Sciotecha

Million year old European tooth found

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 10:01:00 +0000

Scientists in Spain say that they have found a tooth from a distant human ancestor that is more than one million years old.

The tooth, a pre-molar, was discovered on Wednesday at the Atapuerca site in northern Spain's Burgos Province. It represented western Europe's "oldest human fossil remain", a statement from the Atapuerca Foundation said.

The foundation said it was awaiting final results before publishing its findings in a scientific journal.

Several caves containing evidence of prehistoric human occupation have been found in Atapuerca. In 1994 fossilised remains called Homo antecessor (Pioneer Man) - believed to date back 800,000 years - were unearthed there.

Scientists had previously thought that Homo heidelbergensis, dating back 600,000 years, were Europe's oldest inhabitants. Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro, co-director of research at the site, said that the newly discovered tooth could be as much as 1.2 million years old.

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ BBC Science News.

Yes, we're back in business!

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 09:54:00 +0000

After almost a year without updates, Sciotecha is slowly reviving...

Start of November last year, I just stopped updating Sciotecha. Why? Well, not only had I got a new job at a place called Free Radical Design in Nottingham, UK -- but I also had once again got hooked on a great MMORPG called World of Warcraft.

Well, I'm still at Free Radical, but recently I stopped playing Warcraft as it was taking up far too much of my time. So suddenly I have spare time again, and amongst other things, I've decided to post again to Sciotecha.

Not sure it'll ever be as frequently updated as it has been, and sadly I have missed informing you of many months of very interesting science and discovery news. If I find myself looking back on any of those old articles, I promise to post them up here.

I'm sure all the old Sciotecha readers have moved on now, but maybe you'll consider coming back -- and maybe we'll find some new readers too? :)

Incas in Scandinavia?

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 11:31:00 +0000

Norwegian arhaeologists are puzzled by a find which indicates an Inca Indian died and was buried in the Oestfold city of Sarpsborg 1000 years ago.

The remains of two elderly men and a baby were discovered during work in a garden, and one of the skulls indicates that the man was an Inca Indian.

- There is a genetic flaw in the neck, which is believed to be limited to the Incas in Peru, says arahaeologist Mona Beate Buckholm.

The Norway Post suggests that maybe the Vikings travelled even more widely than hitherto believed? Why could not the Viking settlers in New Foundland have strayed further down the coast on one of their fishing trips?

Meanwhile, more digging will be made in Sarpsborg, in an attempt to try to find an answer to the puzzle, NRK reports.

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ The Norway Post.

Did Neanderthals give us our Big Brains?

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 13:22:00 +0000

Neanderthals may have given the modern humans who replaced them a priceless gift -- a gene that helped them develop superior brains, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

And the only way they could have provided that gift would have been by interbreeding, teams at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of Chicago said.

Their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides indirect evidence that modern Homo sapiens and Neanderthals interbred at some point when they lived side by side in Europe.

�Finding evidence of mixing is not all that surprising. But our study demonstrates the possibility that interbreeding contributed advantageous variants into the human gene pool that subsequently spread,� said Bruce Lahn, Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher at the University of Chicago who led the study.

[Comment: Fascinating news! How apt it would be if we could prove that the only surviving evidence of interbreeding between us and Neanderthals left us with the big brains we have today. Apt because Neanderthals have previously been seen as so brutish and unkempt.

This could also explain evidence for a Human "cultural explosion" that occured either before, after or exactly at this time.

So perhaps after breeding our way into it, us modern humans radiated out of Europe and West Asia with this brain-enhancing gift from our Neanderthal cousins. Simply fascinating; especially after so much recent news about the discovery of possible hybrid Neanderthal-Sapiens.

Looking forward to reading more about this. ~ Ed.]

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ Reuters.

'Lucy's baby' found in Ethiopia

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 18:15:00 +0000

The 3.3-million-year-old fossilised remains of a human-like child have been unearthed in Ethiopia's Dikika region.

The female bones are from the species Australopithecus afarensis, which is popularly known from the adult skeleton nicknamed "Lucy".

Scientists are thrilled with the find, reported in the journal Nature. They believe the near-complete remains offer a remarkable opportunity to study growth and development in an important extinct human ancestor.

Juvenile remains of early human ancestors are vanishingly rare. The skeleton was first identified in 2000, locked inside a block of sandstone. It has taken five years of painstaking work to free the bones.

"The Dikika fossil is now revealing many secrets about Australopithecus afarensis and other early hominins, because the fossil evidence was not there," said dig leader Zeresenay Alemseged, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

[Comment: Wow! ~ Ed.]

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ BBC Science News, Nature.com & NewScientist.com.

Tenth (dwarf) planet named for goddess of discord

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 21:22:00 +0000

A large icy object that helped spark the debate over Pluto's status has officially been named Eris, after the Greek goddess of discord.

The object had been known as 2003 UB313 since its discovery was reported in 2005 by Mike Brown of Caltech in Pasadena, US. It is slightly larger than Pluto, which prompted Brown and others to refer to it as the 'tenth planet' and generated debate about what should be considered a planet.

Now, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has settled on an official definition of planet, which demotes Pluto to a new category of "dwarf planets".

The IAU has now approved Brown's suggested name, Eris, for the dwarf planet formerly known as 2003 UB313. In Greek mythology, Eris caused a fight over a golden apple, which led to the Trojan War.

The IAU has also approved Brown's suggested name of Dysnomia for Eris's satellite, which is about a tenth Eris's size (see Moon discovered orbiting tenth planet). Dysnomia is the goddess of lawlessness and Eris's daughter in Greek mythology.

[Comment: Yes, I'm finally back posting again... ~ Ed.]

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ NewScientistSpace.com.

Evolution's human and chimp twist

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Sat, 20 May 2006 10:49:00 +0000

Humans and chimpanzees may have split away from a common ancestor far more recently than was previously thought.

A detailed analysis of human and chimp DNA suggests the lines finally diverged less than 5.4 million years ago. The finding, published in the journal Nature, is about 1-2 million years later than the fossils have indicated.

A US team says its results hint at the possibility that interbreeding occurred between the two lines for thousands, even millions, of years. This hybridisation would have been important in swapping genes for traits that allowed the emerging species to survive in their environments, explain the scientists affiliated to the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the Harvard Medical School.

And it underlines, they believe, just how complex human evolution has been.

[Comment: Wow! Oh and yes... I'm back. Sorry again for the downtime. Chances are high I won't keep it as updated as before though, but we'll see. :) ~ Ed.]

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ BBC Science News.

Apologies for lack of updates

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 12:21:00 +0000

Hi all!

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. Basically, I was made redundant at work, and so I have had other things on my mind..

Normal service will resume soon. :)

Ash

Whale song reveals sophisticated language skills

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 00:34:00 +0000

Humpback whales use their own syntax � or grammar � in the complex songs they sing, say researchers who have developed a mathematical technique to probe the mysteries of whale song

The team adds that whales are the only other animals beside humans to use hierarchical structure in language, in which phrases are embedded in larger, recurring themes.

This concept echoes scientific suggestions from the 1970s, but the new computer analysis claims to confirm this and provides an objective measure of the songs� structure and complexity.

Male humpback whales produce songs that last anywhere from about six to 30 minutes. These vocalisations vary greatly across seasons, and during breeding periods they are thought to help attract female partners. Their eerie sound and patterns have captured the attention of marine biologists for decades.

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ NewScientist.com.

Mayan underworld proves researchers' dream

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 00:57:00 +0000

The ancient Maya once believed that Mexico's jungle sinkholes containing crystalline waters were the gateway to the underworld and the lair of a surly rain god who had to be appeased with human sacrifices

Now, the "cenotes," deep sinkholes in limestone that have pools at the bottom, are yielding scientific discoveries including possible life-saving cancer treatments.

Divers are dipping into the cenotes, which stud the Yucatan peninsula, to explore a vast underground river system.

Hefting air tanks, guidelines and waterproof lamps, they have so far mapped 405 miles of channels that form part of a huge subterranean river delta flowing into the Caribbean sea, and they are only just starting.

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ news.yahoo.com.

World's largest ice-age footprint site uncovered in Australia

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 00:52:00 +0000

At Australia's Willandra Lakes, TIME�s Lisa Clausen Visits the site of the world's largest repository of ice-age human footprints.

They were in the wrong place, but Steve Webb's archaeology class decided to stay anyway. A colleague had mistakenly taken them to a site they'd never visited before, a nondescript-looking claypan lost among the pale dunes in the Willandra Lakes region of far western New South Wales. Luckily, Webb thought it would still make good practice fieldwork for his Aboriginal students after a week of classes in the nearby town of Mildura. He was walking behind one of them, 26-year-old Mary Pappin Jr., when she called out that she'd seen something. What she'd spotted on the wind-blown surface looked like a footprint. "We'd all been walking over it," her mother Mary says proudly. "But that little one saw it."

What she'd chanced upon is still hard to believe - not only the first Ice Age fossilized human footprints found in Australia, but the largest collection ever found anywhere. "You just don't get this sort of archaeological signature," says Michael Westaway, executive officer of the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area. "This is a story, really, for everybody." Today the prints look as sharp as if their makers had just hurried over the top of the nearest dune. "Almost as good as a footprint in wet sand," Webb says. Since the 2003 find, which was announced last December, his team has uncovered around 460 human prints crisscrossing the site like the traces of a peak-hour crowd, many deeply impressed in the sediment, clearly showing where mud once squished between toes. From their size and the distance between them, Webb and his team have formed a rough picture of 23 individuals who traversed what would have been a wet landscape between 19,000 and 23,000 years ago. A child wanders alone, a little way off from a group. Intersecting their paths is a one-legged man whose confident pace gives no clue as to how he propelled himself, and four tall men running fast, their heels skidding as they sped - were they hunters or prey?

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ Time.com.

Front wheel on Mars rover stops

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 13:20:00 +0000

One of the wheels on Nasa's Martian rover Spirit has stopped working.

The robotic vehicle is now dragging the wheel as it moves to a slope where it can get maximum sunshine on its solar cells to sustain it through the winter. Spirit's right-front wheel has played up before because of a lubrication problem, but engineers on Earth were able to return it to normal operation.

This time, however, it appears to be the motor that rotates the wheel that has ceased to function.

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ BBC Science News.

Earth rocks could have taken life to Titan

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 18:30:00 +0000

Boulders blasted away from the Earth's surface after a major impact could have travelled all the way to the outer solar system, new calculations reveal. The work suggests that terrestrial microbes on the rocks could in theory have landed on Saturn's giant moon, Titan. But whether they could have survived once there remains unclear.

The fact that meteorites from the Moon and Mars have landed on Earth confirms that impacts on solar system bodies can launch rocky debris to other planets. And previous studies have suggested that any life on the rocks could have survived the launch blast and the radiation and chill of the journey through space, assuming it lasted less than a few million years.

Such hardiness raises the possibility that life on Earth itself was seeded from space � a concept called panspermia. But now, researchers led by Brett Gladman of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, have analysed the reverse situation � that life on Earth seeded other bodies in the solar system. Gladman presented the results on Thursday at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas, US.

He says only boulders at least 3 metres across could punch out through the Earth's atmosphere and escape the planet's gravity, and that only extremely powerful impacts could achieve this. The cause of such impacts would be comets or asteroids between 10 and 50 kilometres wide, Gladman told New Scientist: "The kind of thing that killed the dinosaurs."

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ NewScientistSpace.com.

Big new reservoir of water ice suspected under Mars

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 20:13:00 +0000

A large and previously unknown reservoir of water ice may have been found below the surface of Mars, new radar observations suggest.

Gaping canyons and river-like channels attest to the fact that large amounts of water once flowed on Mars. But today most of that water has disappeared, and finding out where it went is one of the main aims of research on the Red Planet.

Scientists are using the radar antenna onboard Europe's Mars Express spacecraft as a divining rod to scout for any water that may have seeped underground.

MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding) works by sending out pulses of radio waves from its main, 40-metre-long antenna and analysing the time delay and strength of the signals that bounce back. Radio waves that penetrate the surface rebound when they encounter a subsurface boundary between materials with different electrical properties � such as rock and water.

The antenna was deployed in June 2005 and quickly detected what appeared to be water ice stretching 1.8 kilometres below the surface of the northern polar ice cap. Now, it has found what looks like water ice extending as deep as 3.5 kilometres below the southern polar cap.

[Comment: Fascinating -- I've been waiting to hear news on the result of this mission, after the uncertainty about whether the antenna could deploy successfully or not! Just the news we need for a Human future on this icy red world. ~ Ed.]

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ NewScientistSpace.com.

Europe Mars shot looks to upgrade

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 20:06:00 +0000

Europe's rover mission to Mars faces a key review to decide if the landing vehicle will be accompanied to the Red Planet by an orbiting spacecraft.

Some on the ExoMars mission want its carrier module, which will ferry the rover to Mars, turned into an orbiter. Upgrading the carrier to an orbiter would cut the mission's reliance on an American spacecraft for communications.

European Space Agency (Esa) officials are expected to decide on the matter in late 2006/early 2007. The mission is currently due to launch on a Russian Soyuz craft in 2011.

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ BBC Science News.

Aboriginal people built water tunnels

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 20:01:00 +0000

Indigenous Australians dug underground water reservoirs that helped them live on one of the world's driest continents for tens of thousands of years, new research shows.

The study, which is the first of its kind, indicates Aboriginal people had extensive knowledge of the groundwater system, says hydrogeologist Brad Moggridge, knowledge that is still held today.

Some 70% of the continent is covered by desert or semi-arid land, which meant its original inhabitants needed to know how to find and manage this resource if they were to survive.

"Aboriginal people survived on one of the driest continents for thousands and thousands of years," says Brad Moggridge, who is from Kamilaroi country in northern New South Wales.

"Without water you die. They managed that water sustainably."

Moggridge, currently a principal policy officer in the New South Wales Department of Environment and Conservation, did his research as part of a Masters degree at the University of Technology, Sydney.

He based his work on oral histories, Dreamtime stories, rock art, artefacts and ceremonial body painting as well as written accounts by white missionaries, surveyors, settlers, anthropologists and explorers.

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ ABC.net.au.

'Naked super-Earth' revealed by microlensing

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 19:58:00 +0000

A chilly �super-Earth� has been spotted in the outskirts of a planetary system 9000 light years away. It is the second known planet of its kind, and suggests these cool worlds are astonishingly common.

Around 170 extrasolar planets have been discovered so far, most of them gas giants like Jupiter circling nearby stars. The majority have been found because their gravity makes their parent stars wobble.

The new planet was discovered by an alternative technique called microlensing which detects planets around much more distant stars. Microlensing can occur when one star passes directly in front of another, as seen from Earth. The gravity of the foreground star briefly magnifies the light of the background star, and if the foreground star has a planet in orbit around it, the planet can create a telltale brightness blip.

In April 2005, an astronomical collaboration called OGLE noticed a bright microlensing event in the central bulge of the Milky Way. Two other teams � the Microlensing Follow-up Network (MicroFUN) and RoboNet � joined in the observations, which monitored the event using five telescopes in the US, Chile and New Zealand.

Analysis of nearly 1500 images suggests the lensing (foreground) star is about half as massive as the Sun and has a Neptune-mass planet in tow. The planet lies about 2.7 times as far from its star as the Earth lies from the Sun, and the astronomers estimate that its temperature is a frigid -200�C.

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ NewScientistSpace.com.

Comet Wild 2 made from 'fire and ice'

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 19:54:00 +0000

Pristine dust from a comet that formed in the icy region beyond Neptune contains material that was once heated to a scorching 1100�C, a preliminary analysis of NASA's Stardust mission reveals.

The surprising finding suggests that some material in the outer solar system was transported there from the blisteringly hot region near the Sun � or perhaps from another star entirely. The results were presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston on Monday.

The discovery comes just two months after a capsule containing dust from the Comet Wild 2 parachuted back to Earth. After studying about two dozen of the million or so dust grains captured from the comet, scientists found minerals � such as olivine, pyroxene and spinel � that form at "red-hot" or "white-hot" temperatures in excess of 1000�C.

"Remarkably enough, we have found fire and ice," says principal investigator Don Brownlee of the University of Washington in Seattle, US. "In the coldest part of the solar system, we have found samples that formed at high temperature."

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ NewScientistSpace.com.

Hidden Garden of Eden wilts as Earth warms

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 13:27:00 +0000

A paradise world of undiscovered species and tropical glaciers in the mountains of New Guinea is disappearing faster than it can be explored. So says a climate scientist who has discovered that global warming there is happening 20 times faster than previously thought.

The highlands of the giant Asian island are among the most isolated places on the planet. They are rarely visited by local tribes and are virtually invisible to satellites because they are constantly shrouded in cloud.

Last week, researchers from the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, in west London, announced the discovery of an entirely new genus of palm trees in the Wondiwoi mountains in the west of the island, which is part of Indonesia. And in February, the US group Conservation International unveiled a host of new species of butterflies, frogs, birds, plants and a tree kangaroo (pictured) found in the mist-shrouded Foja mountains.

All of this might be threatened, says Michael Prentice of Plymouth State University, New Hampshire. On recent visits to the island he uncovered a mass of previously unpublished meteorological data among the records of mission stations, coffee plantations and the mining companies that have recently moved into the highlands. "We have seven or eight good sets covering the period after the early 1970s. They show a real step change, with warming of 0.3 �C every decade," he says. This is five times the previous estimated warming for the region, and among the fastest in the world.

[Comment: Sad. ~ Ed.]

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ NewScientist.com.
Previous Sciotecha coverage of New Guinean "Eden".

Liquid water found on Saturn's moon Enceladus

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 01:03:00 +0000

One of Saturn's moons, Enceladus, is spewing out a giant plume of water vapor that is probably feeding one of the planet's rings, scientists said on Thursday.

The findings, published in the journal Science, suggest that tiny Enceladus could have a liquid ocean under its icy surface which in theory could sustain primitive life, similar to Jupiter's moon Europa. The plume was spotted by Cassini, a joint U.S.-European spacecraft that is visiting Saturn.

"We realize that this is a radical conclusion -- that we may have evidence for liquid water within a body so small and so cold," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader at Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

"However, if we are right, we have significantly broadened the diversity of solar system environments where we might possibly have conditions suitable for living organisms."

Scientists have long known that many of Saturn's moons have water. They took an especially close look at Enceladus because it seemed to have a smooth surface -- suggesting recent geological activity that, in turn, could mean liquid water.

Liquid water is a key requirement for life. Several moons have been found to have evidence of liquid water and the chemical elements needed to make life, including Europa. But scientists are far more intrigued by the plume itself, a gigantic geyser of water vapor and tiny ice particles.

"It's basically this giant plume of gas coming out of the south pole of Enceladus," Candy Hansen of NASA'S Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California said in a telephone interview.

"The plume is half the size of the moon. It's huge," said Hansen, a planetary scientist. "Water is being spewed out of this moon. It solves some real mysteries that we have been struggling with over the years."

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ Reuters.com, Nature.com and UniverseToday.com.

Genome's knowledge "avalanche"

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 13:57:00 +0000

Dr Francis Collins, the scientist leading the Human Genome Project, says he expects important new gene sequences governing aspects of personality, such as intelligence and behaviour, to be known very shortly.

While the project to crack our DNA code has been targeted at understanding and eradicating disease, Dr Collins believes the project will provide significant insights into a broad range of heritable aspects.

"We haven't discovered most of those yet, but frankly, we should be prepared for an avalanche of that kind of information coming in the next two or three years," he told the BBC World Service's The Interview programme.

"On top of the Human Genome Project, which laid out the letters of the code in a 'reference DNA sequence' way, we now have a very good encyclopaedia of the variable parts.

"Researchers are using those in very powerful ways, to track down the specific genes involved in very complicated things - including intelligence," said the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute.

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ BBC Science News.

Elaborate cave paintings stun scientists

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 00:04:00 +0000

Chilean and French scientists have discovered [..] elaborate pre-Columbian cave paintings by indigenous Alacaluf people on an isolated island in Patagonia.

More than 40 stunning paintings were located inside the so-called "Pacific Cave" on Madre de Dios island, in Chile's far south, expedition head Bernard Tourte of France said.

The Alacaluf, a nomadic and seafaring people indigenous to the area, were not previously known to have produced such art.

"For years, people have insisted that this group did not engage in artistic expression, so now we are seeing that they were more advanced than had been believed," anthropologist Marcelo Aguilera said.

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ iol.co.za.

World's oldest ship timbers found in Egyptian desert

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 00:02:00 +0000

The oldest remains of seafaring ships in the world have been found in caves at the edge of the Egyptian desert along with cargo boxes that suggest ancient Egyptians sailed nearly 1,000 miles on rough waters to get treasures from a place they called God's Land, or Punt.

Florida State University anthropology professor Cheryl Ward has determined that wooden planks found in the manmade caves are about 4,000 years old - making them the world's most ancient ship timbers. Shipworms that had tunneled into the planks indicated the ships had weathered a long voyage of a few months, likely to the fabled southern Red Sea trading center of Punt, a place referenced in hieroglyphics on empty cargo boxes found in the caves, Ward said.

"The archaeological site is like a mothballed military base, and the artifacts there tell a story of some of the best organized administrators the world has ever seen," she said. "It's a site that has kept its secrets for 40 centuries."

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ EurekAlert.

Tools 'may be 250,000 years old'

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Stone tools found at one of the South's most important early prehistoric sites could date back 250,000 years, archaeologists claim.

The historic finds were uncovered at a former gravel quarry on the Isle of Wight during digs last summer.

Flint axes found near Great Pan Farm, Newport, are thought to be of the sort used by Neanderthal man. Elephant teeth from the same period were also found.

Specialists are now to carry out further investigations of the site.

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ BBC Science News.

Early Andean maize unearthed

noreply@blogger.com (Frimlin) — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 20:58:00 +0000

Ancient finding suggests Peruvians could have been making tortillas 4,000 years ago.

Archaeologists have found the oldest evidence so far of agriculture in the Andes. The discovery shows that ancient Peruvians were growing and eating maize some 4,000 years ago - more than a millennium earlier than previous records had suggested.

Maize was originally cultivated in Mexico, and archaeologists have evidence that the crop was grown as early as 7,000 years ago in Ecuador. But they had previously not known how quickly the practice spread south into the Andes.

The development of agriculture in this area marks a cornerstone in the development of civilization in the Andes: a process that ultimately led to the rise of the Incas, who dominated the region from about 1100 AD until the arrival of European settlers.

Only part of the text from this article have been posted -- read more @ Nature.com.