Sima de los Huesos skulls similar to Neanderthals

An analysis of 17 skulls from Sima de los Huesos in the Atapuerca Mountains of northern Spain indicates that they have distinct Neanderthal traits, including robust lower jaws, small teeth at the rear of the jaw, and thick brow ridges with a distinctive double arch.

Yet they also have relatively small brains and other primitive features. Paleoanthropologist Juan Luis Arsuaga of Complutense University and his colleagues report in Science that the fossils represent the “oldest reliably dated” specimens of proto-Neanderthals, at 430,000 years old.

“It is now clear that the full suite of the Neanderthal characteristics did not evolve at the same pace,” he told Phys.org. The discovery also suggests that Neanderthals and modern humans developed their big brains independently.

[Source]

Searching for a lost Visigothic city

It doesn't have a name yet, but there is a search party out looking for it. It is the city that produced the 1,500 bodies found in the Visigothic necropolis of Vicálvaro, which the Madrid government has earmarked for destruction because it has "no relevance." The remains are thought to date back to between the fifth and eighth centuries AD.

Over this early burial site on an enormous dry plain, right next to the highway to Valencia, the Madrid government is planning to build a total of 15,400 housing units.

But before construction begins, regional authorities have granted permission to look for further traces of the people who once dwelled in these parts.

And while scholars search for the missing Visigothic city, its cemetery continues to deteriorate. On this three-hectare lot, most of the 824 graves are covered with brush and poppies. Just half-a-dozen of them, the ones furthest from the road, still preserve their Visigothic marks - smooth flat stones that delineate their perimeter. There are also a few bones, millstones and other types of stones piled up beside the graves. The burial site is located on a stretch of whitish limestone that gave rise to the former name of Vicálvaro, Vicus Albus (white village).

[Read More: El Pais]

Rare Vase Discovered in Antique Store

(AP Photo/Interior Ministry)

The owner of an antique shop in Spain was arrested after police investigators found a vase there dating back to the late second century B.C., officials said Saturday.

The antiquity had been illegally plundered from an Iberian era archeological site in the province of Alicante, an Interior Ministry statement said.

Inspectors found it in a cardboard box during a routine search of the shop in the eastern town of El Campello.

"We are not yet aware of the full importance of this discovery, but in 20 years' time we will still be talking about this vase," said Jose Luis Simon, an expert from the cultural heritage service of the Ministry of Culture.

Simon said the piece showed decorative paintwork from the Iberian era that tells the story of a hunter who had managed to kill a wild boar, one of the rituals of the time that proved a youth had attained the status of manhood.

He said that while fragments of vases from this antiquity exist in Spain, this was the first to be found whole, making it "of exceptional value."

Simon said the hunting sequences showed similarities to some found on an ancient Greek vase, known as a crater, in the Vatican museum in Rome.

The Interior Ministry said the inspectors who opened the cardboard box knew right away they were dealing with something out of the ordinary and requested technical backup.

"The technicians did not take long to arrive and issue a report confirming the vase's originality," Simon said.

He said it has been moved to the Alicante Archeological Museum for safekeeping.

Missing Codex Calixtinus Discovered in Garage

A priceless 12th-century illustrated guide for pilgrims has been recovered by police a year after it was stolen from the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain.

The Codex Calixtinus was discovered hidden in the garage of a former employee of the cathedral. The suspected thief, named as Manuel Fernandez Castineiras, had worked as a caretaker and odd-job man for more than 25 years, but was sacked early last year. He had been suing cathedral authorities for unfair dismissal at the time of the theft, on July 5, 2011.

Police arrested Fernandez and his wife, son and son's girlfriend, who are believed to be co-conspirators. The raids also netted other artefacts and €1.2 million ($A1.46 million) in cash.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

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The Atapuerca Caves in Spain

In the late 19th century, a railway cutting driven through the Atapuerca Mountains in Spain led to the discovery of the ancient limestone caves near Burgos. After several excavations during the 20th century, a student made a startling discovery at the Atapuerca Caves in Spain . A human jawbone buried neatly in the caves gave way to the significance of Atapuerca.

Located in the Atapuerca Mountains, a spectacular cave system near the Spanish town of Ibeas de Juarros and Atapuerca, has provided paleontologists with an extensive fossil record of the first human beings in Western Europe. The fossils found have provided incalculable amounts of information regarding the appearance of our ancestors, more than one million years ago.

Read the Entire Story of the Atapuerca Caves in Spain

Picture Credit: Wikipedia
© Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

The Cro Magnon Religion and People

The Cro Magnon people left no written records about themselves, however they replaced the Neanderthals over 30,000 years ago. So what do we know about this prehistoric forerunner to the Homo- sapiens?

Similar to the Neanderthals, they buried tools, weapons, and ornaments with their dead. This is all according to finds documented by the research of archaeologists. Consequently, the graves also furnished some bizarre, yet interesting artifacts including bones painted red. This was, of course, interpreted as a concern for the afterlife. Read more about the Cro Magnon on Factoidz.

This article was previously published by myself. On occasion, some of my short snippet posts will be of this nature since I work with other writing sites.

Miravet : A Mysterious Templar Castle

Not much is known about the Miravet Templar Castle situated in the province of Catalonia,Terragona, Spain. However, most of the castles constructed in Spain for the use of the Templars were confiscated when the Templars were disbanded.

by © periku

Presently, more archaeological restoration is going on, though I'm not exactly sure what else has been discovered. What we do know is that archeological data of ground and the study of the furniture show that the site was occupied of ibéro-Roman epoch in our days and reveal architectural characteristics testifying Muslims' installation of al-Andalus and kingdoms of Taifas.

In the book The Secret Castle: The Key to Good and Evil, written by Miguel Bronshud, the author mentions briefly about the Templar Knights of Miravet.



If you have any information about this site, please leave a comment below. I would love to hear some history about Miravet.