Large Ancient Settlement Unearthed in Puerto Rico

Bodies, structures, and rock art thought to belong to an indigenous pre-Columbian culture have been unearthed at an ancient settlement in Puerto Rico, officials recently announced.

Archaeologists say the complex—which dates from A.D. 600 to 1500—could be the most significant of its kind in the Caribbean.

"This is a very well-preserved," said Aida Belén Ruiz-Rivera, director of Puerto Rico's State Office of Historic Preservation.

"The site appears to show two professions: a pre-Taino and a Taino settlement."

The Taino are intended as a subgroup of the Arawak Indians, emigrated to the Caribbean from Mexico or South America hundreds of years, say experts.

They were among the first tribes to meet Europeans.

Huge Plaza

The ancient settlement was discovered Taino Puerto Rico in the south (see map).
Archaeologists have known since 1985 that the area contained Indian artifacts.

But the extent of the site became clear only recently, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with the construction of a new dam, to protect the region from flooding.

Perhaps the most significant find is a large space with an area of approximately 130 by 160 feet (40 to 50 meters).

Rivera-Ruiz said the plaza appears to be a batey, a rectangular area around which the Taino built their settlements.

The plaza, which contains stones etched with ancient petroglyphs, might have been a court used for ceremonial rituals or ball games.

"If this information is confirmed, it would be the largest known local batey in the Caribbean," said Ruiz-Rivera.

Roberto Mucaro Borrero, a representative of the United Confederation of Taino People, agreed.

The site "could be the largest area of ancient Taino culture not only in Puerto Rico but throughout the Caribbean," said Borrero.

And petroglyphs male figure with a frog leg could prove particularly important for the understanding of cultural roots, he added.

"They were able to show evidence of a direct link between the Taino and the Mayan peoples," he said, although other experts strongly refute that the two cultures are related.

Storm of controversy

Confusion and criticism are already in the middle of swirling excitement over the results.

Initial reports on the number of bodies in graves at the site indicate that the people were buried in a unique position.

The corpses were "buried with the legs bent at the knees-a style never before in the region," the Associated Press reported.

But Miguel Rodriguez, a member of the Puerto Rican government archaeological council, said the burial position is not unknown in the region.

Kit Wesler, a Taino expert at Murray State University in Kentucky, also said that the "position is unusual, but probably not unprecedented."

Rivera-Ruiz of the state preservation office said that any claims about the uniqueness of the burial arrangements must await a full excavation and study of all objects funerary art.

Meanwhile, the US-New South Associates, a private archaeology firm commissioned by the Corps of Engineers to save, the site at the centre of controversy over their excavation methods.

According to AP, the company had originally with a bulldozer, which cause damage to centuries-old bones.

The members of the Taino, on Saturday visited the dig "Witness damage to the site, especially on some human remains and stones", was apparently by a backhoe, Taino representative said Borrero.

Rodriguez was convinced that the company should be drawn from the project.

"This is a perfect example of what they should not do," he said. "They are usually associated with graves and bulldozers, and they must stop."

Rodriguez also accused the company of Puerto Rican law by failing to register artefacts, which he proposed on the island.

"They have not said what about the materials, so that they do not follow the rules," he said.

An official from New South Associates, said the Corps does not allow the press to answer questions.

But Rivera-Ruiz, Puerto Rico's historic preservation office, defended the Corps and its contractors.

"The contractor was originally developed by the Corps of Engineers, a salvage data recovery on a site that primarily to fail," she said by e-mail.

"Once the conservation was an option, the amount and type of invasive project has been postponed in favour of the more low-key, less intrusive hand excavation already suspended functions."

About 80 percent of the site will remain intact, Rivera-Ruiz added, so that, for the long-term preservation of most of the site.

It added that Puerto Rico's State Historic Preservation Office, the company has overlooked the operation, and the parties are complying with the law.

And Corps spokesman said David McCullough National Geographic News by e-mail that his agency stands behind New South Associates and revising their plans based on the new findings.

"If the Corps recognized the extreme importance of this location," he said, "we redesigned the parts of the dam project, the largest negative impact on the site."

Asteroid May Hit Mars Next Month

Mars could be in for an asteroid.

A newly discovered chunk of space rock 1 and has a chance of 75 slamming into the Red Planet at 30 January, scientists said Thursday.

"These rates are very unusual," said Steve Chesley, an astronomer with the Near Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We often work with very long conflict, if we track ... threatening asteroids."

The Odds

The asteroid, known as 2007 WD5, was discovered at the end of November and is similar in the size of an object, the remote central Siberia in 1908, unleashing energy equivalent to a 15-megaton nuclear bomb and wipe 60 million trees.

Scientists tracking the asteroid, which is currently half-way between Earth and Mars, the first impact at a rate of 1 in 350, but increases the chances this week.

The scientists expect the rates to reduce again early next month for ever new observations of the asteroid's orbit, Chesley said.

"We know that it is from Mars to fly and are most likely to miss, but there is a way to have an impact," he said.

Excited, no fear

If the asteroid is not to dismantle Mars, it will probably hit near the equator of the planet, close to where the rover Opportunity has exploration of Mars levels since 2004. The robot is not in danger, because they are outside the impact zone.

With the space rock moving at a speed of 8 miles (13 km) a second, a collision Mars would carve a hole in the size of the famous Meteor Crater (see photo) in Arizona.

In 1994, fragments of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (see photo) smacked into Jupiter, creating a series of overlapping fire balls in space.

Astronomers have witnessed an asteroid with another planet.

"Unlike an effect of the earth, we are not afraid, but we are thrilled," said Chesley.

"Giant Human Skeleton" Photo Inspires Hoax

From~National Geographic The National Geographic Society has not discovered ancient giant humans, despite rampant reports and pictures.

The hoax began with a doctored photo and later found a receptive online audience—thanks perhaps to the image's unintended religious connotations.

A digitally altered photograph created in 2002 shows a reclining giant surrounded by a wooden platform—with a shovel-wielding archaeologist thrown in for scale.

By 2004 the "discovery" was being blogged and emailed all over the world—"Giant Skeleton Unearthed!"—and it's been enjoying a revival in 2007.

The photo fakery might be obvious to most people. But the tall tale refuses to lie down even five years later, if a continuing flow of emails to National Geographic News are any indication. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)

The messages come from around the globe—Portugal, India, El Salvador, Malaysia, Africa, the Dominican Republic, Greece, Egypt, South Africa, Kenya. But they all ask the same question: Is it true?

Perpetuating the Myth

Helping to fuel the story's recent resurgence are a smattering of media outlets that have reported the find as fact.

An often cited March 2007 article in India's Hindu Voice monthly, for example, claimed that a National Geographic Society team, in collaboration with the Indian Army, had dug up a giant human skeleton in India.

"Recent exploration activity in the northern region of India uncovered a skeletal remains of a human of phenomenal size," the report read.

The story went on to say the discovery was made by a "National Geographic Team (India Division) with support from the Indian Army since the area comes under jurisdiction of the Army." The account added that the team also found tablets with inscriptions that suggest the giant belonged to a race of superhumans that are mentioned in the Mahabharata, a Hindu epic poem from about 200 B.C.

The story went on to say that the discovery was made possible by a National Geographic team (India Division) with the support of the Indian army since the area falls under the jurisdiction of the army. "

The account added that the team also tablets with inscriptions indicate that the giant belonged to a race of superhumans that in the Mahabharata, a Hindu epic of around 200 BC

"They were very large, very large and powerful, so that they have their arms around a tree trunk and uproot", the report says, repeatedly claimed that first appeared in 2004.

Voice editor P. Deivamuthu admitted National Geographic News that his publication was of the fake reports.

The monthly, which is based in Mumbai (Bombay), published a withdrawal after Deivamuthu readers aware of the false report, he said.

"We are against the proliferation of lies and ducks," Deivamuthu added. "In addition, our readers a very intellectual class, and will not brook any nonsense."

Other blog entries such as a posting in May 2007 at a site called Srini's weblog allegedly quoting a report published in the Times of India on 22 April 2004. But a search of this newspaper archives revealed no such items.

Arabian Giant

Variations of the giant photo hoax also alleged discovery of a 60 - to 80-foot long (18 - to 24-meter) human skeleton in Saudi Arabia. In a popular, which also first appeared in 2004, an oil exploration team to have said.

Here is the skeleton has proved to be evidence of giants, which in Islamic, but as a Hindu, writings.

The Debunkers

Sites to debunking urban legends and "netlore" picked up on the various hoaxes giant soon after they first appeared.

California-based Snopes.com, for example, found that the skeleton image was lifted from Worth1000, the hosts photo-manipulation competitions.

Entitled "Giants", the skeleton and shoveler image had occupied the third place in a competition in 2002 as "archaeological 2 anomalies."

The picture is a creator-signatories from Canada, with the screen name IronKite told National Geographic News by e-mail that he had nothing to do with the subsequent hoax.

He added that he wants to remain anonymous because some forums debating whether the giant was real or not, their whole argument in a religious one. " It has been argued, for example, that the Saudi Arabian find was fully in line with the teachings of the Koran.

"That was about the same time that death threats and cash bonuses were against cartoonists and other professionals for the industry, things to do, such as the depiction of the Prophet Mohammed," Iron Kite wrote.

As the picture was made

Iron Kite began with an aerial photograph of a mastodon excavation in Hyde Park, New York, 2000. He then digitally superimposed on a human skeleton on the animal's remains.

The subsequent addition of a man digging, the biggest technical challenge.

"If you see, he is in possession of a yellow-handled shovel, but it is nothing to end," said IronKite.

"Originally it was the end of spades. But [it] looked like it was the exact same room as occupation of the skeleton of the temple, making the whole thing look fake.

"Now it looks like he is only with a stick, and that the people do not notice. It's funny."

IronKite also changed the color of the clothes of the man for the creation of a "single tie-in with the white-shirted peering observers from the wooden platform.

The two figures to exaggerate the extent of the skeleton, he added.

Iron Kite said he tickled that the image, lasted only about an hour and a half to create, has so much attention Internet.

"I laugh myself if some stupid guy claimed to know someone who was there, or even goes so far as to say that he or she was there when they found the skeleton was in the picture," said IronKite.

"Sometimes people seem so desperate to believe in something that they themselves lie or exaggerate their own arguments stronger."

Wanting to Believe

David Mikkelson of Snopes.com said such hoaxes succeed if they seem to confirm what people already inclined to believe, as a prejudice, political views or religious beliefs.

A Hoax must also be presented "in a framework that has the appearance of credibility," he said in an e-mail.

The "old giant" has the two elements, according to Mikkelson.

"He appeals to both a religious and secular vision of the world than others and more than mere fantasy science would lead us to believe," he said.

"Proof," Mikkelson added, "comes in the form of a fairly convincing pictures."

For those who may knowingly propagated the myth that Mikkelson added, the motivation was probably no different than the motivation for participation in a game of someone ringing doorbell and running away, it's an easy way to have a laugh at someone's cost. "

Alex Boese, "curator" of the virtual Museum of Hoaxes, said fake giants have a long history dating back to at least 1700.

The recent hoax reminiscent of the once famous Cardiff Giant myth, with a ten-foot-tall (three-meter) stone image dug in 1869 in Cardiff, New York, said Boese.

Many people believed that the number was a petrified man, claiming he was one of the giants in the Bible's Book of Genesis: "There were giants in the Earth in those days."

Similarly, Boese said, the last Giant Hoax "taps into the human desire for secrecy and their desire to see concrete confirmation of the religious legends."

Mysterious Clouds More Common Due to Climate Change?

Night-shining clouds are seen over Finland in this undated photo. Scientists say such clouds are appearing brighter and more often and that human-caused climate change may be the cause.

Mysterious "night shining clouds," that in view of the polar sky, the bright and frequently in the last few years, and climate change, the offender, scientists announced on Monday.

So-called noctilucent clouds, the stripes across the sky in vivid colors in the polar summer, ten times brighter than previously thought, according to recent data from NASA's Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite.

The data collected during two polar cloud seasons, beat the formations appear daily, are widespread, and have begun, in the form of lower margins than before.

Canary climate change

Night illuminating clouds are mostly of ice particles in the water vapor condenses on atmospheric dust.

The AIM mission is the first detailed examination of the clouds that are about 50 miles (80 km) above Earth's surface - "literally at the edge of space", AIM Principal Investigator James Russell III said yesterday at a press conference at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco, California, USA.

The air there is more than one thousand times drier than the Sahara, and the temperature drops to minus 235 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 148 degrees Celsius) - ideal conditions for the creation of clouds.

A declaration is expected for the clouds' increase is that the temperatures in the upper atmosphere have become even colder by the construction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, says Russell.

Annual emissions of carbon dioxide levels have been about 20 percent since 1990. Most scientists agree, is the formation of the climate change and the heating surface.

In the upper atmosphere, carbon dioxide is not acting like a thick, heat-trapping blanket.

Instead, it forms a thin layer, to escape the heat, the temperatures drop and ice particles to form.

"[The] cloud is the mine's canary of global warming," said Russell National Geographic News.

No Other Plausible Reason

The evidence that carbon changes in the night sky illuminating is still hesitant, said Russell.

But, "quite frankly, we do not know of other plausible reasons why it is not global climate change," he said.

"If this is true, who says we are not only changing the atmosphere in which we live, we are changing a very remote, rarified part of our atmosphere."

Such profound change means that "we need to be," says Russell.

"If [the cloud changes] are, in fact, carbon dioxide to build, here is another reason that we confirm, it should strive to do something about this."

"Exquisite thermometer"

AIM also discovered "dramatic changes" in the cloud behavior, "says Scott Bailey, AIM Deputy Principal Investigator.

The data suggest that the clouds are very variable, rotating every five days after minute shifts in the temperature-even as little as 5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.7 degrees Celsius).

"These clouds are noble thermometer," he said.

"Now we are in a position to the entire life cycle [a cloud] for the first time," Bailey said National Geographic News.