same type of protein that makes up hair and fingernails. Both African species and the Sumatran rhinoceros have two horns, while the Indian and Javan rhinoceros have a single horn, the IUCN Red List identifies three of the species as critically endangered.
The word rhinoceros is derived through Latin from the Ancient Greek, ῥῑνόκερως, the plural in English is rhinoceros or rhinoceroses. The collective noun for a group of rhinoceroses is crash or herd, the name has been in use since the 14th century. The family Rhinocerotidae consists of four extant genera, Dicerorhinus. The living species fall into three categories, the two African species, the white rhinoceros and the black rhinoceros, belong to the tribe Dicerotini, which originated in the middle Miocene, about 14.2 million years ago. The species diverged during the early Pliocene, the main difference between black and white rhinos is the shape of their mouths – white rhinos have broad flat lips for grazing, whereas black rhinos have long pointed lips for eating foliage. There are two living Rhinocerotini species, the Indian rhinoceros and the Javan rhinoceros, which diverged from one another about 10 million years ago, the Sumatran rhinoceros is the only surviving representative of the most primitive group, the Dicerorhinini, which emerged in the Miocene.
A subspecific hybrid white rhino was bred at the Dvůr Králové Zoo in the Czech Republic in 1977, interspecific hybridisation of black and white rhinoceros has been confirmed. While the black rhinoceros has 84 chromosomes, all other species have 82 chromosomes. However, chromosomal polymorphism might lead to varying chromosome counts, for instance, in a study there were three northern white rhinoceroses with 81 chromosomes. There are two subspecies of rhinoceros, the southern white rhinoceros and the northern white rhinoceros. As of 2013, the subspecies has a wild population of 20,405 – making them the most abundant rhino subspecies in the world
Fallow deer
The fallow deer is a ruminant mammal belonging to the family Cervidae. Some taxonomers include the rarer Persian fallow deer as a subspecies, the male fallow deer is known as a buck, the female is a doe, and the young a fawn. Adult bucks are 140–160 cm long, 85–95 cm in height, and typically 60–100 kg in weight, does are 130–150 cm long, 75–85 cm in shoulder height. The largest bucks may measure 190 cm long and weigh 150 kg, Fawns are born in spring around 30 cm and weigh around 4.5 kg. Their lifespan is around 12–16 years, much variation occurs in the coat colour of the species, with four main variants, menil and leucistic – a genuine colour variety, not albinistic. The white is the lightest coloured, almost white and menil are darker, Chestnut coat with white mottles, it is most pronounced in summer with a much darker, unspotted coat in the winter. The light-coloured area around the tail is edged with black, the tail is light with a black stripe. Menil, Spots are more distinct than common in summer and no black is seen around the patch or on the tail.
In winter, spots are still clear on a brown coat. Melanistic, All-year the coat is black shading to greyish brown, no light-coloured tail patch or spots are seen. Leucistic, Fawns are cream-coloured, adults become pure white, especially in winter, dark eyes and nose are seen, with no spots. Most herds consist of the common coat variation, yet animals of the menil coat variation are not rare, the melanistic variation is generally rarer, and white is very much rarer still, although wild New Zealand herds often have a high melanistic percentage. Only bucks have antlers, which are broad and shovel-shaped from three years, in the first two years, the antler is a single spike. They are grazing animals, their habitat is mixed woodland. Agile and fast in case of danger, fallow deer can run at a speed of 30 mph over short distances. Fallow deer can make jumps up to 1.75 m high, the fallow deer is a Eurasian deer that was a native to most of Europe during the last interglacial. The fallow deer was introduced to the Victoria Island in the Province of Neuquén by billionaire Aaron Anchorena and he freed wildlife of European and Asian origin, making them common inhabitants of the island and competing for land and food with the native huemul and pudu deer.
The fallow deer was spread across central Europe by the Romans, until recently, the Normans were thought to have introduced them to Great Britain for hunting in the royal forests
Pollen
Pollen is a fine to coarse powdery substance comprising pollen grains which are male microgametophytes of seed plants, which produce male gametes. If pollen lands on a compatible pistil or female cone, it germinates, individual pollen grains are small enough to require magnification to see detail. The study of pollen is called palynology and is useful in paleoecology, archaeology. Pollen in plants is used for transferring haploid male genetic material from the anther of a flower to the stigma of another in cross-pollination. In a case of self-pollination, this takes place from the anther of a flower to the stigma of the same flower. Pollen itself is not the male gamete, each pollen grain contains vegetative cells and a generative cell. In flowering plants the vegetative tube cell produces the pollen tube, pollen is produced in the microsporangia in the male cone of a conifer or other gymnosperm or in the anthers of an angiosperm flower. Pollen grains come in a variety of shapes, sizes. Pollen grains of pines and spruces are winged, the smallest pollen grain, that of the forget-me-not, is around 6 µm in diameter.
Wind-borne pollen grains can be as large as about 90–100 µm, in angiosperms, during flower development the anther is composed of a mass of cells that appear undifferentiated, except for a partially differentiated dermis. As the flower develops, four groups of cells form within the anther. The fertile sporogenous cells are surrounded by layers of cells that grow into the wall of the pollen sac. Some of the cells grow into nutritive cells that supply nutrition for the microspores that form by meiotic division from the sporogenous cells, in a process called microsporogenesis, four haploid microspores are produced from each diploid sporogenous cell, after meiotic division. After the formation of the four microspores, which are contained by callose walls, the exine is what is preserved in the fossil record. Two basic types of microsporogenesis are recognised and successive, in simultaneous microsporogenesis meiotic steps I and II are completed prior to cytokinesis, whereas in successive microsporogenesis cytokinesis follows.
While there may be a continuum with intermediate forms, the type of microsporogenesis has systematic significance, the predominant form amongst the monocots is successive, but there are important exceptions. During microgametogenesis, the unicellular microspores undergo mitosis and develop into mature microgametophytes containing the gametes, in some flowering plants, germination of the pollen grain may begin even before it leaves the microsporangium, with the generative cell forming the two sperm cells. Except in the case of submerged aquatic plants, the mature pollen grain has a double wall
Glacier
A glacier is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight, it forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. Glaciers slowly deform and flow due to stresses induced by their weight, creating crevasses and they abrade rock and debris from their substrate to create landforms such as cirques and moraines. Glaciers form only on land and are distinct from the much thinner sea ice, between 35°N and 35°S, glaciers occur only in the Himalayas, Rocky Mountains, a few high mountains in East Africa, New Guinea and on Zard Kuh in Iran. Glaciers cover about 10 percent of Earths land surface, continental glaciers cover nearly 13,000,000 km2 or about 98 percent of Antarcticas 13,200,000 km2, with an average thickness of 2,100 m. Greenland and Patagonia have huge expanses of continental glaciers, Glacial ice is the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth. Within high altitude and Antarctic environments, the temperature difference is often not sufficient to release meltwater. A large piece of compressed ice, or a glacier, appears blue as large quantities of water appear blue and this is because water molecules absorb other colors more efficiently than blue.
The other reason for the color of glaciers is the lack of air bubbles. Air bubbles, which give a color to ice, are squeezed out by pressure increasing the density of the created ice. The word Glaceon is a loanword from French and goes back, via Franco-Provençal, to the Vulgar Latin glaciārium, derived from the Late Latin glacia, the processes and features caused by or related to glaciers are referred to as glacial. The process of establishment and flow is called glaciation. The corresponding area of study is called glaciology, Glaciers are important components of the global cryosphere. Glaciers are categorized by their morphology, thermal characteristics, and behavior, cirque glaciers form on the crests and slopes of mountains. A glacier that fills a valley is called a valley glacier, a large body of glacial ice astride a mountain, mountain range, or volcano is termed an ice cap or ice field. Ice caps have a less than 50,000 km2 by definition. Glacial bodies larger than 50,000 km2 are called ice sheets or continental glaciers, several kilometers deep, they obscure the underlying topography.
Only nunataks protrude from their surfaces, the only extant ice sheets are the two that cover most of Antarctica and Greenland. They contain vast quantities of water, enough that if both melted, global sea levels would rise by over 70 m
Swamp
A swamp is a wetland that is forested. Many swamps occur along rivers where they are critically dependent upon natural water level fluctuations. Other swamps occur on the shores of large lakes, some swamps have hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodic inundation. The two main types of swamp are true or swamp forests and transitional or shrub swamps, in the boreal regions of Canada, the word swamp is colloquially used for what is more correctly termed a bog or muskeg. The water of a swamp may be water, brackish water or seawater. Some of the worlds largest swamps are found along rivers such as the Amazon, the Mississippi. Swamps are characterized by slow-moving to stagnant waters and they are usually associated with adjacent rivers or lakes. Swamps are features of areas with very low topographic relief, humans have drained swamps to provide additional land for agriculture and to reduce the threat of diseases borne by swamp insects and similar animals.
Many swamps have undergone intensive logging, requiring the construction of drainage ditches and these ditches and canals contributed to drainage and, along the coast, allowed salt water to intrude, converting swamps to marsh or even to open water. Large areas of swamp were therefore lost or degraded, louisiana provides a classic example of wetland loss from these combined factors. Europe has probably lost nearly half its wetlands, New Zealand lost 90 percent of its wetlands over a period of 150 years. Ecologists recognise that swamps provide valuable ecological services including flood control, fish production, water purification, carbon storage, in many parts of the world authorities protect swamps. In parts of Europe and North America, swamp restoration projects are becoming widespread, often the simplest steps to restoring swamps involve plugging drainage ditches and removing levees. Swamps and other wetlands have traditionally held a very low property value compared to fields and they have a reputation for being unproductive land that cannot easily be utilized for human activities, other than perhaps hunting and trapping.
Farmers, for example, typically drained swamps next to their fields so as to more land usable for planting crops. Many societies now realize that swamps are important to providing fresh water and oxygen to all life. Indeed, floodplain swamps are important in fish production. Government environmental agencies are taking steps to protect and preserve swamps, in Europe, major effort is being invested in the restoration of swamp forests along rivers
Hand axe
A hand axe is a prehistoric stone tool with two faces that is the longest-used tool in human history. It is usually made from flint or chert and it is characteristic of the lower Acheulean and middle Palaeolithic periods. Its technical name comes from the fact that the model is a generally bifacial Lithic flake with an almond-shaped shape. Hand axes tend to be symmetrical along their axis and formed by pressure or percussion. The most common hand axes have an end and rounded base, which gives them their characteristic shape. Hand axes are a type of the somewhat wider biface group of two-faced tools or weapons, Hand axes were the first prehistoric tools to be recognized as such, the first published representation of a hand axe was drawn by John Frere and appeared in a British publication in 1800. Until that time, their origins were thought to be natural or supernatural and they were called thunderstones, because popular tradition held that they had fallen from the sky during storms or were formed inside the earth by a lightning strike and appeared at the surface.
They are used in rural areas as an amulet to protect against storms. Hand axe tools were used to butcher animals, to dig for tubers and water, to chop wood and remove tree bark, to throw at prey. Four classes of hand axe are,1, thick hand axes reduced from cores or thick flakes, referred to as blanks 2, French antiquarian André Vayson de Pradenne introduced the word biface in 1920. The expression faustkeil is used in German and it can be literally translated as hand axe, although in a stricter sense it means fist wedge. It is the same in Dutch where the expression used is vuistbijl which literally means fist axe, the same locution occurs in other languages. However, the impression of these tools were based on ideal pieces that were of such perfect shape that they caught the attention of non-experts. Their typology broadened the terms meaning, biface hand axe and bifacial lithic items are distinguished. A hand axe need not be an item and many bifacial items are not hand axes. Nor were hand axes and bifacial items exclusive to the Lower Palaeolithic period in the Old World and they appear throughout the world and in many different pre-historical epochs, without necessarily implying an ancient origin.
Lithic typology is not a chronological reference and was abandoned as a dating system. The word biface refers to something different in English than biface in French or bifaz in Spanish, bifacially carved cutting tools, similar to hand axes, were used to clear scrub vegetation throughout the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods
Mediterranean Sea
The sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it is usually identified as a separate body of water. The name Mediterranean is derived from the Latin mediterraneus, meaning inland or in the middle of land and it covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km2, but its connection to the Atlantic is only 14 km wide. The Strait of Gibraltar is a strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Gibraltar. In oceanography, it is called the Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea or the European Mediterranean Sea to distinguish it from mediterranean seas elsewhere. The Mediterranean Sea has a depth of 1,500 m. The sea is bordered on the north by Europe, the east by Asia and it is located between latitudes 30° and 46° N and longitudes 6° W and 36° E. Its west-east length, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Iskenderun, the seas average north-south length, from Croatia’s southern shore to Libya, is approximately 800 km. The Mediterranean Sea, including the Sea of Marmara, has an area of approximately 2,510,000 square km.
The sea was an important route for merchants and travelers of ancient times that allowed for trade, the history of the Mediterranean region is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies. In addition, the Gaza Strip and the British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Akrotiri, the term Mediterranean derives from the Latin word mediterraneus, meaning amid the earth or between land, as it is between the continents of Africa and Europe. The Ancient Greek name Mesogeios, is similarly from μέσο, between + γη, earth) and it can be compared with the Ancient Greek name Mesopotamia, meaning between rivers. The Mediterranean Sea has historically had several names, for example, the Carthaginians called it the Syrian Sea and latter Romans commonly called it Mare Nostrum, and occasionally Mare Internum. Another name was the Sea of the Philistines, from the people inhabiting a large portion of its shores near the Israelites, the sea is called the Great Sea in the General Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer.
In Ottoman Turkish, it has been called Bahr-i Sefid, in Modern Hebrew, it has been called HaYam HaTikhon, the Middle Sea, reflecting the Seas name in ancient Greek and modern languages in both Europe and the Middle East. Similarly, in Modern Arabic, it is known as al-Baḥr al-Mutawassiṭ, in Turkish, it is known as Akdeniz, the White Sea since among Turks the white colour represents the west. Several ancient civilisations were located around the Mediterranean shores, and were influenced by their proximity to the sea. It provided routes for trade and war, as well as food for numerous communities throughout the ages, due to the shared climate and access to the sea, cultures centered on the Mediterranean tended to have some extent of intertwined culture and history. Two of the most notable Mediterranean civilisations in classical antiquity were the Greek city states, when Augustus founded the Roman Empire, the Romans referred to the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum
Cave painting
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 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 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 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
Denticulate tool
In archeology, a denticulate tool is a stone tool that displays one or more edges that are worked into multiple notched shapes, much like the toothed edge of a saw. Indeed, these tools might have used as saws, more likely for meat processing than for wood. It is possible, that some or all of these notches were used for smoothing wooden shafts or for similar purposes and these tools are included in the Mousterian tool industry by Neanderthal culture, proceeded by small hand axes and side scrapers. Typologie du Paléolithique ancien et moyen
Levallois technique
The Levallois technique is a name given by archaeologists to a distinctive type of stone knapping developed by precursors to modern humans during the Palaeolithic period. It is named after finds of flint tools in the Levallois-Perret suburb of Paris. The technique was more sophisticated than earlier methods of lithic reduction, a striking platform is formed at one end and the cores edges are trimmed by flaking off pieces around the outline of the intended lithic flake. This creates a shape on the side of the core, known as a tortoise core as the various scars. When the striking platform is finally hit, a lithic flake separates from the core with a distinctive plano-convex profile. Scientists consider the Levallois complex to be a Mode 3 technology and this is one level superior to the Acheulean complex of the Lower Paleolithic. The technique is first found in the Lower Palaeolithic but is most commonly associated with the Neanderthal Mousterian industries of the Middle Palaeolithic, in the Levant, Levallois methods were in use in the Upper Palaeolithic and later.
In East Africa, Levallois methods were used in the Middle Stone Age, while Levallois cores do display some variability in their planform, their flake production surfaces show remarkable uniformity. This would seem to indicate some sort of teaching process was occurring. The distinctive forms of the flakes were originally thought to indicate a wide ranging Levallois culture resulting from the expansion of archaic Homo sapiens out of Africa, the wide geographical and temporal spread of the technique has rendered this interpretation obsolete. Aside from technique, the commonality in Levallois complexes is the attention given to maximizing core efficiency. A recent article by Lycett and Eren statistically shows the efficiency of the Levallois technique which at times has been called into question and Eren created 75 Levallois flakes from 25 Texas Chert nodules. They counted the 3957 flakes and separated them into four stages in order to show efficiency, the experiment shows that the Levallois core is an economic optimal strategy of raw material usage, which mean it can generate longest cutting edge per weight unit of raw material.
There is disagreement when it comes to defining Levallois technology, archeologists question which attributes and dimensions are specifically associated with Levallois, and argue that there are other techniques with similar cosmetic and functional aspects. Due to these disagreements, there is now a more set of criteria that outlines Levallois technology from a geometric standpoint. Egypt, Within the banks of the Nile River, excavations have located within the 30-, 15-, within the 30-foot terrace, the implements were originally thought to be early Mousterian, but were reclassified. The 15- and 10-foot terraces again were classified first as Egyptian Mousterian, Large Levallois flakes struck from boulder cores have been found at the Kapthurin Formation site in western Kenya, near Lake Bogoria and Lake Baringo. The earliest examples come from the Leaky Handaxe Area and the Factory Site, both examples feature large flakes, approximately 10–20 cm in diameter, and have been dated between 284 and 509 thousand years ago
British Museum
The British Museum is dedicated to human history 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 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 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
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