Kathleen O'Neal Gear & W Michael Gear

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Tag Archives: prehistoric

Selling concentration camp artifacts…

Friday, 24 April 2015 08:06
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 http://bit.ly/1bojSXtManzanar 

In this photo, you are looking at the guard tower at Manzanar, the Japanese Relocation Camp in California.

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered Japanese Americans to be incarcerated in camps in their own country, they lost everything:  Their homes, their possessions, their identity as Americans.  They became exiles in their own country.  Kathy had a professor whose family had been incarcerated at Manazar in California.  His tales of what it was like as a boy growing up in that camp were heartbreaking.    It’s difficult for us to understand how anyone can sell artifacts stolen from any archaeological or historical site…but selling artifacts from sites like this is especially troubling.  

If you had the chance to buy Hitler’s hat, would you?  Would you buy an artifact stolen from Auschwitz?    Why or why not?

 

Neandertal violence

Thursday, 23 April 2015 20:38
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Neanderals and predators fossil-forensicsKurdistan Neandertal Shanidar CaveAround 45,000 years ago, in Iraqi Kurdistan, Neandertals lived in a cave that archaeologists call Shanidar Cave.  One of the interesting things about the Neandertal skeletal remains is the violence demonstrated by crushed skulls and stab wounds.  Keep in mind, it was a cold and forbidding, and hostile, world 45,000 years ago. Neandertals faced not only the encroachment of modern humans but some big–and we mean big–predators.  Saber-toothed cats and dire wolves that make “Ghost” in Game of Thrones look puny in comparison.      http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/150420152

It’s finally here! Today!

Tuesday, 21 April 2015 07:00
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Vikings-in-North-AmericaViking explorers were not aimlessly sailing out across the arctic ocean.  They had fabulous stories of a distant paradise in the West…  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/vikings-in-north-america-kathleen-oneal-gear/1121191518?ean=9781466892477

Elephants, aurochs and gazelles hunted 500,000 years ago.

Monday, 20 April 2015 07:23
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Israel Revadim-Toolshttp://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/science-stone-tools-butchered-elephant-bones-revadim-israel-02620.html

The now extinct animals that were hunted at the Ravidim site in Israel came from a culture archaeologists call Acheulian, and are famous for their hand axes–a prehistoric Swiss Army knife that could perform many tasks.  Would have loved to have seen a Straight-tusk elephant, but species change over time.  To adapt to environmental stresses like climate change, species hybridize, pulling the genes they need to survive from other species. This may be happening today with bison and cattle.  As the climate warms, bison seem to be selecting for certain cattle genes.  There is some evidence to suggest this natural selection favors smaller bison, which probably would be adaptive in a warmer world.  Smaller bison would consume less resources and have a greater chance of survival when the grasses they need to survive get scarce.  Such a diminution of bison size occurred at the end of Pleistocene Ice Age, as well.  Of course, we won’t know if the cattle genes in bison helped them 2014-06-22 15.30.37adapt to a changing climate for around 10,000 years.    

 

Yes, it’s spring. We have to chain up the trucks to get out.

Sunday, 19 April 2015 09:39
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2014-07-04 14.34.46We love April rain and snow, but it’s turned our road into one long mud wallow.  We have to chain up all fours on the trucks to get in and out these days.  And, truly, we hope it continues.  More rain, please, Katchinas!

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