Archaeological News from Archaeology Magazine. Archaeological Headlines By JESSICA E. SARACENIFriday, April 2. New Geoglyph Spotted in Peru’s Nazca Desert. LIMA, PERU—Andina reports that a geoglyph has been discovered at Pampa de Majuelos in the Nazca desert by archaeologists Masato Sakai and Jorge Olano of Yamagata University. Sakai claims that the image, which measures more than 9. He suggests the image was created by moving stones from the whitish- colored ground and piling them to shape the animal in low relief. To read about another mysterious Peruvian feature, go to . They analyzed the microscopic wear and tear on the teeth to try to determine what the Neanderthals and modern humans ate, and how their diets related to the environment at the time. According to a report in International Business Times, the scientists found that the Neanderthals’ diet varied in response to what was readily available in the environment, while the diet eaten by modern humans was less affected by slight changes in climatic conditions. The Neanderthals are thought to have eaten more meat when they lived in open, cold steppe environments, and more plants, seeds, and nuts when living in forests. The modern humans are thought to have stuck with a more plant- based diet. Researchers think that it could be a fragment of a tool for cooking and baking, which would have had small legs to support a pot or Dutch oven over a fire. A pot fragment in the Jamestown Rediscovery artifact collection has marks on its base that may have come from cooking on such a grill. This object may have been deposited in the cellar as filler when the structure was abandoned. The rest of it may have been recycled into another item, but archaeologists will keep an eye out for additional grill pieces. The unused bronze and silver- coated coins date to the fourth century A. D. Ana Navarro of the Seville Archaeological Museum said that the coins studied so far bear images of the emperors Constantine and Maximian. She thinks that the coins may have been stored to pay soldiers or civil servants. To read about a large collection of Roman coins found in England, go to . It had been thought that the modest building on the site was Monroe’s home, built in 1. This building is now thought to have been constructed during renovations of the property, perhaps as a guest house, mentioned by Monroe in a letter to his son- in- law in September 1. The newly uncovered foundation includes a chimney base and a stone cellar. Charred wood suggests that the house was destroyed by fire sometime after Monroe sold the property in 1. Later newspaper accounts refer to the destruction of the former Monroe residence, and the construction of another home on the property in the 1. To read more about archaeology in Virginia, go to . The robot has a head with stereoscopic vision and two fully articulated arms and hands that relay haptic feedback to the pilot’s controls. It’s almost like you are there; with the sense of touch you create a new dimension of perception,” Khatib told Engineering. In addition, sensors in the body monitor the current and automatically adjust to keep the robot stable. To test Ocean. One, the team explored the wreck of La Lune, King Louis XIV’s flagship, which sank in 1. France. The deep water makes it a dangerous place for human divers, but Ocean. Real health coaches in your pocket. Vida can help you lose weight, detox, reduce stress, lower cholesterol or blood pressure, prevent or reverse diabetes, manage a.View A polar bear found a peculiar way to cover up her bear bum, when she discovered some pants in the snow near a small Eskimo settlement in the Arctic Circle. One, guided by Khatib back on the boat, carefully recovered a vase from the wreck and placed it in a recovery basket. For more on underwater archaeology, go to . Spellmon, commander of the corps’ Northwestern Division. This means that the 8,5. Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). Kennewick Man is currently held at the Burke Museum in Seattle, under the custody of the Army Corps of Engineers. Interested tribes, such as the Colville, Yakama, Umatilla, Nez Perce, and Wanapum Indians, are planning to submit a joint request for the repatriation of the remains, also known as the Ancient One. To read about the earliest people to arrive in North America, go to . Likely to have belonged to Homo rhodesiensis, the bone is covered with tooth marks that the researchers say were left by a large carnivore, possibly an extinct hyena. A report in Live Science adds that the marks were covered with sediment, so they were likely to have been made at the time of the hominin’s death or shortly after it. The cave also contained the bones of animals such as gazelles and jackals, and stone tools dating to the Middle Pleistocene, between 7. Diet, Lifestyle, and the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Women. Stampfer, M.D., Graham Colditz. What Is a Military Diet? This is a diet that can help you lose 10 pounds in just 3 days without strenuous exercise or prescriptions. The 3 day military diet is cheap. Yali tribe are pygmey cannibals who dwell in lowland and highland Papua. Yali have rich culture and customs and a trace of cannibalism in their history. Save recipes; Build shopping lists; Get personalized food recommendations based on your food and diet preferences; Access your shopping list and recipes. Traces of Oregon Ranger’s Station Revealed by Drought. DETROIT, OREGON—Low water levels in Oregon’s Detroit Lake revealed a wooden cargo wagon and a concrete. Shop Vegan at Walmart. Walmart is literally filled to the brim with a huge selection of goods. Let’s take a look at each department. I’ll show you the vegan. Photo Credit spicy bean curd image by Yali Shi from Fotolia.com. The western lowland gorilla is the smallest subspecies of gorilla but nevertheless still a primate of exceptional size and strength. This species of gorillas exhibits. Hominins are also thought to have scavenged and hunted large carnivores at this time. To read more about Pleistocene archaeology, go to . According to a report in The Times of Israel, the seal is thought to have belonged to an official from the Thirteenth Dynasty, dating back to the eighteenth century B. C. Researchers think the scarab may have been carried to northern Israel by the viceroy or his representative, or it may have arrived at the site later, during the Roman period, when there was a demand for Egyptian artifacts. To read about another recent Egyptological discovery, go to . Because the mother was looking down at the baby in her hands,” Chu Whei- lee of Taiwan’s National Museum of Natural Science said in a Reutersreport. Forest Service archaeologist Cara Kelly interviewed locals who lived in the area, known as Old Detroit, and learned that at one time, the pit in question may have been lined with rocks and filled with goldfish. Guard stations during this time served as backcountry living quarters where forest rangers were stationed during the summer, constructing trails, installing telephone lines, and patrolling land on horseback in search of smoke from wildfires,” she said in a report in the Appeal Tribune. To read about another site where the U. S. Forest Service is conducting research, go to . The flint axes date to the Neolithic period and are thought to have been placed in the bog as part of a ritual sacrifice between 3. B. C. To read about another discovery in Denmark, go to. Western lowland gorilla - Wikipedia. The western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) is one of two subspecies of the western gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) that lives in montane, primary and secondary forests and lowland swamps in central Africa in Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. It is the gorilla most often found in zoos. This species of gorillas exhibits pronounced sexual dimorphism. They possess no tails and have jet black skin along with coarse black hair that covers their entire body except for the face, ears, hands, and feet. The hair on the back and rump of males takes on a grey coloration and is also lost as they get progressively older. This coloration is the reason why older males are known as . Their hands are proportionately large with nails on all digits, similar to that of a human's, and very large thumbs. They have short muzzles, a prominent brow ridge, large nostrils, and small eyes and ears. Other features are large muscles in the jaw region along with broad and strong teeth. Among these teeth are strong sets of frontal canines, and large molars in the back of the mouth for grinding vegetables. Western gorillas frequently stand upright, but walk in a hunched, quadrupedal fashion, with hands curled and knuckles touching the ground. This style of movement requires long arms, which works for western gorillas because the arm span of gorillas is larger than their standing height. The average size of the male western lowland gorilla's reproductive organ is typically between 3. Behavior. Gorillas do not display territorial behavior, and neighboring groups often overlap ranges. Gorillas normally travel 5–3 km (3. Populations feeding on high- energy foods that vary spatially and seasonally tend to have greater day ranges than those feeding on lower- quality but more consistently available foods. Larger groups travel greater distances in order to obtain sufficient food. Before reaching the age of sexual maturity, males leave their natal group and go through a “bachelor stage” that can last several years either in solitary or in a nonbreeding group. It was also found that males like to settle with other male members of their family. Their breeding groups consist of one silverback male, three adult females and their offspring. Females tend to make bonds with other females in their natal group only, but rather form strong bonds with males. Males also compete aggressively with each other for contact with females. In cases where there are more than one silverback males in a group, they are most likely father and son. Groups containing only one male are believed to be the basic unit of the social group, gradually growing in size due to reproduction and new members migrating in. In the study done at Lope, gorillas harvest most of their food arboreally, but less than half of their night nests are built in trees. Western lowland gorillas live in the smallest family groups of all gorillas, with an average of 4 to 8 members in each. The leader (the silverback) organizes group activities, like eating, nesting, and traveling in their home range. Those who challenge this alpha male are apt to be cowed by impressive shows of physical power. He may stand upright, throw things, make aggressive charges, and pound his huge chest while barking out powerful hoots or unleashing a frightening roar. Despite these displays and the animals' obvious physical power, gorillas are generally calm and nonaggressive unless they are disturbed. Young gorillas, from three to six years old, remind human observers of children. Much of their day is spent in play, climbing trees, chasing one another, and swinging from branches. In gorillas, such common aberrant behaviors include eating disorders—such as regurgitation, reingestion, and coprophagy—self injurious or conspecific aggression, pacing, rocking, sucking of fingers or lip smacking, and overgrooming . A particular abnormal behavior is hair- plucking, which occurs across many species of mammals and birds. Studies made on the topic show that of all the western lowland gorillas housed in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) population, 1. Individual gorillas, particularly those of a more solitary nature, are more likely to self- pluck using their fingers and pick up this behavior if they were exposed to a group member that plucked their hair as a youngster and not yet mature gorilla. Unlike their powerful parents, newborns are tiny—weighing four pounds—and able only to cling to their mothers' fur. These infants ride on their mothers' backs from the age of four months through the first two or three years of their lives. This pattern is likely to result from selective pressures on females to have males at a time when they can provision them most effectively, as male reproductive success probably varies more than that of females and depends more on the maternal role. Three out of four females have been observed to engaged in sexual behavior while pregnant and two out of three females have been observed to engage in sexual behavior while lactating. Females are significantly more likely to engage and participate in sexual behavior and activity on a day when another female is sexually active. It has been found that female western lowland gorillas participate in non- reproductive sexual behavior in order to increase her reproductive success through sexual competition. By increasing the female’s own reproductive success, she then decreases the reproductive success of others female gorillas, regardless of their reproductive state. They are hunted illegally for their skins and meat in Africa and captured to be sold to zoos. While defended as being economically profitable for restaurants and local people, it is a large contributor to the endangered status of the western lowland gorilla. They are also seen as a crop pest in western Africa because they raid native plantations and therefore destroy what would have otherwise been valuable crops. Such factors include deforestation, farming, grazing, and the expanding human settlements that cause forest loss. There is a correlation between human intervention in the wild with the destruction of habitats and increase in bushmeat hunting. Generally, female gorillas mature at 1. Of one half of captive females of viable reproductive age, approximately only 3. However, these non- reproductive gorillas may prove to be a valuable resource since the use of assisted reproductive techniques aid in the maintaining of genetic diversity in the limited populations in zoos. While the use and manufacture of tools to extract ants and termites is a well- documented behavior in wild chimpanzees, it has never been observed in other great apes in their natural habitat and never seen to be done by other primates in captivity. In terms of manufacturing tools for the use of extracting for western lowland gorillas, gorillas are able to adapt tools to a particular use by selecting branches, remove projections such as leaves and bark, and adapting their length to the depth of the holes. It appears that they also anticipate the use of the tool since they begin with biggest sticks available and progressively modify it until it is the perfect fit for inserting into a hole that contains food. This demonstrates the gorillas' acquisition of high level sensorimotor intelligence similar to that of young human children. In 2. 00. 9, there was a western lowland gorilla at Buffalo zoo that used a bucket to collect water. Most notably, an experiment was conducted at Buffalo Zoological Gardens from 1. April 2. 01. 0 to 2. June 2. 01. 0 relating to this incident. The experiment involved one adult male gorilla and three adult female gorillas given five gallon buckets near a standing pool. Two of the younger female gorillas were able to successfully fill the buckets with water. This is the first record of gorillas spontaneously using tools to drink in zoos. What should be worth noting is that the environment of the zoo may affect the behavior of the gorillas. One gorilla, Koko, was born in San Francisco Zoo on July 4, 1. A woman named Francine Patterson officially started working with Koko on July 1. Petterson focused on teaching Koko only three basic signs: . Patterson, or one of her colleagues by molding Koko's hands into the correct sign. On August 7th, Patterson began a more formal routine of teaching Koko the signs, . Only two days after they started a more formal routine, Koko started responding consistently with the sign . Koko mastered more than 1,0. This involved humans holding objects such as fruit, leaves or peanuts in one hand. Once the gorillas had given twigs to the humans, they would receive one of these objects. If the gorillas did not give them a twig, they would not get their desired object. The gorillas were shown to quickly learn about receiving rewards as mistakes made by the gorillas in the beginning of the experiments gradually decreased. They live in primary and secondary lowland tropical forests that have elevations that extend from sea level up to 1,3. The average amount of rainfall in the areas where western lowland gorillas typically reside is about 1,5. August and November. Western lowland gorillas are not typically observed in areas that are close to human settlements and villages. They have been known to avoid areas with roads and farms that show signs of human activity. These gorillas favor areas where edible plants are more copious. Swamp forests are now considered important feeding areas and habitats for the western lowland gorilla. These areas support the gorillas in both the wet and the dry season of the forest. The forests of the Republic of Congo serve as protection to the gorillas with the isolation of the large swampy forest areas. Logging also destroys gorilla habitats. Although logging diminishes gorilla habitats, it may also provide for increased herbaceous vegetation as a result of gaps in the tree cover.
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