Nobody’s land? The oldest evidence of early Upper Paleolithic settlements in inland Iberia
“The directly dated cut-marked bones of ungulates indicate the presence of AMHs in inland Iberia during the early and mid-Upper Paleolithic. The paleoecological inferences suggest that human populations occupied Malia when climatic and ecological conditions were not particularly severe in terms of aridity and temperature.”
Nohemi Sala et al., Nobody’s land? The oldest evidence of early Upper Paleolithic settlements in inland Iberia. Sci. Adv.10, eado3807 (2024). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ado3807
Royal Society exhibition revives 18th-century debate about shape of the Earth
“Some members of the French Academy of Sciences interpreted measurements taken in Paris by scientists including Jacques Cassini as supporting the idea that the Earth was elongated at the poles, resembling a lemon or a melon.
By contrast, Isaac Newton had proposed that the centrifugal force caused by the Earth’s rotation would result in the planet being flattened at its poles, thus having a similar shape to an orange.”
Royal Society exhibition revives 18th-century debate about shape of the Earth
“_Some members of the French Academy of Sciences interpreted measurements taken in Paris by scientists including Jacques Cassini as supporting the idea that the Earth was elongated at the poles, resembling a lemon or a melon.
By contrast, Isaac Newton had proposed that the centrifugal force caused by the Earth’s rotation would result in the planet being flattened at its poles, thus having a similar shape to an orange._”
More than 400 formal balls are held in Vienna each winter carnival season in a tradition that dates back to 1814, with breaks only for the two world wars and the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly every profession holds its own dance — some, such as the Hunters' Ball, have outlived the imperial-era jobs they were created to celebrate. For the Dial, writer Jessi Jezewska Stevens attended three balls to try and determine: "On a continent that relishes golden-era traditions yet finds itself slipping in the geopolitical world order, how do you face the future without romanticizing the past?"
The Ghosts of Max Weber in the Economic History of Preindustrial Europe
“References to Weber in the literature on preindustrial Europe published by economists during the last fifty years show that the more economists have rehabilitated culture as an autonomous force of economic change, the more they have heralded Weber as a precursor of their endeavors. The casting of Weber in such terms, moreover, has gone hand in hand with a decline, rather than an increase, in conversations between economists, sociologists, historians, and other humanists and social scientists interested in the role of culture in the formation of modern economic life.”
Trivellato, Francesca. “The Ghosts of Max Weber in the Economic History of Preindustrial Europe.” Capitalism: A Journal of History and Economics 4, no. 2 (2023): 332-376. https://doi.org/10.1353/cap.2023.a917621.
Does a cave beneath Pembroke Castle hold key to fate of early Britons?
“One of the issues that scientists are seeking to resolve is the question of whether or not Neanderthals interbred with Homo sapiens in Britain, as they did in other parts of the world. For good measure, they also want to know if the two species lived alongside each other or whether they replaced each other in successive waves.”
Late Neolithic collective burial reveals admixture dynamics during the third millennium BCE and the shaping of the European genome
“To conclude, our study of a Late Neolithic burial enables direct, quasi–real-time observation of the trimodal admixture processes in Europe between 3300 and 2600 cal BCE as steppe ancestry people dispersed and mixed with local Neo-ancestry groups or individuals. The generalization of the results obtained from our data suggests that this genomic transformation took place during a period of profound cultural change.”
Oğuzhan Parasayan et al., Late Neolithic collective burial reveals admixture dynamics during the third millennium BCE and the shaping of the European genome. Sci. Adv.10, eadl2468(2024). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adl2468
🇸🇪 Episode 312: Christina of Sweden, Minerva of the North
“In this week’s episode, get to know Christina of Sweden, the keenly intelligent and fiercely independent queen of Sweden, who is remembered today for her passion of learning and knowledge.”
🇸🇪 Episode 312: Christina of Sweden, Minerva of the North
“In this week’s episode, get to know Christina of Sweden, the keenly intelligent and fiercely independent queen of Sweden, who is remembered today for her passion of learning and knowledge.”
🇸🇪 Episode 312: Christina of Sweden, Minerva of the North
“In this week’s episode, get to know Christina of Sweden, the keenly intelligent and fiercely independent queen of Sweden, who is remembered today for her passion of learning and knowledge.”
The potential of lacustrine sedimentary ancient DNA for revealing human postglacial recolonization patterns in northern Sweden – a review
“The questions of who the first postglacial peoples, or pioneers, were and where they came from therefore remain unanswered. Previous palaeogenomic analyses from remains from adjacent regions have suggested that two main routes into Sweden could have been taken by the pioneers, one from the SW through modern-day Denmark and Norway, and one from the east via Finland. However, no direct genetic evidence from the pioneers of northern Sweden exists.”
Johnson, E., Regnéll, C., Heintzman, P.D. and Linderholm, A. (2024), The potential of lacustrine sedimentary ancient DNA for revealing human postglacial recolonization patterns in northern Sweden – a review. Boreas. https://doi.org/10.1111/bor.12660
How Queen Victoria’s Disabled Grandson Led Europe Into WW1 | The Crippled Kaiser
“At the end of the 19th century, much of Europe’s royalty was one big dysfunctional family. Discover how this slowly dissolving family partially led to the conflict that would consume and reshape Europe.”
#Video length: forty six minutes and fifty three seconds.
🚨 New Insight: State-Sponsored Terrorism in Europe 🚨
Israel's Mossad 🇮🇱 has linked organized crime with state-sponsored terrorism in Europe. 🇪🇺 🔥 🇸🇪 Explore the connections involving Sweden's largest organized crime group.
Evidence for dynastic succession among early Celtic elites in Central Europe
“The historical and archaeological record leave no doubt that the development of culture and population in southwestern Germany was temporarily characterized by profound discontinuities, particularly during the third to first century BCE. The definitive end of the 2,000 years of relative genetic continuity from the Bronze throughout the Iron Age in southern Germany is marked by a sudden, sharp increase of Steppe-related ancestry during the Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages.”
Gretzinger, J., Schmitt, F., Mötsch, A. et al. Evidence for dynastic succession among early Celtic elites in Central Europe. Nat Hum Behav (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01888-7
The Making and Unmaking of a Presidency: Envisioning Empire in British Bencoolen, 1685–1825
“The effort to transform Sumatra into a productive constituent of a larger imperial nexus depended on many of the same processes that were to shape modern capitalism. Not only did British officials in Bencoolen deploy coerced and enslaved labor, they did so with the intent of wresting control of the production, consumption, and circulation of valuable commodities such as pepper and sugar. Practices of slavery, transplantation, and agrarian change typically associated with British colonies in the Atlantic world fundamentally shaped Bencoolen.”
Bains, T. (2024) ‘The Making and Unmaking of a Presidency: Envisioning Empire in British Bencoolen, 1685–1825’, Journal of British Studies, pp. 1–21. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/jbr.2023.142.
#Slovenia raises the Palestinian flag today alongside its own flag and the flag of the European Union on the government building in the capital, Ljubljana, following its official recognition of the State of Palestine as an independent state.
“Britain in Palestine 1917-1948 investigates the contradictory promises and actions which defined British Mandatory rule in Palestine and laid the groundwork for the Nakba (the catastrophe) and the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. The roots of the contemporary social, political, economic, and environmental landscape of Palestine and Israel can be traced back to this period, making it essential viewing for understanding Britain’s legacy in the region and the situation on the ground today.”
#Video length: eighteen minutes and thrity seconds.
“One dark and snowy night in December 1940 in German-occupied Paris, a strange funeral took place when German soldiers carried the coffin of Emperor Napoleon II into Les Invalides. Why was a Napoleon receiving a Nazi funeral?”
from #TheGuardian
‘Israelis, go back to Europe’? Some on the left need to rethink their slogans
by #Jo-AnnMort
"A majority of Israel’s #Jews today are not descended from #Europe, but rather from #Arab nations. To expect them to leave #Israel is unprecedented, unrealistic and wrong."
[I don't agree with her opinion on "river to the sea", but I do agree on "go back to Europe".]
Mystery as 1,600-year-old ancient Irish stone unearthed in English garden
“The 1,600-year-old stone, which is inscribed with an Irish language from the 4th century AD, was unearthed by a geography teacher in Coventry, West Midlands, in 2020.”