Archaeology Tidbits

Whenever I read Archaeology magazine, I always find myself exclaiming to Michael (or no one in particular) about all of the cool stuff in it.

Curiomanic Tidbit #1
Geology marches on. At Mesa Verde National Park, a slab of rock the size of a small car fell off the cliff over the Ancestral Puebloan ruins (don't call them Anasazi ...), crushing a building and a ceremonial chamber. This is a bummer, but it's also just nature doing her thing.

Curiomanic Tidbit #2
Chimpanzees in Senegal have been witnessed making wooden spears to hunt smaller primates. Although usually the males hunt, the females are the ones who made the spears. My personal guess is that they did this since they are not as strong as the males. I love this quote from a BBC story:
"The authors conclude that their findings support a theory that females may have played a similarly important role in the evolution of tool technology among early humans. "

Curiomanic Tidbit #3
"Mystical pothead neurosurgeons." 3,000 year old graves in the province of Xinjiang, China show evidence of trepanning. The shamans buried in the cemetary, who were presumably the healers, were buried with well preserved stashes of marijuana. Even though they were possibly high while performing brain surgery, they were successful because the skulls showed evidence of healing (which patients have to live to do), and one skull has seven holes which were not done all at once! This guy came back for more.