The Great London [Search results for India] 

A long-running smuggling scandal involving temple looters in India and a high-profile New York art dealer has widened after an independent review found that the National Gallery of Australia may have been among the prestigious art galleries duped by false documentation.

The Canberra-based gallery, which is Australia's leading cultural institution, said in mid-February that it had identified 22 objects with suspect origins in its Asian art collection, including 14 works bought from former New York-based dealer Subhash Kapoor for $11 million.

Kapoor is in custody in Chennai, India, awaiting trial on art theft charges following his arrest in Germany in October 2011 and extradition to India in mid-2012.

The Canberra gallery said an independent review of its Asian art provenance project by a former High Court judge, Susan Crennan, found the 22 objects had "insufficient or questionable" documentation of their provenance.

One of the objects, a 900-year-old Chola-era bronze statue entitled "Shiva as Lord of the Dance (Nataraja)" has already been returned to India. Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott handed it over to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September 2014, along with a stone statue of Ardhanariswara (Shiva in half-female form), dating from around 1100. That statue was in the collection of another leading Australian gallery, the Sydney-based Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Both of these Hindu art treasures allegedly were stolen from temples in Tamil Nadu in southern India and shipped to Kapoor.

The Canberral gallery bought the Shiva Nataraja from Kapoor's Art of the Past gallery on Madison Avenue in New York in 2008 for $5.1 million, while the New South Wales gallery paid Kapoor 300,000 Australian dollars ($220,800) in 2004 for the Ardhanariswara. The provenance documents he provided now appear to be fraudulent, according to Crennan's report. "There is evidence that the object (the Shiva Nataraja) was stolen from an identified temple in Tamil Nadu ... and that it left India in late 2006 and was given a false ownership history," she wrote. Kapoor is alleged to have masterminded the theft of 28 bronzes from two temples in Tamil Nadu in 2006 and 2008, and their illegal export to the U.S., according to the Economic Offences Wing of the Tamil Nadu police. U.S. authorities have seized $100 million worth of antiquities from Kapoor's gallery and an associated business, Nimbus Import Export, and Kapoor may face U.S. charges after his Chennai trial. Delhi-born Kapoor, 66, moved to the U.S. in 1974 and is a U.S. citizen.

The two Australian galleries are not the only major institutions to have made purchases from Kapoor; galleries in Singapore, Germany, the U.S. and Canada have returned art objects to India over the past year.

A private New York collector surrendered a $1 million bronze to U.S. authorities in mid-2015 after it was identified as stolen. It has also become clear that many major U.S. institutions dealt with Kapoor, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio and the Smithsonian's Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington DC.

Crennan's independent report on the Canberra gallery's Asian Art Provenance project, published on Feb. 17, covers 36 objects acquired between 1968 and 2013, including the 14 bought from Kapoor between 2002 and 2011.

Crennan found that only 12 of the 36 had satisfactory provenance, while two others needed further research and the remaining 22 had insufficient or questionable provenance documentation. The gallery aims eventually to publish the provenance of all 5,000 objects in its Asian art collection.

Aside from the Kapoor purchases, the 36 objects whose documentation was reviewed by Crennan included a red sandstone sculpture, the "Seated Buddha," which the gallery bought from Nancy Wiener Galleries in New York for $1,080,000 in 2007. Last year, after discussions about how the Kushan-period sculpture -- created between 200 BC and 400 AD -- was exported from India, Wiener agreed to refund the purchase price to the Canberra gallery and undertook to return the sculpture to India in 2016.

"Exemplary collaboration"

India's High Commissioner in Australia, Navdeep Suri, praised the Canberra gallery's actions, saying its collaboration with the Archaeological Survey of India to determine the provenance of the "Seated Buddha" was "truly exemplary." He said the Australian gallery had set an example for other countries and institutions to follow in the restitution of stolen artworks to their countries of origin.

The Canberra gallery bought the "Seated Buddha" with assistance from gallery benefactor Roslyn Packer, widow of the late media tycoon Kerry Packer. Roslyn Packer also helped the gallery to buy an 800-year-old sculpture, the "Sacred Bull Nandi, Vehicle of Shiva," for A$655,000 from another New York art dealer, Carlton Rochell, in 2009. This sculpture's provenance is also under a cloud; Crennan's report described it as "problematic" and needing further research.

In a September 2014 statement to mark Abbott's return of the two statues to India, the Canberra gallery said it "would never knowingly purchase a stolen or looted item." It said the gallery had undertaken lengthy, comprehensive and independent research before it bought the Shiva Nataraja from Kapoor in 2008. "Despite these efforts, court proceedings may yet confirm that the gallery has been a victim of a most audacious fraud," said the then director of the gallery, Ron Radford. Radford retired the same month, after 10 years as director.

The search for the Hindu statues stolen from two temples in Tamil Nadu in 2006 and 2008 was aided by photographic evidence from the archives of the French Institute of Pondicherry. The institute, established in what was once the French colony of Pondicherry, about 200km south of Chennai, had a collection of photographs of items in various temples in the region. These were matched against catalogue pictures of items being offered for sale by Kapoor in New York. Kapoor's Art of the Past gallery manager Aaron Freedman pleaded guilty in the U.S. in December 2013 to one count of criminal conspiracy and five counts of possession of stolen property. He is now helping U.S. federal authorities with their inquiries. Another New York associate, Selina Mohamed, was charged in December 2013 with possession of stolen property. She subsequently pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of conspiracy and in March 2015 was given a one year conditional release.

The arrests were part of Operation Hidden Idol, run by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Homeland Security Investigations' cultural property unit, which focused on Kapoor's activities.

The Kapoor case evokes parallels with an art looting saga from the 1970s involving a temple north-east of Cambodia's famed Angkor complex. Between 2013 and 2015, six 10th century sandstone statues that were stolen from the Koh Ker temple during the Cambodian civil war were returned to Cambodia from the U.S. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York returned two of these statues in 2013 after it said new information had come to light that was not available when the statues were donated to the museum between 1987 and 1992.

In 2014, three items portraying characters from the Mahabharata, an epic Sanskrit poem of ancient India, were returned by the U.S., including a statue of Duryodhana that was first auctioned in London in 1975. The statue was due to be auctioned by Sotheby's in New York in March 2011 before action by Unesco, the United Nations cultural organization, stopped the sale on Cambodia's behalf.

Another statue, of the character Bhima, was returned by California's Norton Simon museum and a third, representing the character Pandava, was returned by Christie's auction house in 2014. Last year, the Cleveland Museum of Art said it would return a statue of Hanuman, a Hindu god, that it acquired in 1982.

Author: Geoff Hiscock | Source: Nikkei Asian Review [March 04, 2016]

Two ancient skeletons unearthed at a cemetery in London may have been of Chinese origin, overturning longstanding assumptions about the history of the Roman Empire and Britain's capital city.

Using cutting-edge techniques, a team of archaeologists and scientists examined dental enamel samples from over 20 sets of human remains dated from between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD.

Dr Rebecca Redfern, curator of human osteology at the Museum of London, revealed two of the skeletons found at the site in Lant Street, Southwark, had been identified as possibly being of Chinese origin.

"This is absolutely phenomenal. This is the first time in Roman Britain we've identified people with Asian ancestry and only the 3rd or 4th in the empire as a whole", she told BBC Radio 4's The World at One,

The find challenges the dominance of the traditional view that Roman Britain, and specifically “Londinium” as it was then known, was a relatively homogenous society.

It also suggests the Roman and Chinese empires may have had more interaction than many historians had previously thought.

Crucially though, it raises the possibility that trade took place between Rome and China outside of the famous Silk Road.

While previous archaeological work has shown the multicultural nature of the ancient city and its importance as a major trading hub, this is only the second time the bones of an individual of possibly Chinese origin have been found at a Roman site, the first being the discovery of a possibly Asian man in Vagnari, Italy.

Writing in >The Journal of Archaeological Science, Dr Redfern said: “The expansion of the Roman Empire across most of western Europe and the Mediterranean, led to the assimilation and movement of many ethnically and geographically diverse communities.

"Its power and wealth meant that it also had trade connections for raw materials and products, such as silk throughout Europe, Africa and also to the east, including India and China.

"Many people travelled, often vast distances, for trade or because of their occupation, for example in the military, or their social status, for example if they were enslaved."

Archaeologists and historians are divided as to the the explanation behind the possible presence of Chinese individuals in Roman Britain.

The findings raise the possibility that Chinese traders settled in the area, and may have even set up their own trading communities.

However, in her journal article, Dr Redfern went on to add: “It may well be that these individuals were themselves or were descended from enslaved people originating from Asia, as there were slave-trade connections between India and China, and India and Rome."

Author: James Somper | Source: Independent [September 27, 2016]

The following is an open letter circulated yesterday (May 14) by Alexis Mantheakis, Chairman of the International Parthenon Sculptures Action Committee, on the recent developments in the Parthenon Sculptures issue:

Dear All,

The recent snub by the British government to UNESCO's offer to mediate in the issue of the Parthenon Sculptures dispute and the arrogant wording directed at the Greek government's often repeated offer to negotiate the matter by discussion confirmed our position that Britain never had the intention to enter into good faith discussions. As we had said in recent fora,  the only road we saw to possible success was one of legal action, with a direct and dynamic confrontation with Whitehall.

The recent response by Britain dissolved any illusions we had regarding the powers in the UK to be brought to do the right thing,  and to right a historical wrong.  We too had hoped that Britain would succumb to worldwide public opinion to correct an outrage,  the stripping and vandalising of the Parthenon of 60% of its famous millenia-old  Sculptures ,  a crime committed when Greeks were under occupation and unable to defend their archaeological heritage and national symbols of identity.

The latest declaration by the new minister of culture in the UK continues with the hard line of his predeccesors, namely that "The marbles were legally acquired according to the laws of the time. " So Mr Minister were 3 million African slaves, captured,  transported and sold,  "according to the laws of the time." Opium too was purchased and sold, in tons "according to the laws of the time". Those who did not agree to buy your opium had two wars declared on them,  and so China paid with the loss of Hong Kong and a treaty to buy your Indian grown opium.  This, Mr Minister, is NOT that time.  We are disputing your CURRENT possession of symbols of our heritage, removed from Athens and held by you in a totally government financed and controlled museum institution (all the board is appointed directly, or indirectly by the UK government or by the Queen).

This,  though,  is not the issue.

One more British government acting like  an infant  petulantly hugging another child's toy,  saying "It is mine, mine!"  is understandable,  because there is no home-made item that can compare in beauty,  artisanry,  historic or other value to those created  by a superior ancient civilisation.  We may understand the feeling,  and commiserate,  but that does not justify the possession of the looted Greek scultures taken from the Parthenon.  There is no justification for it.  We sympathise with the situation the British Museum is in,  but our sympathy doesn't extend to giving up iconic and defitive items of our heritage,  nor did our illustrious and talented predecessors in Ancient Athens build the Parthenon to have its facade torn off and damaged  by a British ambassador to decorate his Scottish residence. The Parthenon was built by Pericles and the Greek city states to commemorate the victory of Greek civilisation against the very type of barbarity  and lack of respect that Elgin indulged in 2300 years later.

The British position is well known and is in keeping with how official Britain has acted in the last few centuries.  To win in a contest the basic rule MUST be to understand your opponent and create your game strategy around this knowledge.

Anyone who has studied British history and politics will know that Britain NEVER,  but NEVER,  gives anything back unless forced to do so.  India, Cyprus,  as well as dozens of colonies of the Empire,  and other possessions acquired without the consent of the people, often with great bloodshed caused by British troops were only given back by Britain after a bitterly contested conflict,  on the field of battle,  in courts,  or with a series of extended non-violent political actions by those who had lost their heritage,  freedoms,  or historical archaeological treasures.  Britain today in its museums and in the Tower of London still holds numerous purloined and pillaged items as well as those taken by reason of  military superiority from a vanquished foe defending himself on his own soil.  The Kohinoor Diamond in the so called Crown Jewels  taken from a defeated 15 year old prince in India, is but one example. Manifest Destiny demanded it.  We oppose this way of thinking.

This lengthy introduction,  and I will apologise,  was to emphasise my conviction that dialogue for the return of the Parthenon Marbles, after so many valiant and polite efforts by Greece,  and its overseas friends in all walks of life,  is not a viable option,  and only  incurable romantics or people without an understanding of the official British character and its limitations can insist that this dead end is the road to the Restitution in Athens.

The problem is not the obduracy and intransigence of British officialdom.  It is a given, and we have to act  with that in mind.  It is with the very knowledge of the historic failure of Greek diplomacy,  both cultural and political,  and that of our own self-financed voluntary Parthenon organisations, to bring about the return, that it was encouraging when the Greek government,  that for 40 years has not asked Britain officially for the Sculptures return,  not long ago decided to involve an experienced and prestigious British legal firm Doughty Street Chambers led by George Robertson QC,  to represent our interests and to write a report regarding  what options were open for Greece to act.

Overall public awareness of the issue and additional sympathy for the Greek case was given very welcome boosts,  human nature being what it is,  by declarations of public support by celebrities such as George Clooney,  Matt Damon and others,  while a visit to Greece by Mrs Clooney with her senior colleagues at the UK law office created a media frenzy and a heightening of public interest in the Parthenon issue.  The Doughty Chambers law group produced a 140 page confidential report for the Greek government describing,  as leaked to the press,  5 options.  The one considered to have the highest chance of success was,  and this is no surprise to us,  for Greece to go immediately to the  European Court of Human Rights where,  according to the report,  there was  the greatest chance of a Greek legal victory.  The lawyers were specific: it is  now or never,  if the opportunity is  not to be lost with issues such as statutes of limitations in the near future killing Greek chances of recovery of the items through international court decisions.

In Greece,  as we all know there is a new government,  and the report was delivered to them.  With the understanding of the British penchant for intransigence,  fortified by the recent snub to UNESCO, and the history of failed attempts,  the new minister had a detailed road map in his hands,  to move forward,  with of course the support of millions around the world and at home.  Expecting his decision to do this,  using the British law firm and their international expertise and experience in cross border cultural issues we were stunned to hear the announcement of Under Minister Mr Nickos Xidakis,  a former journalist,  who announced,  in more words than these,  that " We will not go against Britain in court... This is a matter to be settled politically and diplomatically...this issue will be settled, bit by bit over, time..."

Looking at what the minister said let us examine the  viability of his declared course of action over that which the British lawyers and we ourselves at IPSACI believe,  and we all want the same thing ,  the return of the Parthenon Sculptures.

A) Mr Xidakis rejects the expert opinion of the British legal experts.  Claiming we may lose in court.  But for 200 years we have lost! We can only win,  or if we lose here, we can initiate a new legal action in another court.

B) Mr Xidakis says the issue can be won diplomatically.  The question is,  after 200 years of failed  diplomatic initiatives, is the government of Mr Xidakis in such a powerful international position to impose a solution using diplomacy? Does he know of Greek diplomats who can force Mr Cameron to sign a new law allowing/directing the Return of the Parthenon Sculptures?

C) Mr Xidakis told the press that the issue should be dealt with "politically" .  This is indeed one way countries settle disputes.  The assumption by lay persons like myself,  on hearing the Minister,  is that Greece at this moment has the political clout to bring the British Museum to its knees and to force Mr Cameron to sign the document of repatriation of the Sculptures to Athens. With all our goodwill towards Mr Xidakis, where does he draw this feeling of current Greek political power and superiority over Britain from?

D) Finally the minister says that this issue is being slowly resolved, "little by little".

But it has already been 200 years from the stripping of the friezes and metopes and Britain has not moved one centimetre in the direction Greece demands!

If the minister does not tell us why he feels his/our  government has the diplomatic and political power to solve the issue,  I very much fear that his position looks like a hot potato shifting of the issue to a future government because of  reluctance to take the bull by the horns,  as recommended by the UK lawyers, and get into court with his British counterpart.(Apologies for the mixed metaphors!)

I have a great fear that we are about to lose the Parthenon Sculptures for ever, and that the work of all our organisations, ministries,  diplomatic missions,  our volunteer supporters, and decades of dedicated work by people such as yourselves around the world, and in Greek and international  organisations are about to be lost down the drain.

I therefore beg those who believe that we must recommend to Minister Xidakis and his staff to listen to the recommendations of people and experts who know the issues well,  and understand the mindset of those walking the halls of Russell Square and Westmister,  to express their concern to the authorities in Greece.

Thank you for your patience in reading this long analysis of where I believe  we are today,  in view of the recent, and disturbing developments.

Best to all,
Alexis Mantheakis
Chairman of the International Parthenon Sculptures Action Committee Inc.
Athens office.
www.ipsaci.com
+(30)22990 47566

The transition from hunter-gatherer to sedentary farming 10,000 years ago occurred in multiple neighbouring but genetically distinct populations according to research by an international team including UCL.

“It had been widely assumed that these first farmers were from a single, genetically homogeneous population. However, we’ve found that there were deep genetic differences in these early farming populations, indicating very distinct ancestries,” said corresponding author Dr Garrett Hellenthal, UCL Genetics.

The study, published today in >Science and funded by Wellcome and Royal Society, examined ancient DNA from some of the world’s first farmers from the Zagros region of Iran and found it to be very different from the genomes of early farmers from the Aegean and Europe. The team identified similarities between the Neolithic farmer’s DNA and that of living people from southern Asia, including from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iranian Zoroastrians in particular.

“We know that farming technologies, including various domestic plants and animals, arose across the Fertile Crescent, with no particular centre” added co-author Professor Mark Thomas, UCL Genetics, Evolution & Environment.

“But to find that this region was made up of highly genetically distinct farming populations was something of a surprise. We estimated that they separated some 46 to 77,000 years ago, so they would almost certainly have looked different, and spoken different languages. It seems like we should be talking of a federal origin of farming.”

The switch from mobile hunting and gathering to sedentary farming first occurred around 10,000 years ago in south-western Asia and was one of the most important behavioural transitions since humans first evolved in Africa some 200,000 years ago. It led to profound changes in society, including greater population densities, new diseases, poorer health, social inequality, urban living, and ultimately, the rise of ancient civilizations.

Animals and plants were first domesticated across a region stretching north from modern-day Israel, Palestine and Lebanon to Syria and eastern Turkey, then east into, northern Iraq and north-western Iran, and south into Mesopotamia; a region known as the Fertile Crescent.

“Such was the impact of farming on our species that archaeologists have debated for more than 100 years how it originated and how it was spread into neighbouring regions such as Europe, North Africa and southern Asia,” said co-author Professor Stephen Shennan, UCL Institute of Archaeology.

“We’ve shown for the first time that different populations in different parts of the Fertile Crescent were coming up with similar solutions to finding a successful way of life in the new conditions created by the end of the last Ice Age.”

By looking at how ancient and living people share long sections of DNA, the team showed that early farming populations were highly genetically structured, and that some of that structure was preserved as farming, and farmers, spread into neighbouring regions; Europe to the west and southern Asia to the east.

“Early farmers from across Europe, and to some extent modern-day Europeans, can trace their DNA to early farmers living in the Aegean, whereas people living in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and India share considerably more long chunks of DNA with early farmers in Iran. This genetic legacy of early farmers persists, although of course our genetic make-up subsequently has been reshaped by many millennia of other population movements and intermixing of various groups,” concluded Dr Hellenthal.

Source: University College London [July 14, 2016]

Various specimens of Africa’s earliest coelacanth have been found in a 360 million year-old fossil estuary near Grahamstown, in South Africa’s Eastern Cape.

More than 30 complete specimens of the new fossil species, Serenichthys kowiensis, were collected from the famous Late Devonian aged Waterloo Farm locality, by palaeontologist Dr Robert Gess and described by him in collaboration with Professor Michael Coates of the University of Chicago.

Gess did the research whilst he was completing his PhD at the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand. An article describing the new species will be published in the in the prestigious Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society of London on Monday, 21 August.

“Remarkably, all of the delicate whole fish impressions represent juveniles. This suggests that Serenichthys was using a shallow, waterweed-filled embayment of the estuary as a nursery, as many fish do today,” says Gess.

The fossils come from black shales originally disturbed by road works at Waterloo Farm. These shales are the petrified compacted remains of mud, which was deposited in the quiet reaches of an estuary not unlike some of those along the Eastern Cape coast today.

“This earliest known record of a coelacanth nursery foreshadows a much younger counterpart, known from the 300 million year old Mazon Creek beds of Illinois in the United States,” says Gess.

“This glimpse into the early life history of ancient coelacanths raises further questions about the life history of the modern coelacanth, Latimeria, which is known to bear live young, but whether they, too, are clustered in nurseries remains unknown,” explains Coates.

360 million years ago, Africa was part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana, made up of Africa, India, Australia, Antarctica and South America. At that time, the rocks of Waterloo Farm were forming along the shores of the semi-enclosed Agulhas Sea, not far from the South Pole.

Gess originally identified coelacanth remains from the locality whilst carrying out excavations at Waterloo Farm in the mid-1990s under the supervision of Dr Norton Hiller, of the Rhodes University Geology Department. These fossils were not, however, well enough preserved to be reconstructed and described. His painstaking excavation of tons of shale salvaged during subsequent roadworks has now shed light on dozens more specimens, a few of which are preserved in exquisite detail.

These were prepared under a microscope and have allowed the species to be reconstructed in minute detail. They prove to be a new genus and species.

Coelacanths are believed to have arisen during the Devonian Period (about 419.2 ± 3.2 million years ago), however only five species of reconstructable Devonian coelacanths have previously been described, in addition to a number of very fragmentary remains. None of these came from Africa, but rather from North America, Europe, China and Australia. The new species gives important additional information on the early evolution of coelacanths.

“According to our evolutionary analysis (conducted by Gess and Coates), it is the Devonian species that most closely resembles the line leading to modern coelacanths,” says Gess.

The new species was discovered a mere 100km from the mouth of the Chalumna River, off which the type specimen of Latimeria chalumnae (the first discovered modern coelacanth) was caught in 1938.

Furthermore, the Geology Department at Rhodes, where Gess was based when he found his first fossil coelacanth, is on the site of the former Chemistry Department where Latimeria was first described. In keeping with the naming of its living relative (after an Eastern Cape river), the species name of the new fossil form, kowiensis, is after the Kowie River which rises among the hills where it was found, and the genus name, Serenichthys, honours Serena Gess, who provided land for the storage of more than 70 tons of black shale rescued from roadworks for ongoing research – in which all the new material was found.

All specimens have been deposited in the palaeontological collection of the Albany Natural History Museum, in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa.

Source: University of the Witwatersrand [September 21, 2015]

An ancient relative of the giraffe was a huge, heavy animal with thick legs, a flat face and massive, curly horns flaring out from its skull, said a study Wednesday.

Dubbed Sivatherium giganteum, the impressive creature would have been shorter than today's giraffe, with a less elongated neck, a trio of British scientists wrote in the Royal Society journal >Biology Letters.

Using bones dug up in India in the 1830s and now in London's Natural History Museum, the team built a computerised 3D reconstruction of an animal they said would have stood about 1.8 metres (5.9 feet) tall at the shoulder and weighed about 1.2 tonnes.

"This was a heavy animal with thick legs," co-author Christopher Basu told AFP.

Added to the large, flattened horns or "ossicones" on the top of the skull, each about 70 centimetres (28 inches) long, it also had two smaller, pointy horns just over the eyes.m

"It would have been an impressive and strong animal," said Basu. "It's face would have looked very different from a giraffe. Giraffe's have very long, pointed skulls. Sivatherium had a very short, flattened skull."

It lived somewhere between the last five million and 12,000 years ago in Africa and Asia.

Related to the giraffe and its cousin the okapi, Sivatherium was possibly the largest ruminant animal—those with multi-compartmented stomachs—to ever have lived.

The first scientists to study Sivatherium bones misclassified the animal as an archaic link between modern ruminants and a long-extinct relative of elephants and rhinoceroses.

For the new study, the skeleton was reconstructed using 26 fossil bones from three individual animals. The ribs, back and pelvis are missing.

"We estimated what these might look like from giraffe and okapi anatomy—the two living relatives," said Basu.

Source: AFP [January 13, 2016]

Excavation of two quarries in Wales by a UCL-led team of archaeologists and geologists has confirmed they are sources of Stonehenge's 'bluestones'– and shed light on how they were quarried and transported.

New research by the team published today in Antiquity presents detailed evidence of prehistoric quarrying in the Preseli hills in Pembrokeshire, helping to answer long-standing questions about why, when and how Stonehenge was built.

The team of scientists includes researchers from UCL, University of Manchester, Bournemouth University, University of Southampton, University of Leicester, Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, and Dyfed Archaeological Trust.

The very large standing stones at Stonehenge are of 'sarsen', a local sandstone, but the smaller ones, known as 'bluestones', come from the Preseli hills in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. Geologists have known since the 1920s that the bluestones were brought to Stonehenge from somewhere in the Preseli Hills, but only now has there been collaboration with archaeologists to locate and excavate the actual quarries from which they came.

Director of the project, Professor Mike Parker Pearson (UCL Institute of Archaeology), said: "This has been a wonderful opportunity for geologists and archaeologists to work together. The geologists have been able to lead us to the actual outcrops where Stonehenge's stones were extracted."

The Stonehenge bluestones are of volcanic and igneous rocks, the most common of which are called dolerite and rhyolite. Dr Richard Bevins (Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales) and Dr Rob Ixer (UCL and University of Leicester) have identified the outcrop of Carn Goedog as the main source of Stonehenge's 'spotted dolerite' bluestones and the outcrop of Craig Rhos-y-felin as a source for one of the 'rhyolite' bluestones. The research published today details excavations at Craig Rhos-y-felin specifically.

The special formation of the rock, which forms natural pillars at these outcrops, allowed the prehistoric quarry-workers to detach each megalith (standing stone) with a minimum of effort. "They only had to insert wooden wedges into the cracks between the pillars and then let the Welsh rain do the rest by swelling the wood to ease each pillar off the rock face" said Dr Josh Pollard (University of Southampton). "The quarry-workers then lowered the thin pillars onto platforms of earth and stone, a sort of 'loading bay' from where the huge stones could be dragged away along trackways leading out of each quarry."

Professor Colin Richards (University of Manchester), an expert in Neolithic quarries, said: "The two outcrops are really impressive – they may well have had special significance for prehistoric people. When we saw them for the first time, we knew immediately that we had found the source."

Radiocarbon-dating of burnt hazelnuts and charcoal from the quarry-workers' camp fires reveals that there were several occurrences of megalith-quarrying at these outcrops. Stonehenge was built during the Neolithic period, between 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. Both of the quarries in Preseli were exploited in the Neolithic, and Craig Rhos-y-felin was also quarried in the Bronze Age, around 4,000 years ago.

"We have dates of around 3400 BC for Craig Rhos-y-felin and 3200 BC for Carn Goedog, which is intriguing because the bluestones didn't get put up at Stonehenge until around 2900 BC" said Professor Parker Pearson. "It could have taken those Neolithic stone-draggers nearly 500 years to get them to Stonehenge, but that's pretty improbable in my view. It's more likely that the stones were first used in a local monument, somewhere near the quarries, that was then dismantled and dragged off to Wiltshire."

Professor Kate Welham (Bournemouth University) thinks that the ruins of any dismantled monument are likely to lie somewhere between the two megalith quarries. She said: "We've been conducting geophysical surveys, trial excavations and aerial photographic analysis throughout the area and we think we have the most likely spot. The results are very promising – we may find something big in 2016."

The megalith quarries are on the north side of the Preseli hills, and this location undermines previous theories about how the bluestones were transported from Wales to Stonehenge. Previous writers have often suggested that bluestones were taken southwards from the hills to Milford Haven and then floated on boats or rafts, but this now seems unlikely.

"The only logical direction for the bluestones to go was to the north then either by sea around St David's Head or eastwards overland through the valleys along the route that is now the A40" said Professor Parker Pearson. "Personally I think that the overland route is more likely. Each of the 80 monoliths weighed less than 2 tons, so teams of people or oxen could have managed this. We know from examples in India and elsewhere in Asia that single stones this size can even be carried on wooden lattices by groups of 60 – they didn't even have to drag them if they didn't want to."

Phil Bennett, Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority's Culture and Heritage Manager, said: "This project is making a wonderful contribution to our knowledge of the National Park's importance in prehistory."

The new discoveries may also help to understand why Stonehenge was built. Parker Pearson and his team believe that the bluestones were erected at Stonehenge around 2900 BC, long before the giant sarsens were put up around 2500 BC.

"Stonehenge was a Welsh monument from its very beginning. If we can find the original monument in Wales from which it was built, we will finally be able to solve the mystery of why Stonehenge was built and why some of its stones were brought so far", said Professor Parker Pearson.

Further excavations are planned for 2016.

Source: University College London [December 07, 2015]

The first eukaryote is thought to have arisen when simpler archaea and bacteria joined forces. But in an Opinion paper published in >Trends in Cell Biology, researchers propose that new genomic evidence derived from a deep-sea vent on the ocean floor suggests that the molecular machinery essential to eukaryotic life was probably borrowed, little by little over time, from those simpler ancestors.

"We are beginning to think of eukaryotic origins as a slow process of growing intimacy--the result of a long, slow dance between kingdoms, and not a quick tryst, which is the way it is portrayed in textbooks," says Mukund Thattai of the National Centre for Biological Sciences in India.

The eukaryotic cells of plants, animals, and protists are markedly different from those of their single-celled, prokaryotic relatives, the archaea and bacteria. Eukaryotic cells are much larger and have considerably more internal complexity, including many internal membrane-bound compartments.

Although scientists generally agree that eukaryotes can trace their ancestry to a merger between archaea and bacteria, there's been considerable disagreement about what the first eukaryote and its immediate ancestors must have looked like. As Thattai and his colleagues Buzz Baum and Gautam Dey of University College London explain in their paper, that uncertainty has stemmed in large part from the lack of known intermediates that bridge the gap in size and complexity between prokaryotic precursors and eukaryotes. As a result, they say, the origin of the first eukaryotic cell has remained "one of the most enduring mysteries in modern biology."

That began to change last year with the discovery of DNA sequences for an organism that no one has ever actually seen living near a deep-sea vent on the ocean floor. The genome of the archaeon known as Lokiarchaeum ('Loki' for short) contains more "eukaryotic signature proteins" (ESPs) than any other prokaryote. Importantly, among those ESPs are proteins (small Ras/Arf-type GTPases) critical for eukaryotes' ability to direct traffic amongst all those intercellular compartments.

The authors consider the available data to explore an essential question: what might the archaeal ancestor of all eukaryotes look like? "If we could turn back the clock and peer inside this cell, would its cellular organization have been like that of an archaeal cell or more eukaryote-like?" Dey says.

As the closest known archaeal relative of eukaryotes, Loki helps to answer that question. The researchers say that the ESPs found in Loki are unlikely to work in the same way they do in eukarytoes. That's because Loki doesn't appear to have enzymes required for ESP association with membranes or key building blocks of the membrane trafficking machinery.

"However," Baum says, "the genome can be seen as 'primed' for eukaryogenesis. With the acquisition of a number of key genes and lipids from a bacterial symbiont, it would be possible for Loki-type cells to evolve a primitive membrane trafficking machinery and compartmentalization."

The researchers predict that, when Loki is finally isolated or cultured, "it will look more like an archaeon than a proto-eukaryote and will not have internal compartments or a vesicle-trafficking network." But its morphology and/or cell cycle might have complexities more often associated with eukaryotes.

Baum and Dey say they now plan to explore the basic cell biology of the related archaea Sulfolobus acidocaldarius, first isolated from an acidic hot spring in Yellowstone National Park.

"We believe it will be very difficult to crack the mysteries of eukaryogenesis without first understanding the archaeal cell biology," Dey says. "We are currently developing tools in the lab to study the cell cycle and cellular morphology of Sulfolobus at the single-cell level under the microscope. We would also love to catch a glimpse of Loki."

Source: Cell Press [June 16, 2016]