"French, Canadians to explore Mazandaran caves"

LONDON, November 20 (IranMania) - Scholars from Lyon and Toronto Universities have asked to carry out excavations in the ancient caves of Mazandaran province in Iran, CHN reported.

Previous studies and excavations in the caves indicate that human settlement in Mazandaran province dates back to 40,000 years ago.

Mazandaran province, in the southern coastal line of the Caspian Sea, enjoys several unique caves such as Kushiman. Mazandaran is one of the most historical provinces of Iran, the inhabitants of which have lived in urbanized societies from the 5th millennium BC. Until now a lot of mysteries of the 5,000-year-old life of the people of the region have been revealed.


Iran News - French, Canadians to explore Mazandaran caves:

Digging into the past

Once a monastery, later Army barracks, and today the site of a future shopping mall, the northeast quadrant of what is now námestí Republiky has always reflected the changing face of Prague. During the initial stages of the ongoing construction of the 7.5 billion Kc ($303 million) Palladium shopping center project, archeologists have discovered the remnants of yet another era: the foundations of a 12th-century Romanesque palace.

The European Property Fund (EPF), the project's investor, has spent 100 million Kc on the archeological excavation. This is a requirement stipulated by law: Any investor planning construction in a historical area must first do an archeological survey of the site, and if archeological artifacts are found, he must finance further fieldwork.

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The Palladium site yields an unexpected bounty of archaeological treasure

Course Catalog
Out of the Cave: Prehistory in Fact and Fiction

Short story:
Out of the Cave: Prehistory in Fact and Fiction"

Nunavik?s first provincial park to open next year

KUUJJUAQ By this time next year, the first official visitors to Nunaviks first provincial park, Pingualuit, should be flying into a small airstrip near the unique Pingualuit crater ? the reason behind the park?s existence.


The crater, located 88 kilometres southwest of Kangiqsujuaq ? and not far from the Raglan nickel mine ? is the result of a meteorite that crashed there 1.4 million years ago. Inside the surrounding parks borders also lie the Puvirnituq River Canyon, home to gyrfalcons, peregrine falcons and rough-legged hawks, the ?Great Lakes Necklace? of lakes joined to each other by waterways and water falls, and a series of rolling hills.

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Nunavik first provincial park to open next year

"Roanoke buffs start new quest
Underwater, archaeologists dive for clues to Lost Colony"

ROANOKE ISLAND -- Sitting on the bow of his boat last week, underwater archaeologist Gordon Watts thought about what might be buried in the waters of Roanoke Sound.

Iron guns, perhaps, or bricks or ceramics, all more than 400 years old and abandoned by colonists who came from England, built a life and then disappeared ... to where?

The group of 116 colonists sailed from England and landed on Roanoke Island in 1587, only to vanish three years later.

Watts was looking for evidence of their lives. He and a three-man crew were working about 600 feet from shore on the northeast side of Roanoke Island in water less than 5 feet deep.

The original site could now be underwater, he said, because of erosion and rising sea levels.


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Roanoke buffs start new quest Underwater

Beaver tales

The Beaver may be getting long in the tooth, but it's hardly showing its age. In fact, thanks to a new look, a new editor and a resurgence of interest in our nation's past, Canada's history magazine feels younger than ever at 85.

"In the last 15 years, there's never been as much attention paid to Canadian history across the country in government, departments of education and the private sector," says Deborah Morrison, president of Canada's National History Society, which has published The Beaver for the last decade.

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The Beaver began...:

Board of Trustees for Canadian Museum of Nature to Meet in Thunder Bay

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(CCNMatthews - Oct. 3, 2005) - From October 4 to 6, the Board of Trustees of the Canadian Museum of Nature (CMN), Canada's national natural history and natural science museum, will meet in Thunder Bay. The trustees, who come from across Canada and meet quarterly, convene once a year in the home community of one of their members.

"I am pleased to showcase our region to my colleagues on the Board," says trustee Roy Piovesana, a Thunder Bay resident and archivist/historian with the city's Roman Catholic Diocese. "Each of us is tremendously proud of our communities and the opportunity to guide the Museum and its national projects." Mr. Piovesana has published widely on the history of Thunder Bay and northwestern Ontario and is a former head of history at Hammarskjold High School.

A Crown corporation, the CMN's roots date back over 150 years to the early years of the Geological Survey of Canada. Originally the National Museum of Canada and later the National Museum of Natural Sciences, it was created in the late 1800s to safeguard the GSC's collections. A public exhibition facility was built in the early 1900s and the stately Victoria Memorial Museum Building in downtown Ottawa continues to display Canada's natural treasures. The majority of the CMN's collections are preserved in the Museum's Natural Heritage Building in Quebec.

"The Canadian Museum of Nature's President and CEO, Joanne DiCosimo, and I are very pleased to be holding our quarterly board meeting in Thunder Bay. With board members from across the country, this meeting provides a wonderful opportunity for our trustees to explore this beautiful part of Canada," states Ken Armstrong, Chair of the CMN's Board of Trustees.

The CMN houses a collection of more than 10 million earth and life-science specimens, which includes approximately 60 beautiful pieces of Ontario's official gemstone - amethyst - from the Thunder Bay region, renowned for its bountiful deposits of this popular variety of quartz. Ranging in size, the largest specimen is about 50 cm wide - a dark purple mass of crystals - which originated from the Thunder Bay Amethyst mine east of Elbow Lake (now Amethyst Mine Panorama). Some of the CMN's amethysts also came from the Noyes Diamond Willow mine on the north side of Big Pearl Lake.

The flora and fauna of Northwestern Ontario are also significantly represented in the Museum's collections, with almost 12,000 catalogued specimens. These range from 1,400 lichens to more than 800 fish and 870 molluscs from remote lakes and streams, to 4,500 plant specimens carefully preserved in the National Herbarium. Each specimen helps to understand the ecosystems surrounding Thunder Bay, and some show scientists how plants and animals adapt to the conditions of living in urban areas. The collection even includes slide-mounted samples of pollen, which can be used to compare modern plants to ancient fossilized specimens of the same plant Chimaphila umbellata: (Prince's-pine or Pipsissewa; a form of the dwarf shrub Wintergreen).

In addition to attending regular committee and board meetings, the trustees will tour Fort William Historical Park, The Thunder Bay Art Gallery, The Thunder Bay Museum, and the Amethyst Gift Centre. After each event, they expect to meet with guests from a variety of educational, business, and cultural organizations in the region.

Link is there:
Board of Trustees for Canadian Museum of Nature to Meet in Thunder Bay

Archaeologist wants site protected from water plan

Evidence of prehistoric campgrounds ? one more than 1,300 years old ? may be in the path of a proposed east-side reservoir that?s considered a key to providing future drinking water to Colorado Springs.

A University of Colorado at Colorado Springs archaeologist says he has uncovered artifacts suggesting three prehistoric ?occupations? by ancient nomads at the Jimmy Camp Creek area as early as 665 A.D.

To protect the site, Bill Arbogast, the archaeologist who is a research instructor in the UCCS anthropology department, said he will nominate it for listing on the Colorado Register of Historic Places. He?ll submit the paperwork as soon as the city signs off ? required because the city owns the land.

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Jimmy Camp Creek:

'He changed the lives of so many'

"FARMINGTON -- A glimpse into the life of a dynamic teacher, mentor and archaeologist during a memorial service for him Monday drew a picture of an inspiring scientist on a dogged quest to learn how and where some of the earliest people lived and thrived. James B. Petersen's legacy will be his work uncovering ancient civilizations inhabited 8,000 years ago in the Amazon rain forest. He also broke ground by uncovering the existence of native cultures that lived in the Northeast 10,000 years ago. Petersen, 51, was shot to death Aug. 13 during a robbery at a small restaurant in the town of Iranduba, Brazil, about 1,800 miles northwest of Rio de Janiero. He and a group of colleagues were dining together after a day of field work on their Central Amazon Project when the attack occurred. Petersen was a professor at the University of Maine at Farmington from 1983 to 1997 and founded the Archaeology Research Center, which has developed into a major archaeology consulting organization in the Northeast. At the time of his death, he was chairman of the University of Vermont's anthropology department."

Farewell to M. Petersen:
'He changed the lives of so many' :

'Empires at War: The French and Indian War and the Struggle for North America

"'Empires at War: The French and Indian War and the Struggle for North America, 1754-1763,' by William M. Fowler Jr.: Walker, 332 pages, $27.

To the extent that Americans know much at all about the French and Indian War, they probably do not consider it one of the first world wars or realize its importance in setting the context for the American Revolution.
In his finely written narrative, 'Empires at War,' William M. Fowler Jr. attempts to rectify these deficiencies and bring that conflict to center stage. He wants readers to understand that it was something more than the setting for several novels of dubious merit written by James Fenimore Cooper."

In the spring of 1754, a Virginia militia company led by a young major general, George Washington, attacked a small group of French soldiers at Jumonville Glen near present-day Pittsburgh. The battle lasted no more than 15 minutes, but the war it ignited would shape the course of world history.

The American portion of the conflict, known as the French and Indian War, actually comprised but part of a broader conflict known as the Seven Years War, with fronts in Europe, North America, Africa and India.

From Pondicherry to Quebec and around the globe, British forces won victories that shifted the balance of power from France toward Great Britain.

In North America, a continent long contested by these two European rivals, Great Britain took Canada from the French, setting the stage for French support of the United States during the Revolutionary War.

Fowler's narrative effectively conveys the view from William Pitt's London as well as that of military commanders in the field. The Battle of Quebec takes a significant place in this finely written history of the war.

Brief biographical sketches of both major and minor civilian and military officials help readers keep the "cast of characters" straight.

"Empires at War" is primarily a military history of the French and Indian War. Chapters devoted to "Lining Up Allies," "French Victory, English Defeat," and "The Fall of Quebec" reveal this focus.

That focus is both a strength and a weakness. Readers interested in military history will no doubt find the accounts riveting reading, while people interested in the social outcomes of the war or the perspective of Native American combatants may be disappointed.

Nonetheless, "Empires at War" offers an excellent introduction to a war that with some reason might be included among the "turning point[s] of modern history."

Edward L. Bond teaches History at Alabama A&M University.

From the news site:
French war shifted balanceto Britain:

Local group wages David-and-Goliath battle to build historic fort replica

In 1749, though, the French controlled Canada and the entire Mississippi Valley to New Orleans, pinning in the rapidly growing 13 British colonies. But New France had only about 80,000 people settled in its sprawling colony while the British colonies' population was over a million.

Picquet's purpose was to convert the natives to Christianity, and to support the French.

The pallisaded fort was built at the confluence of the Oswegatchie and St. Lawrence rivers where it held a strategic importance as a barrier to preventing English access to the St. Lawrence and as a link in the French supply route from Quebec to the forts and settlements in the Great Lakes basin.

The fort served as a base for raids on English settlements in New York and Pennsylvania. During the 1750s, Picquet attracted more than 3,000 Indians from different tribes to live there.

In 1760, the French abandoned the fort as a force of 12,000 British soldiers approached. The British renamed it Fort Oswegatchie.

During the Revolutionary War, the British used the fort as part of their supply route and to spring attacks on American patriots in New York's Mohawk Valley.

In 1796, the United States claimed the fort as part of the Jay Treaty. A rifle regiment occupied the fort at the outbreak of the War of 1812, conducting raids on the British bases along the Canadian side of the St. Lawrence River.

Over the years, the old French fort was abandoned and fell into ruin, then oblivion. In the 1830's, the site became a shipyard, and in the 1860's, a railroad yard and station, its designation into the 20th century.

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Local group wages David-and-Goliath battle to build historic fort replica

The Government of Canada Commemorates the National Historic Significance of the Hopital-General de Quebec Cemetery

QUEBEC CITY, QUEBEC--( Sept. 16, 2005) - The Honourable Stephane Dion, Minister of the Environment and Minister responsible for Parks Canada, today unveiled a Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada plaque commemorating the national historic significance of the Hopital-General de Quebec Cemetery.

"This cemetery, which has existed for nearly 300 years, is steeped in the history of Quebec and Canada," said Minister Dion. "Today, through the records kept by the Augustines, it continues to enhance our knowledge of the Seven Years War and other significant events that have shaped our nation. On behalf of the Government of Canada, I wish to thank the congregation for its precious contribution to preserve our collective heritage."

The Hopital-General de Quebec Cemetery, one of the oldest still remaining in Quebec City, holds more than 1,000 graves of Canadian, French, British and Amerindian officers and soldiers who died during the Seven Years War (1755-1763), of which 277 died during the battles of the Plains of Abraham (1759) and of Sainte-Foy (1760). Their names, places of birth and even sometimes their ages have been recorded in the parish register by the Augustines, creating an invaluable document for future generations.

Recognizing the historic importance of this exceptional site, which was identified as a cultural icon by Quebec in 1977, the Quebec Ministere de la Culture et des Communications has provided the Augustines with the necessary financial resources to conserve and present the cemetery. It was designated as a national historic site of Canada in 1998. In 2001, the Augustines mandated the Commission de la capitale nationale du Quebec to lay out, maintain and preserve the cemetery for future generations. Improvement work on the cemetery, the construction of a mausoleum to Montcalm, the creation of a memorial to the victims of the Seven Years War and the installation of interpretative panels, have created a large and impressive commemorative area for the public.

Created in 1919, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada advises the Minister of the Environment regarding the national historic significance of places, people, and events that have marked Canada's history. It is one means of informing the public about the richness of our cultural heritage, which must be preserved for present and future generations.

(Also available on the Internet at www.pc.gc.ca under What's new.) 

"Russian scientists find new rock drawings beyond polar circ"

Russian scientists have found new rock drawings on the only historical monument of ancient culture in Chukotka, the Russian Far East, an expedition member said Friday.

Mikhal Slobodzyan said the expedition, organized by the Archaeology Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, explored the monument 40 years after Russian geologist Nikolai Samorukov had found the first 103 paintings, or petroglyphs, on the Kaikuulsky steep of the Pegtymel river.

News from Russia

New rock drawings beyond polar circle

"Planning begins for Champlain's 400th anniversary"

Every 50 years, Samuel de Champlain becomes big business in Vermont.

President William Howard Taft joined a crowd of thousands in Burlington in 1909 to watch a floating re-enactment of Champlain's 1609 "discovery" of the lake that bears his name.

In 1959, on the 350th anniversary of the first visit by a European to the region, a parade of canoes carrying 70 war-painted teenagers traveled the lake in birchbark canoes, wowing crowds at every stop. New York and Vermont promoted the event to draw visitors from across the country.

Now Vermont has begun to plan for Champlain's 400th anniversary in 2009, hoping to draw the world's attention -- and tourist dollars -- to the region.


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Champlain 400th Anniversary in Vermont:

Heating System Confirms Ancient Kingdom Was ???

"The largest 'ondol' heating system dating from the Barhae kingdom has been unearthed in a nearly intact state in Russia's Maritime Province, confirming the kingdom to have been a Korean settlement.

Ondol, literally 'warm stone', is an under-floor heating system where flues carry hot gases below the living space. They were a distinct feature of Korean dwellings and are not found in the remains of Chinese, Khitan or Jurchen homes.

Answer to continue here:
Heating System Was Korean
"

Stone axes highlight 10,000 years of commuting in stockbroker belt

"ARCHAEOLOGISTS have uncovered an important Stone Age site in the heart of Surrey".

An excavation has turned up flint tools and cooking pots from about 10,000 years ago at the site on the North Downs. The area, which bears the remains of cooked meals, campfires and flints shaped into tools by people who visited the North Downs around 8,000BC, is believed to contain one of the most important Mesolithic excavations in Britain."

Britain, :

Bones reveal first shoe-wearers

"Sturdy shoes first came into widespread use between 40,000 and 26,000 years ago, according to a US scientist".

Humans' small toes became weaker during this time, says physical anthropologist Erik Trinkaus, who has studied scores of early human foot bones.
He attributes this anatomical change to the invention of rugged shoes, that reduced our need for strong, flexible toes to grip and balance.
The research is presented in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

The development of footwear appears to have affected the four so-called 'lesser' toes - excepting the big toe."

Bones reveal first shoe-wearers

India and Canada Governor

"Like the Indian President, the Canadian Governor General gives assent to bills okayed by the two houses of Parliament, appoints the Prime Minister and his team and judges, serves as the Commander-in-Chief of the nation's armed forces (of just above 60,000 personnel compared to Indian Army of 1.1 million alone) and receives foreign dignitaries and envoys.But there is one big difference. India is a republic where the President is elected -- indirectly -- by its lawmakers at the state and federal levels. On the other hand, Canada is a constitutional monarchy. The Canadian Governor General is appointed by the British Queen at the recommendation of the Canadian Prime Minister. Thus the Governor General serves as the representative of Queen Elizabeth who is also the Canadian monarch (During her visits to Canada, the Queen takes over the role of the Governor General. Queen Elizabeth has been to Canada for about two dozen times since taking over five decades ago). Curiously, Canada shares its monarch (the Queen) with more than a dozen Commonwealth states."


Another woman occupies top post : HindustanTimes.com:

"Peru's ancient bureaucrats used knotted-string devices as ledgers

Harvard anthropologists find evidence that 'khipu' were used to track accounting data

CAMBRIDGE, Mass - Anthropologists at Harvard University have found evidence that ancient Inka accountants shared numbers across their sprawling bureaucratic hierarchy using khipu, aggregations of knotted strings that served to record information in the Andean empire. The finding sheds new light on the uses of khipu, used by Inkans in lieu of the two-dimensional writing favored by other ancient civilizations."


Peru's ancient bureaucrats used knotted-string devices as ledgers:

Nunavut Web Site News

" A plan to open a Danish consulate in Iqaluit shows Denmark and Canada are more neighbours than enemies, despite their dispute over who owns Hans Island, the tiny rock located between Ellesmere Island and Greenland."


Link others news: Nunatsiaq News