Wonderwerk Cave Yields Earliest Evidence Of Our Cave-Dwelling Ancestors

A research team led by Professor Michael Chazan, director of the University of Toronto's Archaeology Centre, has discovered the earliest evidence of our cave-dwelling human ancestors at the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa.

Stone tools found at the bottom level of the cave — believed to be 2 million years old — show that human ancestors were in the cave earlier than ever thought before. Geological evidence indicates that these tools were left in the cave and not washed into the site from the outside world.

Archaeological investigations of the Wonderwerk cave — a South African National Heritage site due to its role in discovering the human and environmental history of the area — began in the 1940s and research continues to this day.

The cave is 139m deep and so big it is said that a wagon and team of oxen could turn around in the entrance. (if you intend to go, there is an information center near the entrance, and you can even get a guide).

From the McGregor Museum description:

"Wonderwerk Cave is an ancient solution cavity, exposed at one end byhillside erosion, and running horizontally for 139 m into the base of a low conical foothill on the eastern flank of the Kuruman Hills. Its geological context is stratified dolomitic limestone of the 2.3 billion year-old Ghaap Plateau Dolomite Formation. Permanent water sources in the area are presently limited to a seep some 5 km to the south on Gakorosa Hill and a large sinkhole now known as Boesmans Gat (meaning "Bushman's waterhole"), about 12 km away.

"Research has shown that bedrock in the front portion of the cave is overlain by 4 m of deposits consisting of almost horizontal layers of wind-blown dust with a variable admixture of roof-slabs. Initial radiocarbon, Uranium-series and palaeomagnetic readings indicate that the uppermost metre of sediments, 45 m in from the cave mouth, spans the past 300 000 years, while extrapolation, based on that result, suggests that the lower levels range back very much further. Palaeomagnetic evidence recently indicated that the base of the sequence may reach back as far as 1.77 to 1.95 million years. If this dating is correct.) The small irregular stone cores and flakes in those lowest levels could be Oldowan. There is archaeological evidence of human occupation in all layers, making this one of the longest inhabited caves on earth."

Source: Science20

Verano Azul set to film in Nerja again

A still from the 1981 series of Verano Azul

A second series of the popular eighties children's series is set to be shot in the town next year.

Verano Azul 2 – the follow up to the children’s television programme which put Nerja on the map in 1981 is set to be filmed in the town next year.

The Nerja Toan Hall has confirmed that shooting for the new series begins in March, and will continue until October despite the problems in finding the 700,000 € funding. The local town hall had budgeted only 150,000 €.

Nerja businessmen are well aware of the publicity for the town the programme will bring, and tourism councillor, José Miguel García, has said locations for the series have already been chosen by the producers. He also said he was disappointed by the managers of the Nerja Caves who had promised to help with the funding but who have now changed their mind.

Alicante and Málaga cities have both said they would like to take part in the filming of the series if possible.

Source: Typically Spanish

Unusual Microbial Ropes Grow Slowly In Cave Lake

A microbial rope in the bottom half of the cave lake.
Credit: Penn State

Deep inside the Frasassi cave system in Italy and more than 1,600 feet below the Earth's surface, divers found filamentous ropes of microbes growing in the cold water, according to a team of Penn State researchers.

"Sulfur caves are a microbiology paradise. Many different types of organisms live in the caves and use the sulfur," says Jennifer L. Macalady, assistant professor of geosciences. "We are trying to map which organisms live where in the caves and how they correspond to the geochemical environment."

In this process, Macalady and her team discovered a previously unknown form of biofilm growing in the oxygen-deficient portion of the lake.

"The cave explorers had seen these strange biofilms," says Macalady. "So we asked them if they could get us a sample."

The Frasassi cave system is located north of Rome and south of Venice in the Marche region. These limestone caves are like New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns and Lechuguilla Cave, but in those caves, sulfur entered the caves from oil and gas reserves, while in Italy, the sulfur source is a thick gypsum layer below. Having sulfur in the environment allows sulfur-using organisms to grow.

Decline Of Roman And Byzantine Empires 1,400 Years Ago May Have Been Driven By Climate Change

The decline of the Roman and Byzantine Empires in the Eastern Mediterranean more than 1,400 years ago may have been driven by unfavorable climate changes.

Based on chemical signatures in a piece of calcite from a cave near Jerusalem, a team of American and Israeli geologists pieced together a detailed record of the area's climate from roughly 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D. Their analysis, to be reported in an upcoming issue of the journal Quaternary Research, reveals increasingly dry weather from 100 A.D. to 700 A.D. that coincided with the fall of both Roman and Byzantine rule in the region.

The researchers, led by University of Wisconsin-Madison geology graduate student Ian Orland and professor John Valley, reconstructed the high-resolution climate record based on geochemical analysis of a stalagmite from Soreq Cave, located in the Stalactite Cave Nature Reserve near Jerusalem.

"It looks sort of like tree rings in cross-section. You have many concentric rings and you can analyze across these rings, but instead of looking at the ring widths, we're looking at the geochemical composition of each ring," says Orland.

Using oxygen isotope signatures and impurities — such as organic matter flushed into the cave by surface rain — trapped in the layered mineral deposits, Orland determined annual rainfall levels for the years the stalagmite was growing, from approximately 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D.

Rock painting reveals unknown bat

The Bradshaw rock art is sophisticated for its age

An ancient cave painting from northern Australia depicts a previously unknown species of large bat, researchers say.

The team thinks the rock art from Australia's Kimberley region could date to the height of the last Ice Age - about 20-25,000 years ago.

The painting depicts eight roosting fruit bats - also called flying foxes.

They have features that do not match any Australian bats alive today, suggesting the art depicts a species that is now extinct.

Jack Pettigrew, University of Queensland
The findings have been published online in the scholarly journal Antiquity.

The bats would not have lived in the same cave as the painting; they are depicted hanging on a vine, which indicates a lowland forest habitat.