LOST TREASURE ON LINE NEWS LETTER Vol. X issue 23

[Ed - QUICKSILVER(appletree)]

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DECEMBER

Vol. X
issue 23

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TH'ers News

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Celebrating the Top Finds of 2008
The oldest-known oil painting, the earliest evidence for shoes and a handful of desiccated human feces are among the ten greatest archaeological finds of 2008, according to a leading journal.
While acknowledging that for many people this year’s big archaeological experience was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls, the editors of Archaeology, published by the Archaeological Institute of America, point out the impact of less fictional finds.
Oil paints, the medium of choice for some of the world’s greatest artists, were thought to have been invented in medieval Europe in the 12th century AD, but examples five centuries older have been found in Afghanistan. They were used in Buddhist murals in a cave complex at Bamiyan, near the two huge rock-cut Buddha statues dynamited by the Taleban in 2001.
The paintings depicted mainly the Buddha himself and attendant bodhisattvas and female devotees, although one scene, perhaps not surprising at this crossroads of Asia, showed Mithras, a Persian deity widely venerated in the Roman Empire, driving a chariot drawn by four winged horses. Paint samples from 12 of the caves showed the use of drying oils, key elements of oil-based paints in medieval and later Europe. The oils at Bamiyan were most likely walnut and poppy-seed oils: a local origin seems likely, given the abundance of poppies as a crop in Afghanistan.
Evidence for shoes having been invented more than 40,000 years ago came from a cave at Tianyuan in China, where a skeleton examined by Professor Erik Trinkaus proved to have much more delicate toe bones than those of earlier humans. When walking barefoot, the middle toes curl into the ground to give traction, but when wearing shoes the big toe is used for thrust instead: the bones of the middle toes are less developed because the muscles attached to them are smaller. Development of these bones happens early on, suggesting that the Tianyuan Cave individual had worn shoes as a baby as well as in adult life.
Few mundane finds have aroused more controversy than the dried-out human feces excavated at Paisley Cave in Oregon, which earlier this year were dated to more than 14,000 years ago. Radiocarbon dating and the identification of human DNA suggested that people had entered the Americas centuries earlier than the “Clovis people”, whose artefacts mark the first widespread occupation around 13,000 years ago.
At the same time, Archaeology reports, a study of Native American mitochondrial DNA variability suggests that the first entry was probably around 18,500 years ago. They spread out rapidly south of the ice sheets that covered most of Canada.
Another discovery in the top ten is a jawbone from the oldest European yet known, found this summer at Atapuerca, near Burgos in northern Spain. At the Sima del Elefante, a limestone cave exposed by a railway cutting a century ago, part of the left lower jaw of a species known as Homo antecessor was found together with stone tools and the bones of bison which had been butchered for food. The deposit has been dated to 1.2 million years ago, almost doubling the known length of human history in Europe and making Boxgrove Man, at around 400,000 years, a relative newcomer.
At the other end of the human timescale, the first unlooted Portuguese nau, a 16th-century cargo ship plying the dangerous route around the Cape of Good Hope to India, was found on April 1 off the coast of Namibia during diamond-mining operations, and several massive marble heads of Roman emperors were uncovered at Sagalassos in Turkey. One of these, of Hadrian, was rushed to London this summer to confront visitors entering the British Museum’s blockbuster exhibition.
Courtesy of http://www.timesonline.co.uk

Rare Book of Holy Land Pictures Unearthed
Books containing the first detailed colour pictures of Bethlehem, Nazareth and Jerusalem to be published in the west have been unearthed at a museum in York.
A complete version of The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt And Nubia by David Roberts was found by volunteers at the Yorkshire Museum.
The six volume body of work was made into three books and the set is one of only 400 copies of the first edition ever made - with other copies having been owned by Queen Victoria and the Tsar of Russia.
The large books include hand-coloured lithographs of places throughout the Holy Land in 1838-39.
Andrew Morrison, curator of archaeology at the museum, said: "The books are a truly fantastic find and it is great that they have been unearthed so close to Christmas.
"David Roberts was one of the first 'photo journalists' and his incredibly detailed paintings of the Middle East gave British society a fabulous insight into the everyday life of people in a world completely different from theirs.
"Complete copies of the first edition of these books are extremely rare because so few were published and also because many were often taken apart, so that the prints could be sold separately. We are delighted that the volunteers have found and recorded these complete volumes and they are a great asset to our library. "
The 240 hand-coloured lithographs in the books are taken from paintings by David Roberts (1796-1864) on his long and arduous journey around the Middle East.
Born in Edinburgh, Roberts was the first person to make the trip specifically to paint the Holy Land, with the intention of selling the images back in Britain. His tour included trips to the most famous Christian sites such as the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth and the ancient city of Jerusalem.
The books at the museum were discovered by volunteers from the Yorkshire Philosophical Society who are currently re-cataloguing the library.
Courtesy of http://www.huttoncranswicktoday.co.uk

Israeli Archaeologists Find Rare Gold Coins
Jerusalem – Some Israeli archaeologists are having a particularly happy Hanukkah.
The Israel Antiquities Authority reported a thrilling find Sunday – the discovery of 264 ancient gold coins in Jerusalem National Park.
The coins were minted during the early 7th century.
“This is one of the largest and most impressive coin hoards ever discovered in Jerusalem – certainly the largest and most important of its period,” said Doron Ben-Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets, who are directing the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Researchers discovered the coins at the beginning of the eight-day Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, which started at sunset on Sunday.
One of the customs of the holiday is to give “gelt,” or coins, to children and the archaeologists are referring to the find as “Hanukkah money.”
The 1,400-year-old coins were found in the Giv'ati car park in the City of David in the walls around National Park, a site that has yielded other finds, including a well-preserved gold earring with pearls and precious stones.
The authority said that while different coins had been minted during this emperor's reign, the coins found at the site represent "one well-known type."
"Since no pottery vessel was discovered adjacent to the hoard, we can assume that it was concealed inside a hidden niche in one of the walls of the building. It seems that with its collapse, the coins piled up there among the building debris," Ben-Ami and Tchekhanovets said.
Courtesy of http://www.cnn.com

Wall Provides Link to Canal's Past
Pennsylvania - The watery tomb held its secret for more than a century.
And it would have stayed that way if not for plans to build a new Girard Avenue ramp off I-95 in Kensington.
Archaeologists working for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation have uncovered a relic from Philadelphia's commercial past that one historian called fantastic.
In a muddy pit under a lattice of elevated I-95 lanes, next to the Port Richmond Village shopping center, they have excavated a 50-foot stretch of wooden wall from the Aramingo Canal.
Built in 1847, the canal was a footnote in the evolution of Kensington as a commercial hub. With trains eventually eclipsing barges for hauling materials, the canal became an obsolete, polluted nuisance. It was completely covered over by 1902, becoming Aramingo Avenue.
Archaeologists knew where to look for the canal. But what they didn't realize was that they would find a section so perfectly preserved that they could still see the ax marks in logs.
Douglas Mooney, a senior archaeologist for URS Corp. Inc., said an underground stream - the long-forgotten Gunnar's Run - has kept the wooden wall waterlogged, sparing it from microbes that could have destroyed it.
"It's rock solid," Mooney said. "Sometimes you just get lucky."
Neighborhood historians are cheered by the discovery. They hope it will spur more interest in the waterfront's 19th-century industrial legacy, which tends to be overshadowed by the city's marquee colonial past.
Mooney, who also serves as president of the Philadelphia Archaeological Forum, said the riverfront had languished as a "historical backwater."
"It's just never had the same panache as Center City Philadelphia," said Mooney, who also worked on the excavation of George Washington's house and the Constitution Center site.
But that is changing, Mooney said. "There is an eagerness in neighborhoods to tell their individual histories," he said.
Nowhere is that clearer than in the lower river wards of Kensington, Fishtown and Port Richmond.
"It's an exciting time for our community," said Ken Milano, a historian who has written several books about Kensington.
Less than a mile from the I-95 project is another active archaeological site at the proposed SugarHouse casino location in Northern Liberties and Fishtown.
Archaeologists found hundreds of Native American relics on the SugarHouse property, and neighborhood historians have uncovered maps showing that the site had a British fort in 1777. Prodded by local interest, SugarHouse has agreed to look for evidence of the British redoubt.
Cathy Spohn, an archaeologist for PennDot, said the Aramingo Canal was unusual for two reasons. "Most canals were stone-lined and this one is wood," she said. "And it's so well-preserved."
The slow-moving stream that protected the canal wall underground also has created challenging conditions for archaeologists. Every day, the crew has to pump several feet of water from the site, Mooney said.
"Most of the time we're battling water and mud," he said.
Milano said that when the Aramingo Canal was built, the Delaware River waterfront was "an incubator for the Industrial Revolution."
There were shipbuilders, sawmills, lumber yards, rolling mills, lead works, glassworks, coal yards, and steam-engine shops.
"You had everything you needed to build iron ships right there," Milano said. "And if you wanted to learn the trade of steam-engine building, you started here."
The Aramingo Canal flowed into the Delaware River near where the current Beach Street merges into Richmond Street.
In 1847, investors paid $100 a share to join the company building the five-mile canal. But the backers had only enough money to finish one mile.
The canal became a money pit for its owners. It lacked a natural water source and was heavily polluted. A slaughterhouse at the far end of the canal dumped carcasses into the water.
"Within 20 years, this was little more than an open sewer," Mooney said. "The water was inky black and there was two feet of black mud at the bottom."
Doctors blamed the foul waterway for outbreaks of malaria and typhoid. "This became a health nightmare," Mooney said. The city began filling in the canal in 1896.
The excavation began six weeks ago but is now winding down. Archaeologists have been measuring and photographing the canal wall. PennDot may publish an account of the project for the public.
In the days ahead, Mooney said, the crew will bury the wall again to prevent damaging the logs by exposing them too long to air.
"We don't want to lose it," he said.
And so it's back to a muddy crypt for the Aramingo Canal.
Courtesy of http://www.philly.com

Christmas Tree Sales Aid Historic Farm
DENVILLE - The Ayres/Knuth Farm Foundation completed its 10th annual Christmas tree fundraiser this weekend to benefit the most complete historic farm complex in Morris County.
The foundation sold out of its stock of 250 fresh-cut Christmas trees, including balsams, Canaans, Douglas firs and Frasers, and four dozen handcrafted wreaths Saturday, a day before the fundraiser was slated to end, according to Sue Schmidt, president of the Ayres/Knuth Farm Foundation.
The $5,000 raised will go toward the preservation and restoration of the 300-year-old Ayres/Knuth Farm located on Cooper Road.
"This is our biggest fundraiser of the year, and allows us to continue the work needed to preserve the most complete farm complex in Morris County," Schmidt said. "It is definitely worth saving."
The farm has had numerous owners, but is named after the two families who operated it the longest -- the Ayers, who owned it between 1803 and 1905, the Knuths, who owned it between 1908 and 1990, Schmidt said.
In 1996, the township purchased the 50-acre site, which includes a farmhouse and nine other buildings. Later that year, it was added to both the New Jersey and federal historic registers.
Since then, the Ayres/Knuth Foundation has received numerous grants and has completed several reconstruction projects that have centered on the farmhouse, including the replacement of its stone chimney, shingle roof, steps and clapboard exterior.
It is in the process of completing a $250,000 project to restore the farmhouse's 44 windows and upgrade electrical work on the property. Its next project is to begin work on the interior.
"We want to get people inside, to give visitors a flavor of what Denville was in the past," Schmidt said. "Everything we do costs money. It has to be done in a certain manner with archaeologists and specialists on site because of its historical significance."
Meghan and Randy Johnson of Denville live about a mile from the Ayers Knuth Farm and this year purchased two Douglas firs from the Christmas tree fundraiser.
"We know we're paying more than we would somewhere else, but we think it's important to preserve the farm's history," Meghan Johnson said. "We can drive by and see our money is going towards restoration, and not administrative costs."
In connection with the fundraiser, the foundation also collected more than five boxes of nonperishable food that will be donated to the Morris County Food Pantry.
Courtesy of http://www.dailyrecord.com

Deer Valley Center Preserves Rock Art
Arizona - The quail are calling, the cottontails stirring. It's late afternoon, and the desert has come to life outside Deer Valley Rock Art Center. Two owls sit in a paloverde and wait things out while a few visitors stroll and look up at a rocky hillside.
Thousands of years ago, travelers scratched symbols on these rocks, symbols now preserved in a family-friendly museum setting in north Phoenix. Javelina, bobcats and coyotes wander from the surrounding desert into the 47-acre park. The owls wait and shadows grow long.
"We have a really great school-tour program," said Kim Arth, executive director of the center. "It's quite an experience for the kids. Sometimes they see wildlife when they go out."
The oldest rock art, or petroglyphs, was made by hunter-gatherers whom archaeologists call Archaic. Dating rock art is tricky, but some of the images here could be 5,000-years-old, Arth said. The Archaic nomads were followed by the Hohokam, who lived in the Salt River Valley, and the Patayan, a group that lived, for the most part, north and west of the Hohokam.
In the 1970’s, runoff in washes and creeks was so unpredictable in north Phoenix that the Army Corps of Engineers built a dam across Skunk Creek. The dam site was just upstream from the rock art and, after much research, consulting and planning, the corps agreed to build a museum. The center, designed by architect Will Bruder, is built over a canal that takes overflow from the dam. The building practically melts into the landscape, and most of the rock art is where it was found centuries ago.
The center has permanent and temporary exhibits, as well as a place for archival research. The American Rock Art Research Association's archives are housed there. (Researchers must make appointments to view materials.)
The center has not escaped the press of modern life, and suburban sprawl has lapped up to its edge. Rock art can degrade more quickly if touched by human hands, and it can be destroyed by graffiti, gunshots and other nonsense. Arth said people in the neighborhood enjoy the site and respect the art.
"Compared to other sites that are open to the public, this one is pretty untouched," said Casandra Hernandez, education coordinator at the center.
The center also helps kids learn about desert plants. Varieties of cactus, native foods and medicinal plants, which researchers are only beginning to understand, grow in a small plot. And there are all those animals.
"Basically, people have a nature preserve in their backyard," Arth said.
No ruins have been found here. There is some evidence of tool making, indicating that people made a few implements, marked the rock, perhaps hunted, moved on. Over the centuries, they left 1,571 known petroglyphs, the largest concentration to be discovered in the Phoenix area. Most of the markings face east.
Arth cautions against reading too much into the rock art, however.
"We give people a lot to think about," she said. "We don't give any one answer."
Courtesy of http://www.azcentral.com

History Lives
Tribe reclaims story at Fort Apache
A fascinating bit of complicated, tragic, triumphant history, lies at the end of an hour-long drive from Payson, which ambles up scenic Highway 260 to the White Mountain Apache Reservation through some of the most scenic parts of the state.
There, the White Mountain Apache Tribe maintains a cultural center and the abandoned cavalry post once used to wage war on them, which is open to visitors during the weekdays through December.
As a result, Fort Apache, that ethically complex, historically rich, symbolically ambiguous icon of the American West has been saved from ruin and preserved as a touchstone for a vivid period in Western history.
And that wouldn’t have happened, if the tribe hadn’t proved willing to preserve even the remains of the military institutions that did so much damage to their lifeways.
Perched on a basaltic mesa overlooking the White River in the heart of the White Mountain Apache Reservation, the decaying fort represented a mingling of pain and triumph. From this fort made mythic by countless movie Westerns, the American military campaigned against a proud people. And once the military abandoned the fort in 1922, it served as a boarding school intended originally to “civilize” the Apaches by stripping away their culture.
Another tribe might have called in the bulldozers and hosted a bonfire.
But after more than 50 years of neglect, the White Mountain Apache Tribe decided to make Fort Apache into a unique place to both explain their history to outsiders and serve the ongoing needs of their community. Through this, they demonstrated a history of pragmatic persistence that has allowed them to bend like willows in a flood and then spring back upright.
Now, after more than $4 million in reconstruction, renovation and planning, Fort Apache has become a centerpiece for the celebration of Apache culture and a gathering place for the Apache community. The tribe added the Apache Cultural Center and Museum, with both permanent and rotating exhibits of things like Apache basketry. These beautiful, functional pieces are woven from mulberry, squawberry and willow branches with designs created by twisting the weaving material to show either the light inner surface or the dark outer surface. In addition, trained Apache guides can take visitors on a tour of the 27 historic buildings on the 288-acre historic site. That includes the 1870s log cabin that housed Gen. George Crook and famed Army surgeon Walter Reed, who went on to pioneer a cure for malaria.
Workers have also restored both sandstone and wood-frame buildings all around the edge of the spacious parade ground, built at various times from the 1880s through the 1920s. Exhibits also detail the role of the fort and of the White Mountain Apache scouts, who played a crucial role in the decades of warfare in the region.
In addition, visitors can learn something of the bungled attempt to arrest an Apache religious leader that triggered a pitched battle on Cibicue Creek, a brief attack on the fort, and Geronimo’s outbreak.
Guides also take visitors on a guided tour of the fort. The guides charge $15 per person and you must call a week in advance to make a reservation.
The guide service based at the fort can also take visitors to scenic, culturally rich areas of the reservation that have long been closed to outsiders, including the nearby partially restored, 800-year-old Kinishba ruins and the scenic Grasshopper Ruins near Cibicue, left by people who lived in the area before the arrival of the Apache. The Apache guides offer an array of insights in the cultural history of the area
“There’s no other place like Fort Apache anywhere,” observed archaeologist John Welch.
“There’s no place where an American Indian tribe has adopted a frontier military outpost that was established to control them and has on its own initiative decided to re-embrace that place and use it to promote their interest; to make it again an Apache place, with a new layer of history.”
A visit to the fort can serve as a jumping off point for other adventures on the 1.6-million acre reservation which includes rolling expanses of lower-elevation pinon-juniper forests and expansive ponderosa pine forests plus the 11,459-foot Mount Baldy and portions of the deep gorge of the Salt River. The tribe now numbers about 8,000, up from 2,000 when the reservation was first established.
The tribe operates a ski resort and the Hon Dah Casino outside of Show Low, which include a golf course, camping ground and RV park. Located 24 miles from McNary on the eastern edge of the reservation, the resort offers a year-round resort hotel, a well-stocked fishing and boating lake, and miles of hiking and riding trails.
The tribe has also managed its wildlife population carefully, and now sells hunting permits to outsiders eager for a chance to hunt the world-renowned elk and other wildlife. Apache guides are also available for hunters.
High country lakes like Hawley, Horseshoe, Sunrise and McNary provide plentiful fishing and recreational opportunities — although a hard winter can transform most of the fishing holes into places to practice the fine art of ice fishing.
The reservation is also crisscrossed by rivers and streams, many of which offer plentiful fishing opportunities. The most popular include the two forks of the White River, Big and Little Diamond, Big and Little Bonito, Paradise, Trout, Snake, Becker, Cibecue and Black rivers. Dress warm and bring insulated waders in the winter.
Through the guide program, the tribe now hopes to open more areas of the reservation to interested tourists — without infringing unduly on the lives of tribe members or turning the durable and complex Apache ceremonies and culture into a tourist sideshow.
It makes perfect sense that the pragmatic White Mountain Apaches should seek a way to turn a painful history to their advantage.
In contrast to the violent resistance of Chiricahua Apache war leaders like Cochise and Geronimo, White Mountain Apache leaders in the late 1800s responded to Anglos with shrewd caution and restraint.
The fort’s history begins in July of 1869 when Maj. John Green arrived on a mission to find a site for a fort and to set fire to the corn fields of the White Mountain Apaches, on the assumption they had been providing food to other, hostile bands. To Green’s surprise, the White Mountain, Carrizo and Cibicue bands greeted him warmly, insisting they wanted to be friends.
The Apache leaders even recommended the ultimate site of the fort to Green, an ancient place used by ancestors of today’s Hopi and Zuni people for 1,000 years before the Apaches arrived and called it “Place Where the White Reeds Grow.”
“There’s a lot of pain embedded in the place,” said Welch thoughtfully. “But even before the fort, it was the Place Where White Rushes Grow. Deep emotional connections link people to these places, it’s how the world is organized. So this is about bringing this place back into the community — and at the same time using it as a bridge to other communities.”
Fort Apache Historic Park is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday during the winter. It is closed on all major holidays. For information, call [phone].
Courtesy of http://www.paysonroundup.com