Rare petroglyphs found in Cuban caves

Cuban archaeologists are studying the strange drawings found in caves in eastern Cuba, Prensa Latina reported.
The petroglyphs, discovered in the Sierra del Rosario reserve located in Pinar del Rio province, have now motivated large-scale research in the area to establish the origin of the asymmetric carvings in the stalagmites.

According to Cuba’s renowned historian Luis Formigo, the carvings were made by pre-tribal aboriginal people who also carved stone to make fire, track time and follow the course of events between the years 5,000 and 3,000 B.C.

The Cuban Anthropology Institute called the 2 cm X 7 cm discovery as extraordinary and linked it to the Banwari-Trace tradition of Trinidad, East Caribbean, leading cave stone carving sites in the area.

The discoveries include caves used for housing and others used for ceremonies, plus several others considered graveyards, Formigo said.

In La Lechuza, one of the largest caves, food remains, tools and pieces of human skeletons were also found.

Source: Tha Indian

Underground cave dating from the year 1 A.D. exposed in Jordan Valley

The cave was originally a large quarry during the Roman and Byzantine era and was one of its kind; various engravings were uncovered in the cave, including cross markings, and it is assumed that this could have been an early monastery.

An artificial underground cave, the largest in Israel, has been exposed in the Jordan Valley in the course of a survey carried out by the University of Haifa's Department of Archaeology. Prof. Adam Zertal, who headed the excavating team, reckons that this cave was originally a large quarry during the Roman and Byzantine era and was one of its kind. Various engravings were uncovered in the cave, including cross markings, and it is assumed that this could have been an early monastery. "It is probably the site of "Galgala" from the historical Madaba Map," Prof. Zertal says.

The enormous and striking cave covers an area of approximately 1 acre: it is some 100 meters long and about 40 meters wide. The cave is located 4 km north of Jericho. The cave, which is the largest excavated by man to be discovered in Israel, was exposed in the course of an archaeological survey that the University of Haifa has been carrying out since 1978.

Serrat and Carreras top the bill at the Nerja Cave Festival

The event celebrates its 50th edition this year

The Nerja Caves festival, held between July 21 and 27, reaches its 50th edition this year, and brings top headline stars to the dramatic underground stage.

Catalan singer songwriter, Joan Manuel Serrat, heads the festival with his show ‘100 por 100 Serrat’ on July 21.

Josep Carreras will bring his ‘Mediterranean Passion’ to the cave on July 23, when Italian songs dominate, but there is also space for Spanish Zarzuelaas. Carerras will be joined on stage by the Soprano, Ofelia Sala, and the Italian pianist Lorenzo Bavaj.

Flamenco lovers will be thrilled to hear the voice of the moment in the genre, Miguel Poveda, on July 22, who promises a wide range of musical styles including local malagueñas.

Stars and soloists from the Paris Opera Ballet also perform in the festival this year on the 24th and 25th of the month, and the event is closed on the 26th by the flamenco dancer, Sara Baras, who will perform a work in honour of Juana la Loca.

Ticket prices range between 50 and 60 € and are available only through the Nerja Cave office.

Source: Typically Spanish

Abrupt Global Warming Could Shift Monsoon Patterns, Hurt Agriculture

At times in the distant past, an abrupt change in climate has been associated with a shift of seasonal monsoons to the south, a new study concludes, causing more rain to fall over the oceans than in the Earth's tropical regions, and leading to a dramatic drop in global vegetation growth.

If similar changes were to happen to the Earth's climate today as a result of global warming – as scientists believe is possible - this might lead to drier tropics, more wildfires and declines in agricultural production in some of the world's most heavily populated regions.

The findings were based on oxygen isotopes in air from ice cores, and supported by previously published data from ancient stalagmites found in caves. They will be published Friday in the journal Science by researchers from Oregon State University, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Desert Research Institute in Nevada. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation.

The data confirming these effects were unusually compelling, researchers said.

"Changes of this type have been theorized in climate models, but we've never before had detailed and precise data showing such a widespread impact of abrupt climate change," said Ed Brook, an OSU professor of geosciences. "We didn't really expect to find such large, fast environmental changes recorded by the whole atmosphere. The data are pretty hard to ignore."

The researchers used oxygen measurements, as recorded in air bubbles in ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland, to gauge the changes taking place in vegetation during the past 100,000 years. Increases or decreases in vegetation growth can be determined by measuring the ratio of two different oxygen isotopes in air.

They were also able to verify and confirm these measurements with data from studies of ancient stalagmites on the floors of caves in China, which can reveal rainfall levels over hundreds of thousands of years.

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Cantabrian Cornice in Spain Has Experienced Seven Cooling And Warming Phases Over Past 41,000 Years

The examination of the fossil remains of rodents
and insectivores from deposits in the cave of El Mirón,
Cantabria, has made it possible to determine
the climatic conditions of this region between the late
Pleistocene and the present day.
Credit: Gloria Cuenca-Bescós / SINC

The examination of the fossil remains of rodents and insectivores from deposits in the cave of El Mirón, Cantabria, has made it possible to determine the climatic conditions of this region between the late Pleistocene and the present day. In total, researchers have pinpointed seven periods of climatic change, with glacial cold dominating during some of them, and heat in others.

In 1996, an international team of scientists led by the University of Zaragoza (UNIZAR) started to carry out a paleontological survey in the cave of El Mirón. Since then they have focused on analysing the fossil remains of the bones and teeth of small vertebrates that lived in the Cantabrian region over the past 41,000 years, at the end of the Quaternary. The richness, great diversity and good conservation status of the fossils have enabled the researchers to carry out a paleoclimatic study, which has been published recently in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

"We carried out every kind of statistical analysis over a six-month period at the University of New Mexico, analysing around 100,000 remains, of which 4,000 were specifically identified, and catalogued according to species and the number of individuals in each stratum", Gloria Cuenca-Bescós, lead author of the study and a researcher in the Paleontology Department of the UNIZAR's Institute for Scientific Research (IUCA), tells SINC.

The resulting study involves climatic inferences being drawn on the basis of the fossil associations of small mammals whose remains have been deposited in El Mirón over the past 41,000 years. The fossil associations of these mammals reveal the composition of fauna living around the cave at the time, and have made it possible to develop a paleoclimatological and paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the environment.