Tag: ancient (page 3 of 17)

High School students spots relic of ancient sun with super wide orbit

May 3, 2015 / / 0 Comments



Pulsars are types of neutron stars; the dead relics of massive stars. What sets pulsars apart from regular neutron stars is that they’re highly magnetized, and rotating at enormous speeds.

Excerpt from uncovercalifornia.com

A Pulsar with the widest orbit around a neutron star has been discovered by a team of high school students and the discovery has been confirmed by astronomers. High School students from many states who participated in NSF-funded educational outreach program have found the pulsar after analyzing data from Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT).

In a research paper accepted by the Astrophysical Journal, lead author Joe Swiggum, a graduate student in physics and astronomy at West Virginia University in Morgantown, said, “Pulsars are some of the most extreme objects in the universe. The students' discovery shows one of these objects in a really unique set of circumstances.”

The object has been codenamed PSR J1930-1852 by astronomers. It was discovered in 2012 by Cecilia McGough from Strasburg High School in Virginia and De'Shang Ray from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Baltimore, Maryland.

The discovery of a pulsar with extra wide orbit could help in understanding the concepts behind binary neutron star systems. Nearly 10 percent of known pulsars are in binary systems with most of them orbiting white dwarf companion stars. The Pulsar has been found with the widest separation from the other star in the binary neutron system.

During Pulsar Search Collaboratory (PSC) workshop in summer, students who are interested in analyzing survey data collected by Green Bank Telescope (GBT), spend weeks in checking data plots and searching for unique signatures of pulsars.

The Pulsar Search Collaboratory is a joint venture between the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and West Virginia University which offers real research opportunity to students.

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Ancient Signs in the Sky: Did a Meteorite Change the Course of Christianity 2,000 Years Ago?

May 3, 2015 / / 0 Comments


Detail, The Conversion of St. Paul. Paul and companions are knocked to the ground during the profound event.

Excerpt from ancient-origins.net

Did an ancient meteor have such a life-changing impact on witnesses of the day that it shaped a religion and altered the course of history? Astronomers theorize that the dramatic flash and boom that converted Paul the Apostle may have been an exploding meteor.

In the Christian Bible, it is written that a man named Saul experienced an event so extreme that it changed his views in an instant, and he became one of the most influential evangelists in early Christianity.

Saul was said to have been a vehement persecutor of the followers of Jesus and was traveling in search of disciples of Jesus for punishment. It is written in the fifth book of the New Testament, Acts of the Apostles, that Saul was on the road to Damascus, Syria, when a bright light appeared in the sky. So intense was the light that he was blinded for three days. What he heard was described as a great thunderous sound, or a divine voice. He and his companions are said to have been knocked to the ground by the force of the event. The experience was so profound that Saul changed his name to Paul, took up missionary journeys across the Mediterranean, and became instrumental in spreading Christianity.

The Conversion of Saint Paul – Paul and his companions are knocked to the ground by a resounding boom and brilliant light. Did a meteor cause this ancient event?
The Conversion of Saint Paul – Paul and his companions are knocked to the ground by a resounding boom and brilliant light. Did a meteor cause this ancient event? 


William Hartmann, co-founder of the Planetary Science Institute in the U.S. has connected Paul’s experience with similar accounts of exploding meteors, such as the well-recorded Chelyabinsk meteor which broke up over Russia in 2013, injuring over 1,500 people. The eyewitness descriptions and physical reactions to meteors or fireballs in the sky seem to parallel what is recorded about Paul.

Meteor trail over Chelyabinsk, Russia.
Meteor trail over Chelyabinsk, Russia. Wikimedia Commons


If true, then it’s possible that an act of nature may have been contributory in the spread and evolution of Christianity in its early days, and therefore shaped the course of history.

In a study published in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science, Hartmann cites major events like the meteors or asteroids over Chelyabinsk, Russia and Tunguska, Siberia as offering “opportunities to compare reactions of modern eyewitnesses to eyewitness accounts of possible ancient fireball events.” There are consistencies among the many accounts suggesting the biblical descriptions of Paul’s experience closely match known modern events, reports NewScientist.

In the biblical accounts, Paul was blinded for three days due to the intense light from the sky; it was “brighter than the sun, shining round me,” according to the text. This matches the Chelyabinsk meteor, as it was calculated to be shining around three times as bright as the sun. The blazing fireball made shadows move around the ground as it travelled.

Paul and his companions were said to have been knocked to the earth, and this also corresponds to the shockwave generated by the powerful Chelyabinsk meteor as it blasted out windows, knocked people off their feet, shook cars and buildings, and collapsed roofs.
The divine voice is said to have either boomed like thunder, or questioned Paul’s behavior (the exact sound is debated). Meteors create great, explosive booms and roars which can be scary or painful even for those who know what they’re experiencing.

To the ancients the incredible and unfamiliar natural celestial events were interpreted through cultural understandings of the day – which is to say, they were considered divine or damning.

The Chelyabinsk meteor gave off small amounts of radiation, enough to cause sunburn and temporary blindness in witnesses. Harmann suggests that Paul could have suffered photokeratitis, a temporary blindness from intense ultraviolet radiation, and this explains the return of his sight after healing.

Paul having his sight restored after being blinded by a celestial light that might have been a meteor.
Paul having his sight restored after being blinded by a celestial light that might have been a meteor. 


Hartmann told NewScientist, “Everything they are describing in those three accounts in the book of Acts are exactly the sequence you see with a fireball.”

IBTimes writes that the Acts of Apostles text describes three events of bright lights “from heaven” which took place around Damascus during the 30s B.C. If meteorites can be found in Syria, and accurately dated to the relevant timeframes, it might give support to the published theories.

Hartmann’s research aim is not to discredit Christianity, but to demonstrate how the interpretation of ancient events may have shaped how we exist today, spiritually and culturally.

This wouldn’t be the first meteorite in history to have potentially inspired worship or acted as an agent of change. In antiquity meteorites were seen as messages from the gods, or profound omens, and many cultures saw fallen meteorites as religious icons to be worshiped or as objects of protection. Jewelry and art has also been created from the space rocks.

Each year devout Muslims make the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, circling the Kaaba, or black stone, and give a nod or a kiss to the meteorite that is said to rest inside the Grand Mosque. The worship of the Black Stone goes back to pre-Islamic shrines, when Semitic cultures used unusual stones to signify sites of reverence. According to Muslim belief, the stone originates from the time of Adam and the Islamic prophet Muhammad set the Black Stone in place after it fell from the skies.

A 1315 illustration inspired by the story of Muhammad and the Meccan clan elders lifting the Black Stone into place. Was the black stone a meteor from space?
A 1315 illustration inspired by the story of Muhammad and the Meccan clan elders lifting the Black Stone into place. Was the black stone a meteor from space?


In a more modern example, after the dramatic Chelyabinsk event over Russia in 2013, the ‘Church of the Meteorite’ was set up, and the followers hold rites on the shores of Lake Chebarkul where pieces of the space rock fell.

 Some scientists regard the Conversion of Paul theory as speculation, but seem to welcome further evidence.
Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office told NewScientist, “It’s well recorded that extraterrestrial impacts have helped to shape the evolution of life on this planet. If it was a Chelyabinsk fireball that was responsible for Paul’s conversion, then obviously that had a great impact on the growth of Christianity.”

Indeed, “Some scholars call Paul the second founder of Christianity” says Justin Meggitt, religious historian at the University of Cambridge. Without the fireball, and without Paul’s conversion, perhaps Christianity would be different than it is today.
“Christianity probably would be very different without him,” Meggitt concludes.

Illumination from 1450 depicting Paul's conversion – the bright light and sound come from the sky. The event was said to change Paul, and may have changed history.
Illumination from 1450 depicting Paul's conversion – the bright light and sound come from the sky. The event was said to change Paul, and may have changed history. Public Domain
Featured Image: Detail, The Conversion of St. Paul. Paul and companions are knocked to the ground during the profound event.

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Chicxulub Dinosaur-Killer Asteroid Impact To Be Probed For Answers To Extinction Mysteries

April 13, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Excerpt from techtimes.comScientists are seeking a core sample from the Chicxulub crater that marks the remains of an asteroid impact which ended the age of the dinosaurs nearly 66 million years ago.That geological feature will be probed by scientist...

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UV light reveals hidden colors in ancient shells

April 3, 2015 / / 0 Comments



UV light revealed the way ancient shells looked millions of years ago.


Excerpt from perfscience.com


Using ultra-violet (UV) light, scientists have revealed astonishing colors of about 30 ancient seashells. According to PLOS, the seashells, which are estimated to be between 6.6 and 4.8 million years old, were looking white in regular white light. The true colors of the shells appeared in UV light.




According to the researchers, “The biology of modern Conidae (cone snails)-which includes the hyperdiverse genus Conus-has been intensively studied, but the fossil record of the clade remains poorly understood, particularly within an evolutionary framework”.

In the presence of UV light, the organic matter remaining in the shells fluoresces. With this, the shells appeared similar to what they looked when living creatures used to live in them. It is yet unclear which particular compounds in the shells are releasing the light when exposed to UV rays. With the help of the technique, the researchers were able to document the coloration patterns of 28 different cone shell species found in the Dominican Republic. Out of these 28 shells, 13 were found to be the species, which were not known earlier. And this could help know about the relationship between modern species.

San Jose State University geologist Jonathan Hendricks exposed over 350 fossil specimens to ultraviolet light. 

The coloration patterns of the ancient species were compared with existing animals and doing this, researchers found many displayed similarities. According to this finding, some modern species emerge from lineages. These lineages began in the Caribbean millions of years ago.

The newly distinguished species, Conus carlottae, was also among the newly distinguished species and it has a polka-dotted shell, which is not found in modern cone snails today. Researchers are now using UV light to emit color from porcelain white seashell fossils.

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MRSA superbug killed by 1,100-year-old home remedy, researchers say

March 31, 2015 / / 0 Comments


MRSA attacks a human cell. The bacteria shown is the strain MRSA 252, a leading cause of hospital-associated infections. (Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIAID, NIH)


Excerpt from washingtonpost.com
By Justin Wm. Moyer 

Even in the age of AIDS, avian flu and Ebola, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, better known as MRSA, is terrifying.

The superbug, which is resistant to conventional antibiotics because of their overuse, shrugs at even the deadliest weapons modern medicine offers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated MRSA contributed to the deaths of more than 5,000 people in the United States in 2013. It even attacked the NFL, and some say it could eventually kill more people than cancer. And presidential commissions have advised that technological progress is the only way to fight MRSA.

 But researchers in the United Kingdom now report that the superbug proved vulnerable to an ancient remedy. The ingredients? Just a bit of garlic, some onion or leek, copper, wine and oxgall — a florid name for cow’s bile.

This medicine sounds yucky, but it’s definitely better than the bug it may be able to kill.

“We were absolutely blown away by just how effective the combination of ingredients was,” Freya Harrison of the University of Nottingham, who worked on the research, told the BBC.

The oxgall remedy, billed as an eye salve, was found in a manuscript written in Old English from the 10th century called “Bald’s Leechbook” — a sort of pre-Magna Carta physician’s desk reference. Garlic and copper are commonly thought to have antibiotic or antimicrobial properties, but seeing such ingredients in a home remedy at Whole Foods is a far cry from researchers killing a superbug with it.

 According to Christina Lee, an associate professor in Viking studies at Nottingham, the MRSA research was the product of conversations among academics of many stripes interested in infectious disease and how people fought it before antibiotics.

“We were talking about the specter of antibiotic resistance,” she told The Washington Post in a phone interview. The medical researchers involved in the discussions said to the medievalists: “In your period, you guys must have had something.”

Not every recipe in Bald’s Leechbook is a gem. Other advice, via a translation from the Eastern Algo-Saxonist: “Against a woman’s chatter; taste at night fasting a root of radish, that day the chatter cannot harm thee.” And: “In case a man be a lunatic; take skin of a mereswine or porpoise, work it into a whip, swinge the man therewith, soon he will be well. Amen.”

 Though the Leechbook may include misses, it may help doctors find a solution to a problem that only seems to be getting worse.

If the oxgall remedy proves effective against MRSA outside of the lab — which researchers caution it may not — it would be a godsend. Case studies of MRSA’s impact from the CDC’s charmingly named Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report seem medieval.

“In July 1997, a 7-year-old black girl from urban Minnesota was admitted to a tertiary-care hospital with a temperature of 103 F.” Result: Death from pulmonary hemorrhage after five weeks of hospitalization.

“In January 1998, a 16-month-old American Indian girl from rural North Dakota was taken to a local hospital in shock and with a temperature of 105.2 F.” Result: After respiratory failure and cardiac arrest, death within two hours of hospital admission.

“In January 1999, a 13-year-old white girl from rural Minnesota was brought to a local hospital with fever, hemoptysis” — that’s coughing up blood — “and respiratory distress.” The result: Death from multiple organ failure after seven days in the hospital.

“We believe modern research into disease can benefit from past responses and knowledge, which is largely contained in non-scientific writings,” Lee told the Telegraph. “But the potential of these texts to contribute to addressing the challenges cannot be understood without the combined expertise of both the arts and science.”

Lee stressed that it was the combination of ingredients that proved effective against MRSA — which shows that people living in medieval times were not as barbaric as popularly thought. Even 1,000 years ago, when people got sick, other people tried to figure out how to help.

“We associate ‘medieval’ with dark, barbaric,” Lee said. “… It’s not. I’ve always believed in the pragmatic medieval ages.”
The research will be presented at the Annual Conference of the Society for General Microbiology in Birmingham. In an abstract for the conference, the team cautioned oxgall was no cure-all.

 “Antibacterial activity of a substance in laboratory trials does not necessarily mean the historical remedy it was taken from actually worked in toto,” they wrote.

Lee said researchers hope to turn to other remedies in Bald’s Leechbook — including purported cures for headaches and ulcers — to see what other wisdom the ancients have to offer.

“At a time when you don’t have microscope, medicine would have included things we find rather odd,” she said. “In 200 years, people will judge us.”

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Discovered: A ‘Treasure Chest’ of Ancient Galaxies

March 31, 2015 / / 0 Comments


full sky planck
The full visible sky as seen by the Planck space observatory. The band running through the middle corresponds to dust in our Milky Way galaxy. The black dots indicate the location of the proto-cluster candidates identified by Planck and subsequently observed by the Herschel space telescope. (Photo : ESA and the Planck Collaboration)


Excerpt from natureworldnews.com

Treasure seekers have found the haul of a lifetime, but it wasn't in some ancient temple or mysterious island. Instead, it was in the sky. Researcher using two of the European Space Agency's (ESA) impressive space telescopes have successfully identified what they are calling a "treasure chest" of ancient galaxy clusters, which could help explain how the Universe came to be the way it is today.

That's at least according to a study recently published (PDF) in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, which details how cosmologists used the ESA's Planck space observatory to identify the distant precursor galaxy clusters, and then poured over data from the Herschel telescope for a closer look.

"Finding so many intensely star-forming, dust galaxies in such concentrated groups was a huge surprise," Hervé Dole, lead author of the report from the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale in France, said in a statement. "We think this is a missing piece of cosmological structure formation."

So what does he mean by that? Let's turn back to the treasure chest metaphor for this one.  While Planck was the space observatory to dig up the chest, it was the Herschel data that allowed experts to look closely at each and every gold coin (galaxy cluster) inside. Now they are able to learn more about each coin's make, mint, and ultimately, its origins.

And that's a big step in better understanding the early Universe. Expects believe that it took a great deal of time after star and galaxies first sprung to life for them to assemble into large clusters. 

A summary of the 14 billion years out Universe has been in existence, as seen by the Plank space telescop. Light coming from some of the oldest parts of the Universe are just reaching the observatory now, allowing for experts to see the incredible uniformity of the early structure, compared to the chaotic beautify of star, galaxy, and cluster formation that crowd space today.
(Photo : ESA – C. Carreau) A summary of the 14 billion years out Universe has been in existence, as seen by the Plank space telescope. Light coming from some of the oldest parts of the Universe are just reaching the observatory now, allowing for experts to see the incredible uniformity of the early matter, compared to the chaotic beautify of star, galaxy, and cluster formation that crowds space today.
Once the clusters formed, their gravitational influence triggered the creation of new stars and galaxies. Dark matter - which is theorized to account for a great deal of each cluster's mass and influence - helped usher along the process of creating stars. But how these large clusters were ultimately assembled and grew is still a mystery.
That's why looking at some of the oldest 'coins' ever made - estimated to date back to up-to 11 billion light-years ago - could be exceptionally helpful.

"We still have a lot to learn about this new population," Dole said in an ESA release. "Hints of these kinds of objects had been found earlier in data from Herschel and other telescopes, but the all-sky capability of Planck revealed many more candidates for us to study."

"Even when we combined the powerful capabilities of Planck and Herschel, we were only scratching the surface of the phenomena taking place at this critical era in the history of our universe, when stars, galaxies and clusters seem to be forming simultaneously," 
added George Helou, director of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "That's one of the reasons this finding is exciting. It shows us that there is so much more to be learned.

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Hypatia, Ancient Alexandria’s Great Female Scholar

March 30, 2015 / / 0 Comments

An avowed paganist in a time of religious strife, Hypatia was also one of the first women to study math, astronomy and philosophy On the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, a mob led by Peter the Lector brutally murdered Hypatia, one of the last great thinkers of ancient Alexandria. (Mary Evans Picture Library / Alamy) By Sarah Zielinskismithsonian.com One day on the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, in the year 415 or 416, a mob of Christian zealots led by Peter the Lector accosted a wom [...]

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ISIS helps Israel Conceal Historical Origin

March 29, 2015 / / 0 Comments

‘“The Zionist paradigm is founded on the distorted story of the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt and their persecution by the Assyrians and Captivity by Babylonians. But the truth is that the Israelites never set foot in Egypt or Palestine. Actually they never left Ancient Arabia and North Yemen, their origin land, before the Babylonian Captivity”’  Read Full Article Click Here [...]

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Circular thinking: Stonehenge’s origin is subject of new theory

March 24, 2015 / / 0 Comments




Excerpt from theguardian.com

Whether it was a Druid temple, an astronomical calendar or a centre for healing, the mystery of Stonehenge has long been a source of speculation and debate. Now a dramatic new theory suggests that the prehistoric monument was in fact “an ancient Mecca on stilts”.

The megaliths would not have been used for ceremonies at ground level, but would instead have supported a circular wooden platform on which ceremonies were performed to the rotating heavens, the theory suggests.

Julian Spalding, an art critic and former director of some of the UK’s leading museums, argues that the stones were foundations for a vast platform, long since lost – “a great altar” raised up high towards the heavens and able to support the weight of hundreds of worshippers.

“It’s a totally different theory which has never been put forward before,” Spalding told the Guardian. “All the interpretations to date could be mistaken. We’ve been looking at Stonehenge the wrong way: from the earth, which is very much a 20th-century viewpoint. We haven’t been thinking about what they were thinking about.”

Since Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote in the 12th century that Merlin had flown the stones from Ireland, theories on Stonehenge, from plausible to absurd, have abounded. In the last decade alone, the monument has been interpreted as “the prehistoric Lourdes” where people brought the sick to be healed by the power of the magic bluestones from Wales and as a haunted place of the dead contrasting with seasonal feasts for the living at nearby Durrington Walls. 

The site pored over by archaeologists for centuries still produces surprises, including the outline of stones now missing, which appeared in the parched ground in last summer’s drought and showed that the monument was not left unfinished as some had believed, but was once a perfect circle.

Spalding, who is not an archaeologist, believes that other Stonehenge theorists have fallen into error by looking down instead of up. His evidence, he believes, lies in ancient civilisations worldwide. As far afield as China, Peru and Turkey, such sacred monuments were built high up, whether on manmade or natural sites, and in circular patterns possibly linked to celestial movements.

He said: “In early times, no spiritual ceremonies would have been performed on the ground. The Pharaoh of Egypt and the Emperor of China were always carried – as the Pope used to be. The feet of holy people were not allowed to touch the ground. We’ve been looking at Stonehenge from a modern, earth-bound perspective.”
“All the great raised altars of the past suggest that the people who built Stonehenge would never have performed celestial ceremonies on the lowly earth,” he went on. “That would have been unimaginably insulting to the immortal beings, for it would have brought them down from heaven to bite the dust and tread in the dung.”

Spalding’s theory has not met with universal approval. Prof Vincent Gaffney, principal investigator on the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project at Bradford University, said he held “a fair degree of scepticism” and Sir Barry Cunliffe, a prehistorian and emeritus professor of European archaeology at Oxford University, said: “He could be right, but I know of no evidence to support it”.
The archaeologist Aubrey Burl, an authority on prehistoric stone circles, said: “There could be something in it. There is a possibility, of course. Anything new and worthwhile about Stonehenge is well worth looking into, but with care and consideration.”

On Monday Spalding publishes his theories in a new book, titled Realisation: From Seeing to Understanding – The Origins of Art. It explores our ancestors’ understanding of the world, offering new explanations of iconic works of art and monuments.

Stonehenge, built between 3000 and 2000BC, is England’s most famous prehistoric monument, a UNESCO World Heritage site on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire that draws more than 1 million annual visitors. It began as a timber circle, later made permanent with massive blocks of stone, many somehow dragged from dolerite rock in the Welsh mountains. Spalding believes that ancient worshippers would have reached the giant altar by climbing curved wooden ramps or staircases.

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Top Secret Government Programs That Your Not Supposed To Know About

March 23, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Originally Posted at in5d.com The following is the alleged result of the actions of one or more scientists creating a covert, unauthorized notebook documenting their involvement with an Above Top Secret government program. Government publications and information obtained by the use of public tax monies cannot be subject to copyright. This document is released into the public domain for all citizens of the United States of America. THE ‘MAJIC PROJECTS’ SIGMA is the project whic [...]

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Ancient supernova had enough dust to make 7,000 earths

March 22, 2015 / / 0 Comments


The Cassiopeia A nebula is the gaseous remnant of a supernova explosion whose light reached the Earth around the year 1680.


Excerpt from sciencerecorder.com


A recent discovery has revealed that a supernovae is capable enough producing such quantities of cosmic dust that it can yield thousands of Earths.

An international team of researchers analyzed data obtained by SOFIA – a NASA and German Aerospace Center’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy project – which took images of a cosmic dust cloud.

Supernova remant. Image Credit: NASA/CXO/Herschel/VLA/Lau et al

“This discovery is a special feather in the cap for SOFIA, demonstrating how observations made within our own Milky Way galaxy can bear directly on our understanding of the evolution of galaxies billions of light years away,” said Pamela Marcum, one of the researchers.
The team made measurements of long infrared wavelengths of the Supernova Remnant Sagittarius A East, gaining an estimate for the total mass of dust within the cloud based on what it released.
SOFIA, an enhanced Boeing 747 with high end telescope, flies in altitudes between 39,000 to 45,000 feet to capture its images.

Astronomers already knew that the shock waves of supernovas produce high concentrations of dust when they move outward.
The question was whether the cosmic particles could withstand the intense shock waves.

“The dust survived the later onslaught of shock waves from the supernova explosion, and is now flowing into the interstellar medium where it can become part of the ‘seed material’ for new stars and planets,” said Ryan Lau, of Cornell University, who led the research team.

This new discovery encouraged the idea that the vast quantities of dust seen in remote yet fairly young galaxies may have been produced by the explosions of large stars that were actually much older.

The research was published in Science magazine on Thursday.

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How Quantum Physics will change your life and amaze the world!

March 20, 2015 / / 0 Comments

 Excerpt from educatinghumanity.com "Anyone not shocked by quantum mechanics has not yet understood it."Niels Bohr10 Ways Quantum Physics Will Change the WorldEver want to have a "life do over", teleport, time travel, have your computer wor...

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What our ancient ancestors found beautiful 50,000 years ago

March 15, 2015 / / 0 Comments






Excerpt from news.discovery.com

The geode (above), described in the latest issue of Comptes Rendus Palevol, was found in the Cioarei-Boroşteni Cave, Romania. A Neanderthal had painted it with ochre.

"The Neanderthal man must have certainly attached an aesthetic importance to it, while its having been painted with ochre was an addition meant to confer symbolic value," said Marin Cârciumaru of Valahia University and colleagues.

The researchers also noted that "the geode was undoubtedly introduced into the cave by the Neanderthal," since they ruled out that it could have originated in the cave itself.

Was the geode used in rituals, or was it just a treasured object of beauty? Its precise meaning to the Neanderthal remains a mystery for now.




Based on archaeological finds, necklaces made out of Spondylus (a spiky, colorful mollusk) were all the rage. (Above)

This specimen has more of a reddish hue, but Michel Louis Séfériadès of CNRS notes that most are "a highly colored, very attractive purplish crimson." Séfériadès added that the shells were valued, early trade items and that they are now "found in the archaeological remains of settlements and cemeteries, in graves, and as isolated finds."

Some of the shells were made into jewelry, including necklaces and bracelets.

 

We sing about "five gold rings," but the rings would more likely have been ivory back in the day -- as in around 50,000 years ago, before ivory-producing animals were mostly hunted to extinction.
Early humans in northern regions, for example, made rings out of mammoth ivory. A Neanderthal site at Grotte du Renne, France yielded a carefully crafted ivory ring (above), as well as grooved and perforated "personal ornaments," according to archaeologist Paul Mellars of Cambridge University.



Charcoal (shown avove), ochre and other materials were applied to the face by early Homo sapiens as well as by other human subspecies. 

The ochre, used to paint the geode, mentioned earlier, was also used as makeup, hair dye, paint (to create rock and cave art), as well as to color garments.


Early humans used combs made out of shells and fish bones to both comb their hair and as personal decoration. (Above)

The shell from the Venus comb murex, a large predatory sea snail, is just one species that seems perfect for this purpose. Gibraltar Museum researchers Clive Finlayson and Kimberley Brown also found evidence that Neanderthals valued large, elaborate feathers, which the scientists suspect were worn by the individuals. 

Nearly all early cultures had coveted figurines holding probable symbolic value. Some of the earliest carved objects are known as "Venus" figurines. They present women with exaggerated sexual features. Their exact meaning remains unclear. (Above)

Pendants made of animal teeth were common and probably served many different functions, such as showing the hunter's success, offering symbolic protection, and just as fashion. 

Some of the funkiest-looking teeth were made into worn objects.
Animal teeth could be on a gift list dated to 540,000 years ago, and possibly earlier, as a recent study in the journal Nature found that a population of Homo erectus at Java, Indonesia, was collecting shark teeth and using them as tools and possibly as ornamentation.

 

The world's oldest known musical instrument is a bone flute (Above). While the earliest excavated flute dates to about 42,000 years ago, comparable flutes were probably made much earlier.

Flutes, like most of the items on this list, were not essential to survival, but yet they somehow contributed to the prehistoric peoples' quality of life.

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