Long before people were toting around Kindles as a portable reading device, early man had to resort to something a little more archaic, but no less effective: eggshells.

The eggshells were probably used as containers, and the markings may have indicated either the shells’ contents or their owner. Texier points out that until recently, bushmen in the region carved geometric motifs on ostrich eggshells as a mark of ownership.

If the symbols do signify ownership, it could have implications for the evolution of human cognition. Iain Davidson, an Australian rock art specialist at the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, has suggested that marking ownership must have come after humans became self-aware. The eggshells could help to illuminate when this happened in this part of the world, he says.

Written language may have evolved more than once in human history. “Judging from what we know about the evolution of art all over the world, there may have been many traditions that were born, lasted for some time and then vanished,” says Jean Clottes, former director of research at the Chauvet caves in southern France. “This may be one of them, most probably not the first and certainly not the last.”

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A glimpse into the ancient past has been revealed by the discovery of a 600,000 year-old leaf beetle. The remains of the beetle were well-preserved, thanks to a perfect mix of water and acidic levels. This allowed the true color of the leaf beetle to remain intact, just as it appear 600,000 years ago.

Parker told Discovery News that “these fossils are important because, rather than simply predicting that relatives of animals today were similarly colored, we can prove it.”

Parker, who authored the book “In the Blink of an Eye,” has extensively studied color and its connection to the emergence of vision in the animal kingdom.

“Since vision evolved, everything has been fully adapted to the presence of a retina, adapted in terms of their color, shape and behavior,” he said. “Prior to the first highly mobile predator with vision, the rules would have been much different, and indeed we know from fossils that animal forms and ecology were much different.”

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New research has revealed the ancient Mayans to be even more advanced than originally thought. Studies at Palenque in Chiapas, Mexico reveal this one-time city of 1,500 structures and 6,000 people not only had an intricate water management system but may have had toilets.

“This finding is yet another technological achievement made by the Maya independently of the Old World,” French said. “The Maya of Palenque had water pressure technology by 750 AD at the very latest and most likely much earlier.”

French noted it has been speculated for decades that the palace in Palenque had running water for toilets. “Getting running water to the palace was impossible without water pressure,” he said. Because of this new find, “the toilet theory isn’t so far-fetched.”

Running water would have been a luxury, not a necessity.

“I actually think that the creation of water pressure at Palenque was a sign of wealth,” French said. “It was definitely not necessary. They had water everywhere. The Maya of Palenque were never more than 150 meters (492 feet) from a source of water. Water pressure technology would have been useful through the display of power and knowledge, similar to how priests and shamans used astronomical events.”

There may be other examples of Precolumbian water pressure throughout the Americas that have been unseen or misidentified, French said. For instance, ceramic tubes have been found at several sites throughout central Mexico.

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It’s known as Palmer’s Oak for people who would rather not use its braniac name: Quercus Palmeri. The recently discovered Palmer’s Oak, found in suburban southern California, is estimated at 13,000 years old!

The team estimated that the newly discovered oak, which they named the Jurupa Oak after the mountains in which it grows, started from a central trunk and grew outward at a rate of one-twentieth of an inch each year, relying on fire to burn down stems and trigger the plant to send out new sprouts. The team’s findings are reported in the online journal PLoS One.

But any trace of ancient wood has been lost to termites, so they team is left with a guess. It could be anywhere from 5,000 to 30,000 years old, Ross-Ibarra said, dating to a time when the Jurupa Mountains were cooler and wetter, and Palmer’s oaks were prevalent.

“If they’re right about how the oak regenerates, then their age estimate seems valid and true,” Jennifer DeWoody of the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom said. “This could be a very old tree.”

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Archaeologist Abdul Qader Hussan of the Rihab Centre for Archaeological Studies believes he has located the first Christian church, which lies beneath Saint Georgeous Church in Rihab, Mafraq.

“We have evidence to believe this church sheltered the early Christians: the 70 disciples of Jesus Christ,” the scholar said.

The early Christians, described in the mosaic inscription on St. Georgeous floor as “the 70 beloved by God and Divine”, are said to have fled from Jerusalem during the persecution of Christians, to the northern part of Jordan, particularly to Rihab, he added.

Citing historical sources, the expert said the 70 lived and practised their rituals in secrecy in this underground church.

We believe that they did not leave the cave and lived until the Christian religion was embraced by Roman rulers.

“It was then when St. Georgeous was built,” said Hussan.

Saint Georgeous is believed to be the oldest “proper” church in the world, built in 230AD. This status is only challenged by a church unearthed in Aqaba in 1998, also dating back to 3rd century.

The findings in the graveyard near the cave offer valuable clues, according to Hussan.

“We found pottery items that date back from the 3rd to 7th century,” he added. The findings show that the first Christians and their offshoot continued living in the area till the late Roman rule.

Many stoppers have been found in the ancient city of Uruk, now in Iraq, where some 20,000 people lived 5000 years ago. The symbol impressions are the first images produced mechanically in human history, says Wengrow. The images have long been regarded as works of art, but he believes that what we now consider art may actually have been promotional branding.
“I think Wengrow is onto something,” says Mitchell Rothman, an anthropologist at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania, although he is not convinced that the ancients were using branding “in the commercial sense”.

LiveScience has posted their weekly article examining ancient discoveries that continue to influence modern life. This time around, Heather Whipps explores how Chinese alchemists were experimenting with elixirs in their quest for immortality and inadvertently stumbled upon the recipe for gunpowder. From life to death in one fell swoop.

Chinese scientists had been playing with saltpeter — a common name for the powerful oxidizing agent potassium nitrate — in medical compounds for centuries when one industrious individual thought to mix it with sulfur and charcoal.

The result was a mysterious powder from which, observers remarked in a text dated from the mid-9th century, “smoke and flames result, so that [the scientists'] hands and faces have been burnt, and even the whole house where they were working burned down.”

It never seems to fail: the majority of earth-changing discoveries are found by accident.

(Source: LiveScience)