Two golden torcs unearthed by a metal-detecting enthusiast are among the treasures on display at a major new exhibition celebrating the Celts.
A collection of Celtic art from all over Europe will go on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh from Thursday.
It is the first major British exhibition on the Celts for more than 40 years and was last held at the British Museum in London.
Exhibits include two Iron Age neck ornaments famously discovered by David Booth in a Stirlingshire field on his first outing with a metal detector. The former safari park keeper netted £460,000 for the 2000-year-old find.
Other highlights include a reconstruction of a chariot from a burial excavated at Newbridge, Edinburgh, in 2001, and on display for the first time. Dating from 475-400BC, it is Scotland's only known chariot burial and the oldest in Britain.
Dr Fraser Hunter, principal curator of Iron and Roman Age Collections, said: "This is a once in a lifetime chance to see masterpieces of Celtic art from all across Europe.
"These allow us to explore connections and differences across the Europe of 2000 years ago, to think about what the idea of Celts means and to see the power that this art gave to objects which people cherished."
Many of the 350 objects on show have never been seen in Scotland, notably the Gundestrup Cauldron, a huge silver vessel from the National Museum of Denmark.
Dr Martin Goldberg, a senior curator at National Museums Scotland, said: "This exhibition has given us great opportunities to look afresh at our own material through new research and presentation, to display some exciting new finds from across Scotland and to work with exceptional objects from other national and international collections.
"The resulting breadth, variety and quality of objects tell us fascinating, occasionally challenging things about Celts."
'Celts: art and identity' opens at the British Museum on 24 September and will draw on the latest research from Britain, Ireland and Western Europe. The exhibition will tell the story of the different peoples who have used or been given the name ‘Celts’ through the stunning art objects that they made, including intricately decorated jewellery, highly stylised objects of religious devotion, and the decorative arts of the late 19th century which were inspired by the past. The exhibition will then open at the National Museum Scotland in March 2016. As part of the National Programme activity around the Celts exhibition, the British Museum and National Museums Scotland will showcase two rare Iron Age mirrors as a Spotlight tour to partner museums across the UK.
Today the word ‘Celtic’ is associated with the distinctive cultures, languages, music and traditions of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany and the Isle of Man. Yet the name Celts was first recorded thousands of years earlier, around 500 BC, when the ancient Greeks used it to refer to peoples living across a broad swathe of Europe north of the Alps. The Greeks saw these outsiders as barbarians, far removed from the civilised world of the Mediterranean. They left no written records of their own, but today archaeology is revealing new insights into how they lived. Modern research suggests that these were disparate groups rather than a single people, linked by their unique stylised art. This set them apart from the classical world, but their technological accomplishments stand on a par with the finest achievements of Greek and Roman artists.
A stunning example in the exhibition, from National Museums Scotland, is a hoard of gold torcs found at Blair Drummond in Stirling in 2009 by a metal detectorist on his very first outing. Excavations showed they had been buried inside a timber building, probably a shrine, in an isolated, wet location. These four torcs made between 300–100 BC show widespread connections across Iron Age Europe. Two are made from spiralling gold ribbons, a style characteristic of Scotland and Ireland. Another is a style found in south-western France although analysis of the Blair Drummond gold suggests it was made locally based on French styles. The final torc is a mixture of Iron Age details with embellishments on the terminals typical of Mediterranean workshops. It shows technological skill, a familiarity with exotic styles, and connections to a craftworker or workshop with the expertise to make such an object. The Blair Drummond find brings together the local and the highly exotic in one hoard.
Although Britain and Ireland were never explicitly referred to as Celtic by the Greeks and Romans, some 2,000 years ago these islands were part of a world of related art, values, languages and beliefs which stretched from the Atlantic to the Black Sea. During the Roman period and after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, communities in Ireland and northern and western Britain developed distinct identities. The art and objects which they made expressed first their difference to the Romans, but later the new realities of living in a conquered land or on the edges of the Roman world. These communities were among the first in Britain to become Christian, and missionaries from the north and west helped to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxons.
The exhibition will include iron hand-bells used to call the faithful to prayer, elaborately illustrated gospel books telling the story of Jesus’s life, and beautifully carved stone crosses that stood as beacons of belief in the landscape. An exceptionally rare gilded bronze processional cross from Tully Lough, Ireland (AD 700-800), will be displayed in Britain for the first time. Used during ceremonies and as a mobile symbol of Christianity, the design of this hand-held cross may have inspired some stone crosses, but metal examples rarely survive. Its decorative plates show the wider artistic connections of its makers: three-legged swirls and crescent shapes owe much to earlier Celtic traditions; other geometric motifs echo Roman designs, while interlace designs were popular across Europe and probably inspired by Anglo-Saxon art.
The name Celts had fallen out of use after the Roman period, but it was rediscovered during the Renaissance. From the sixteenth century it became increasingly used as shorthand for the pre-Roman peoples of Western Europe. In the early 1700s, the languages of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany and the Isle of Man were given the name ‘Celtic’, based on the name used by the Greeks and Romans 2000 years before. In the context of a continually shifting political and religious landscape, ‘Celtic’ acquired a new significance as the peoples of these Atlantic regions sought to affirm their difference and independence from their French and English neighbours, drawing on long histories of distinctive local identities. First used by the ancient Greeks as a way to label outsiders, the word ‘Celtic’ was now proudly embraced to express a sense of shared ancestry and heritage.
Over the following centuries, the Celtic revival movement led to the creation of a re-imagined, romanticised Celtic past, expressed in art and literature such as the painting ‘The Druids: Bringing in the Mistletoe’ by George Henry and Edward Atkinson Hornel, 1890. Druids emerge from a grove of oaks where they have been ceremonially gathering mistletoe in this romantic Victorian reimagining of a scene described by Roman author Pliny the Elder. In an attempt to evoke an authentic Scottish past, the artists incorporated things that they thought of as Celtic: spiral motifs, the brilliant colours of illuminated manuscripts and a snake design inspired by Pictish stones. The painters claimed the faces were based on ancient ‘druid’ skulls. But the features of the central druid were really inspired by photographs of Native Americans.
Today, the word Celtic continues to have a powerful resonance. It calls to mind the ever shifting relationships between the different nations that make up Britain and Ireland, and their diaspora communities around the world. The idea of the Celts also confronts us with the long history of interaction between Britain and the rest of Europe.
Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum said “the word Celtic brings together a series of moments across the history of western Europe when particular communities made art and objects that reflect a different, non-Mediterranean, way of thinking about the world. New research is challenging our preconception of the Celts as a single people, revealing the complex story of how this name has been used and appropriated over the last 2,500 years. While the Celts are not a distinct race or genetic group that can be traced through time, the word ‘Celtic’ still resonates powerfully today, all the more so because it has been continually redefined to echo contemporary concerns over politics, religion and identity.”
Gordon Rintoul, National Museums Scotland Director said “Encompassing the latest research from across Europe the exhibition explores the history of the peoples who became known as Celts and examines the powerful objects created and used by them. I am delighted that this collaboration with the British Museum has allowed us to present a stronger, more rounded exhibition than either of the institutions could have achieved on their own. I am sure that audiences in Edinburgh and London will find much to engage, enthuse and inspire them.”
Many people in the UK feel a strong sense of regional identity, and it now appears that there may be a scientific basis to this feeling, according to a landmark new study into the genetic makeup of the British Isles.
An international team, led by researchers from the University of Oxford, UCL (University College London) and the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute in Australia, used DNA samples collected from more than 2,000 people to create the first fine-scale genetic map of any country in the world.
Their findings, published in Nature, show that prior to the mass migrations of the 20th century there was a striking pattern of rich but subtle genetic variation across the UK, with distinct groups of genetically similar individuals clustered together geographically.
By comparing this information with DNA samples from over 6,000 Europeans, the team was also able to identify clear traces of the population movements into the UK over the past 10,000 years. Their work confirmed, and in many cases shed further light on, known historical migration patterns.
Key findings
There was not a single "Celtic" genetic group. In fact the Celtic parts of the UK (Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and Cornwall) are among the most different from each other genetically. For example, the Cornish are much more similar genetically to other English groups than they are to the Welsh or the Scots.
There are separate genetic groups in Cornwall and Devon, with a division almost exactly along the modern county boundary.
The majority of eastern, central and southern England is made up of a single, relatively homogeneous, genetic group with a significant DNA contribution from Anglo-Saxon migrations (10-40% of total ancestry). This settles a historical controversy in showing that the Anglo-Saxons intermarried with, rather than replaced, the existing populations.
The population in Orkney emerged as the most genetically distinct, with 25% of DNA coming from Norwegian ancestors. This shows clearly that the Norse Viking invasion (9th century) did not simply replace the indigenous Orkney population.
The Welsh appear more similar to the earliest settlers of Britain after the last ice age than do other people in the UK.
There is no obvious genetic signature of the Danish Vikings, who controlled large parts of England ("The Danelaw") from the 9th century.
There is genetic evidence of the effect of the Landsker line -- the boundary between English-speaking people in south-west Pembrokeshire (sometimes known as "Little England beyond Wales") and the Welsh speakers in the rest of Wales, which persisted for almost a millennium.
The analyses suggest there was a substantial migration across the channel after the original post-ice-age settlers, but before Roman times. DNA from these migrants spread across England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, but had little impact in Wales.
Many of the genetic clusters show similar locations to the tribal groupings and kingdoms around end of the 6th century, after the settlement of the Anglo-Saxons, suggesting these tribes and kingdoms may have maintained a regional identity for many centuries.
The Wellcome Trust-funded People of the British Isles study analysed the DNA of 2,039 people from rural areas of the UK, whose four grandparents were all born within 80km of each other. Because a quarter of our genome comes from each of our grandparents, the researchers were effectively sampling DNA from these ancestors, allowing a snapshot of UK genetics in the late 19th Century. They also analysed data from 6,209 individuals from 10 (modern) European countries.
To uncover the extremely subtle genetic differences among these individuals the researchers used cutting-edge statistical techniques, developed by four of the team members. They applied these methods, called fineSTRUCTURE and GLOBETROTTER, to analyse DNA differences at over 500,000 positions within the genome. They then separated the samples into genetically similar individuals, without knowing where in the UK the samples came from. By plotting each person onto a map of the British Isles, using the centre point of their grandparents' birth places, they were able to see how this distribution correlated with their genetic groupings.
The researchers were then able to "zoom in" to examine the genetic patterns in the UK at levels of increasing resolution. At the broadest scale, the population in Orkney (islands to the north of Scotland) emerged as the most genetically distinct. At the next level, Wales forms a distinct genetic group, followed by a further division between north and south Wales. Then the north of England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland collectively separate from southern England, before Cornwall forms a separate cluster. Scotland and Northern Ireland then separate from northern England. The study eventually focused at the level where the UK was divided into 17 genetically distinct clusters of people.
Dr Michael Dunn, Head of Genetics & Molecular Sciences at the Wellcome Trust, said: "These researchers have been able to use modern genetic techniques to provide answers to the centuries' old question -- where we come from. Beyond the fascinating insights into our history, this information could prove very useful from a health perspective, as building a picture of population genetics at this scale may in future help us to design better genetic studies to investigate disease."
The world’s leading auction house has withdrawn from sale more than £1.2 million of ancient artefacts identified by an expert at a Scottish university as having links to organised criminal networks in Europe, The Scotsman can reveal.
The artefacts which have been withdrawn and, left, expert Dr Tsirogiannis [Credit: Christies]
Eight rare antiquities have been pulled from auction by Christie’s over the past six months after a University of Glasgow academic uncovered images of them in archives seized from Italian art dealers convicted of trafficking offences.
The latest tranche of treasures were due to be sold at auction in London tomorrow, but after Dr Christos Tsirogiannis notified Interpol and Italian authorities, they were removed. Last night, the auction house vowed to work with Scotland Yard to scrutinise the items’ provenance.
Dr Tsirogiannis, a research assistant at the university’s Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, discovered the four lots catalogued in the confiscated archives of Giancomo Medici and Gianfranco Becchina, and warned Christie’s was failing to carry out “due diligence”.
Medici was sentenced to ten years in prison in 2004 by a Rome court after he was found guilty of conspiracy to traffic in antiquities. Becchina, a Sicilian antiquities dealer, was convicted in Rome four years ago of trafficking in plundered artefacts.
Dr Tsirogiannis, a forensic archaeologist, has access to their photos and documents via Greek police and prosecutors.
The items accepted for tomorrow’s antiquities sale date back to 540BC. They include an Attic black-figured amphora and an Etruscan terracotta antefix. Cumulatively, they are worth close to £100,000.
Despite repeated requests by the Greek government, Christies refuses to withdraw this marble grave stele dating from the fourth century BC [Credit: Christies]
It is the second time in six months Dr Tsirogiannis has highlighted the dubiety of items being sold through Christie’s. The value of the eight withdrawn lots exceeds £1.2 million.
Dr Tsirogiannis, a member of Trafficking Culture, a Glasgow-based research programme which compiles evidence of the contemporary global trade in looted cultural objects, said: “Christie’s continues to include in its sales antiquities depicted in confiscated archives of convicted art dealers. Sometimes they sell the lots but nearly every time they withdraw them.
“I don’t understand why they can’t do due diligence beforehand. Clearly, it’s not taking place. Christie’s say they don’t have access to these archives which is not true. Every auction house, dealer and museum should refer to Italian and Greek authorities, who would check for free before the sales.” Dr Donna Yates, of Trafficking Culture, added: “Do they contact antiquities trafficking experts before their auctions? No, never. Do they make public whatever provenance documents they have for a particular piece? No, never. I can only conclude that they don’t take this particularly seriously.”
A spokeswoman for Christie’s said: “We have withdrawn four lots from our upcoming antiquities sale as it was brought to our attention that there is a question mark over their provenance, namely, that they are similar to items recorded in the Medici and Becchina archives.
“We will now work with Scotland Yard’s art and antiques unit to discover whether or not there is a basis for concerns expressed over the provenance.”
She said Christie’s would never sell any item it has reason to believe was stolen and called on those with access to the Medici and Becchina archives to make them “freely available.”
Author: Martyn McLaughlin | Source: The Scotsman [April 13, 2015]
This special exhibition unearths the stories behind four skeletons from the Museum of London’s 20,000-strong collection and four from burial grounds across Scotland. This is a touring exhibition that, after Glasgow, will travel to Bristol and Leeds in 2017, displaying the Museum of London’s skeletons alongside bones discovered locally. In-depth analysis by experts at the Museum of London has provided insights into the health and history of each individual, helping to bring to life the stories that have long been hidden beneath the ground.
The skeletons on display in Glasgow reflect a rich and varied past, with individuals coming from diverse locations, both geographically and socially, and periods of time. Excavations have uncovered burial grounds across the UK, ranging from the Neolithic period through the Iron Age to Roman London and up to the 19th century. Each individual skeleton reveals aspects of their life and times, including fractures and trauma, multiple myeloma – cancer, the effects of syphilis, rickets or arthritis, and tooth decay.
Emily Sargent, curator at Wellcome Collection, said: “Spanning thousands of years and from opposite ends of the country and social scales, the bones of these individuals offer us a rare and special glimpse into history. Yet we identify with their rotten teeth or broken bones, and are reminded that skeletons can tell us more about what people lived with, rather than what they died from.”
Sharon Ament, Director of the Museum of London, said: “This is the first time our skeletons have gone on tour and really shows how museums at opposite ends of the UK can work together to show their joint collections. We can learn a lot from the bones of our ancestors, who all lived through very different versions of the London we know today, and this is a wonderful opportunity to share their stories alongside those of their local Scottish counterparts for the first time.”
Research carried out on the skeletons has helped shed new light on the grounds they were discovered in and the circumstances in which they were buried, from plague pits in urban London to the beaches of South Uist. Specially commissioned photographs by photographer Thomas Adank capture the sites as they are now, and will be displayed in the exhibition next to each skeleton, contextualising them as a reminder of the layers of human history all around us.
Jelena Bekvalac, Curator of Human Osteology at the Museum of London, said: “Research carried out on these skeletons has given us vital clues into the lives of these individuals, some of whom lived thousands of years ago. Putting them in context with where they were buried and what those sites look like now will mean visitors will have a real, tangible connection to these people. It is a unique opportunity for the skeletons from London to be displayed in Glasgow alongside their Scottish counterparts, and truly demonstrates the rich diversity of burial in the British Isles.”
Professor David Gaimster, Director of The Hunterian, added: “We are delighted to be working in partnership with Wellcome Collection and the Museum of London on this fascinating exhibition. ‘Skeletons: Our Buried Bones’ offers a unique insight into the way people lived, worked and died.”
‘Skeletons: Our Buried Bones’ is a collaboration between Wellcome Collection and Museum of London, touring to Glasgow, Bristol and Leeds over 2016-2018. It’s based on ‘Skeletons: London’s Buried Bones’, originally shown at Wellcome Collection in 2008 and is curated by Emily Sargent and Jelena Bekvalac.
Archaeologists have uncovered a stone grinding tool in southern Italy which shows signs it was used to make flour that was boiled into gruel or baked into bread.
Interior of Grotta Paglicci, Italy, with wall paintings [Credit: Stefano Ricci]
The discovery, which predates the dawn of farming, suggests that stone age man's first cultivated meal may have been a bowl of porridge made from grains growing wild and is the earliest known instance of human consumption of oats.
The find was made by a team led by Marta Mariotti Lippi at the University of Florence in Italy who made analysed starch grains found on the artefact.
They found evidence that the stone's creators also heated the grains before grinding them, perhaps to dry them out in the colder climate of the time and make the grain easier to grind and longer-lasting.
This multi-stage process would have been time consuming, but beneficial, while turning it into flour would have been a good way to transport it, which was important for Palaeolithic nomads.
Grinding stone from Grotta Paglicci, Italy [Credit: Stefano Ricci]
Evidence of porridge consumption in Scotland dates back to 4,000 BC, when oats and other grains began to be cultivated by the first farmers.
Mariotti Lippi’s team hopes to continue studying ancient grinding stones to find out more about the stone age plant diet.
The stone was found in the Grotta Paglicci, Apulia, which was home to stone age hunter gatherers between 34,000 and 32,000 years ago and contains mural paintings, depicting horses and handprints. Images of goats, cows, a serpent, a nest with eggs, and a hunting scene have also been found engraved on bone.
Archaeologist Matt Pope, of University College London, said that the find shed light on the diet of early humans and the spread of food cultivation.
Swollen, gelatinized starch grain from the Paglicci grinding stone [Credit: Marta Mariotti Lippi]
He said: “There is a relationship there to be explored between diet, experimentation with processing plant food and cultural sophistication.
“We’ve had evidence of the processing of roots and cattails, but here we’ve got a grain, and a grain that we’re very familiar with.
“If we were to look more systematically for ground stone technology we would find this is a more widespread phenomenon.”
The study is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Author: Jody Harrison | Source: Herald Scotland [September 08, 2015]
Archaeologists have uncovered a 2000-year-old tomb believed to contain a wealthy father and son who were artisan weavers by trade and walked with the same “pigeon-toed” feet.
The skeletons were buried about 2000 years ago [Credit: Edinburgh News]
The men were laid to rest in an Iron Age stone cist close to the National Trust for Scotland’s (NTS) House of the Binns near Linlithgow.
One skeleton belonged to a man aged around 40 when he died between 92BC-65AD, while his relative was around 20 when he died some time later, 44BC-79AD, and his body was pushed in alongside him.
Skeletal analysis shows both men stood around 5ft 5in tall and suffered from worn teeth associated with weaving.
They also shared an unusual anomaly of the muscle attachment in the upper leg, which would have caused their legs to rotate inwards and made them walk with their toes turned in – pigeon-toed.
The older man was buried clutching an oval-shaped iron brooch to his left shoulder. Experts say it showed “incredibly rare” evidence of thread from his cloak.
NTS archaeologist Daniel Rhodes said the discovery was “exciting in its rarity”.
He said: “The first skeleton was an adult male, aged around 40 years, with wear on his teeth which suggests he may have been a weaver.
“The younger man was around 20 years old. They were intentionally buried in the same place and when you look at the date range they could be father and son.
“The younger man also suffered from worn teeth, and they both shared the same family leg deformity. There is no sign of disease so it probably didn’t cause severe damage or disability in life, but they may have been pigeon-toed.”
The House of the Binns is a 17th-century laird’s house overlooking the Forth, and home to the Dalyell family for 400 years.
The house was built in 1612 by Thomas Dalyell, an Edinburgh merchant who made his fortune at the court of King James VI and I in London. The Dalyell family gifted the house and surrounding parkland to the NTS in 1944, retaining the right of the family to live there.
The wider property contains archaeological remains pre-dating the establishment of the house and surrounding parkland. Iron Age burials are rare in Scotland, and ones with grave goods even rarer. Just 50 accompanied burials are known.
Mr Rhodes added: “There has always been folklore about Binns Hill being the site of a hill fort. The fact that there is this kind of status burial found at the foot of the hill, there must have been other activity going on in this period. It’s an absolutely perfect spot.”
Author: George Mair | Source: Edinburgh News [March 29, 2015]
Archaeologists from the Universities of York, Cambridge and UCL have identified rare human bones from the UK dating to the Late Mesolithic era (around 4000 BC, just prior to the arrival of farming in Britain) using an innovative new bone collagen analysis technique.
Selection of bone fragments from the Cnoc Coig assemblage used within this research; highlighting the range of sizes, elements and preservation. From top, L-R, ZooMS IDs: seal, pig, remainder human [Credit: University of York]
Surprisingly, there is a near absence of human remains in Britain from this period. However, a small island in the Inner Hebrides -- Oronsay -- is unique as it holds the remains of six human individuals.
Analysing further tiny bone fragments from the site of Cnoc Coig on Oronsay, researchers used bone collagen (protein) sequences to determine the species of 20 previously unidentifiable bone fragments. Of these, 14 were confirmed as human: a remarkable finding given the scarcity of human remains from this era.
The study also used collagen to conduct radiocarbon dating and stable isotope analysis on the bone samples, in order to enhance understanding of the diet of Britain's last forager groups and their relationship to the earliest evidence for agriculture.
This new evidence allows researchers to shed better light on our understanding of the transition from hunter-gatherer-fishers to agricultural food production.
Based on previous findings, it was assumed that hunter-gatherer foraging was fairly rapidly replaced with the arrival of agriculture in Britain, resulting in a sudden dietary shift.
However, this recent discovery points to the contrary, with evidence that in some parts of the UK, diets were based largely on marine foods even after the arrival of agriculture.
Dr Sophy Charlton, lead author on the paper and now a Research Associate at the Natural History Museum in London, explains: "Analysing previously unidentified bone fragments shows us that both hunter-gatherer-fisher and farming lifestyles potentially co-existed on the West coast of Scotland for several hundred years. Further analysis has the potential to greatly clarify our understanding of the transition to agriculture in Western Scotland and more broadly across Britain."
"Our findings also illustrate how information can be obtained from previously overlooked material. So much research potential lies dormant within 'unidentifiable' prehistoric bone fragments, and there is consequently significant potential for the future application of this method to other prehistoric sites.
The findings are published in the >Journal of Archaeological Science.
The discovery of a tiny, 170-million-year-old fossil on the Isle of Skye, off the north-west coast of the UK, has led Oxford University researchers to conclude that three previously recognised species are in fact just one.
The Skye fossil [Credit: Close et al.]
During a fossil-hunting expedition in Scotland last year, a team of researchers from the University's Department of Earth Sciences discovered the fossilised remains of a mouse-sized mammal dating back around 170 million years to the Middle Jurassic period. The new find -- a tiny lower jaw bearing 11 teeth -- shows that that three species previously described on the basis of individual fossilised teeth actually belong to just one species.
The United Kingdom has yielded many important mammalian fossils from the Middle Jurassic, a period dating between 176 and 161 million years ago, with most being found in the Scottish Isles and around Oxfordshire. Indeed, specimens obtained from Kirtlington Quarry -- just 10 miles north of Oxford -- have provided some of the richest Middle Jurassic mammal records to date. Included among those are a large number of teeth, each found in isolation, that had been thought to include at least three distinct species of what are known as 'stem therians' -- ancient relatives of many modern mammals, including rodents and marsupials.
Now, though, the team from Oxford has discovered a fossil which refutes those claims. The team found the 10 millimetre-long fossilised jaw at a site on the west coast of the Isle of Skye. 'We spent five days exploring the locality, finding nothing especially exciting, and were walking back along the beach to the house where we were staying,' recalls Dr Roger Close, the lead author of the study. 'Then, by chance, we spotted this specimen on the surface of a boulder.'
After carefully removing the specimen -- a complete left lower jaw of a small mammal -- the team carried out a series of analyses to determine its origins. First, they performed a high-resolution x-ray CT scan at the Natural History Museum in London, providing an incredibly detailed 3D model of the fossil that allowed the researchers to glean much more information about its anatomy than could ever be possible by visual inspection. 'Over half of the fossil is still buried in the rock,' explains Dr Close. 'The CT scan allows us to virtually remove this, and explore the whole specimen in exquisite detail.'
From there, they systematically compared the shape of each and every tooth present in the jaw to those found in all similar specimens discovered in the past. They were surprised to find that the new jaw resembled not one species, but three: Palaeoxonodon ooliticus, Palaeoxonodon freemani and Kennetheridium leesi, all known from isolated teeth preserved in rocks of the same age from Oxfordshire.
Differences in tooth shape that had been thought to distinguish three different species were in fact all present in the single lower jaw found on the Isle of Skye. 'In effect, we've "undiscovered" two species,' explains Dr Close. 'The new find shows that we should be cautious about naming new types of animals on the basis of individual teeth.' In a paper published in Palaeontology, the team identifies their find as Palaeoxonodon ooliticus -- the name given to the first of the three species to be described back in the late 1970s.
Palaeoxonodon has long been recognised as an important species for understanding the evolution of molar teeth in modern mammals, and this latest discovery sheds more light on the subject. The species appears to show an intermediate step in the evolution of what are known as 'tribosphenic' molars -- a kind of pestle-and-mortar geometry that is particularly well suited to processing food.
'Towards the front, three sharp cusps allow the animal to slice up the food, while at the back a flatter, grinding surface crushes it,' explains Dr Close. 'It's an evolutionary innovation that allowed much more versatile ways of feeding to evolve, and it may well have contributed to the long-term success of this group of mammals.'
The horticulturist who came up with the concept of ‘evolution by natural selection’ 27 years before Charles Darwin did should be more widely acknowledged for his contribution, states a new paper by a King’s College London geneticist.
Patrick Matthew [Credit: The Patrick Matthew Project]
The paper, published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, argues that Patrick Matthew deserves to be considered alongside Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace as one of the three originators of the idea of large-scale evolution by natural selection.
Furthermore, Matthew’s version of evolution by natural section captures a valuable aspect of the theory that isn't so clear in Darwin's version – namely, that natural selection is a deductive certainty more akin to a ‘law’ than a hypothesis or theory to be tested.
Patrick Matthew (1790-1874) was a Scottish landowner with a keen interest in politics and agronomy. He established extensive orchards of apples and pears on his estate at Gourdie Hill, Perthshire, and became adept in horticulture, silviculture and agriculture.
Whilst Darwin and Wallace’s 1858 paper to the Linnean Society, On the Origin of Species, secured their place in the history books, Matthews had set out similar ideas 27 years earlier in his book On Naval Timber and Arboriculture. The book, published in 1831, addressed best practices for the cultivation of trees for shipbuilding, but also expanded on his concept of natural selection.
“There is a law universal in nature, tending to render every reproductive being the best possibly suited to its condition that its kind, or that organized matter, is susceptible of, which appears intended to model the physical and mental or instinctive powers, to their highest perfection, and to continue them so. This law sustains the lion in his strength, the hare in her swiftness, and the fox in his wiles.” (Matthew, 1831: 364)
In 1860, Matthew wrote to point out the parallels with his prior work, several months after the publication of On the origin of species. Darwin publically wrote in 1860 “I freely acknowledge that Mr. Matthew has anticipated by many years the explanation which I have offered of the origin of species”, while Wallace wrote publically in 1879 of “how fully and clearly Mr. Matthew apprehended the theory of natural selection, as well as the existence of more obscure laws of evolution, many years in advance of Mr. Darwin and myself”, and further declared Matthew to be “one of the most original thinkers of the first half of the 19th century”. However, both asserted their formulations were independent of Matthew’s.
Even if Matthew did not influence Darwin and Wallace, his writings provide a valuable third point of reference on the notion of macroevolution by natural selection, argues the paper’s author, Dr Michael Weale. Dr Weale has created a public website to act as an online repository of the writings by Patrick Matthew, including some of his lesser-known work.
Dr Michael Weale, from the Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics at King’s College London, said: ‘Whilst Darwin and Wallace both deserve recognition for their work, Matthew, the outsider who deduced his idea as part of a grand scheme of a purposeful universe, is the overlooked third man in the story. Matthew’s story is an object lesson in the perils of low-impact publishing. Despite its brevity, and to some extent because of it, Matthew’s work merits our renewed attention.’
New research suggests that the dodo, an extinct bird whose name has entered popular culture as a symbol of stupidity, was actually fairly smart. The work, published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, finds that the overall size of the dodo's brain in relation to its body size was on par with its closest living relatives: pigeons--birds whose ability to be trained implies a moderate level of intelligence. The researchers also discovered that the dodo had an enlarged olfactory bulb -- the part of the brain responsible for smelling -- an uncharacteristic trait for birds, which usually concentrate their brainpower into eyesight.
The dodo (Raphus cucullatus) was a large, flightless bird that lived on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. They were last seen in 1662.
"When the island was discovered in the late 1500s, the dodos living there had no fear of humans and they were herded onto boats and used as fresh meat for sailors," said Eugenia Gold, the lead author of the paper, a research associate and recent graduate of the American Museum of Natural History's Richard Gilder Graduate School, and an instructor in the Department of Anatomical Sciences at Stony Brook University. "Because of that behavior and invasive species that were introduced to the island, they disappeared in less than 100 years after humans arrived. Today, they are almost exclusively known for becoming extinct, and I think that's why we've given them this reputation of being dumb."
Even though the birds have become an example of oddity, obsolescence, stupidity, and extinction, and have been featured in popular stories ranging from Alice in Wonderland to Ice Age, most aspects of the dodo's biology are still unknown. This is partly because dodo specimens are extremely rare, having disappeared during the nascent stage of natural history collections.
To examine the brain of the dodo, Gold tracked down a well-preserved skull from the collections of the Natural History Museum, London, and imaged it there with high-resolution computed tomography (CT) scanning. In the American Museum of Natural History's Microscopy and Imaging Facility, she also CT-scanned the skulls of seven species of pigeons -- ranging from the common pigeon found on city streets, Columba livia, to more exotic varieties. Out of these scans, Gold built virtual brain endocasts to determine the overall brain size as well as the size of various structures. Gold's colleagues at the Natural History Museum of Denmark and National Museum of Scotland sent her the endocast for the dodo's closest relative, the extinct island-dwelling bird Rodrigues solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria).
When comparing the size of the birds' brains to their body sizes, Gold and collaborators found that the dodo was "right on the line."
"It's not impressively large or impressively small -- it's exactly the size you would predict it to be for its body size," Gold said. "So if you take brain size as a proxy for intelligence, dodos probably had a similar intelligence level to pigeons. Of course, there's more to intelligence than just overall brain size, but this gives us a basic measure."
The study also revealed that both the dodo and the Rodrigues solitaire, which recently was driven to extinction by human activity, had large and differentiated olfactory bulbs. In general, birds depend much more on sight rather than smell to navigate through their world, and as a result, they tend to have larger optic lobes than olfactory bulbs. The authors suggest that, because dodos and solitaires were ground-dwellers, they relied on smell to find food, which might have included fruit, small land vertebrates, and marine animals like shellfish.
"It is really amazing what new technologies can bring to old museum specimens," said co-author Mark Norell, Macaulay Curator of Paleontology and Chair of the Division of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History. "This really underscores the need for the maintenance and growth of natural history collections, because who knows what's next."
The researchers also discovered an unusual curvature of the dodo's semicircular canal -- the balance organs located in the ear. But as of yet, there's not a good hypothesis for this atypical feature.
Source: American Museum of Natural History [February 23, 2016]
It is lunacy to believe you own the moon, and no amount of tomato juice you spill into the sea will make its water yours. Yet we ask the question “who owns antiquity?” as if it were a sane one.
Parthenon Frieze in the British Museum [Credit: Graham Barclay/Getty Images]
There is a reason for this. It’s the reason why Dennis Hope, founder of the Lunar Embassy and self-dubbed President of the Galactic Government, is no lunatic but an entrepreneur who has sold over 600m acres of “extraterrestrial real estate” to over 6m people. It’s the reason why Nestlé has rebranded itself as a corporate water steward, while bottling ground water at the expense of local communities.
It’s also the reason why today, on the 200th anniversary of the British parliamentary vote to purchase the sculptures that Lord Elgin sawed off the Parthenon, the British Museum continues to insist that its trustees are legally entitled to the sculptures. And it’s the reason why human rights lawyers, marshalled by Amal Clooney, have once again advised a Greek government unwilling to put forward a legal claim that it should take this museum to court.
‘Stones of no value’
In 1801, Elgin was the British Ambassador to the Ottoman court from which he obtained a limited license to collect “some stones of no value” from the Acropolis, with which to adorn his estate back in Scotland. The excised sculpted blocks were shipped back to the UK and in 1811, on the verge of bankruptcy, Elgin offered to sell them to the nation. Five years later, the state bought 15 metopes, 17 pedimental sculptures, and 80 metres of frieze for £35,000 (equivalent to at least £2.4m today, placed in the trust of the British Museum.
Lord Elgin, c. 1788 [Credit: WikiCommons]
According the Guardian correspondent Helena Smith wrote: “Activists have been counting down to what they call the ‘black anniversary’“ (June 7 2016). Nothing could be further from the truth. Most activists agree that had the parliamentary vote to purchase not been won, the sculptures may well have ended up in the illegal art market and vanished without a trace. The real controversy surrounding the debate concerned the fact that the British government was willing to spend such a huge amount at a time of national famine.
But all that was then and this is now. Among other things, Greece is no longer a subject province of the Ottoman Empire. In 2009 the country opened the New Acropolis Museum, which has been specifically designed to display all of the sculptures, and currently displays plaster casts of the London marbles next to the original Athenian ones.
A recent British Museum press statement claimed that the Parthenon sculptures are “a part of the world’s shared heritage and transcend political boundaries”. Greece’s minster of culture, Aristides Baltas, similarly said that “we do not regard the Parthenon as exclusively Greek but rather as a heritage of humanity”. Yet the British Museum also asserts that the sculptures are “a vital element in this interconnected world collection” and the usually diplomatic Baltas was also quoted as saying:
We are trying to develop alliances which we hope would eventually lead to an international body like the United Nations to come with us against the British Museum.
These curious juxtapositions all echo those of Nestlé’s chairman (and former CEO) Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, who claimed that when he said “access to water is not a public right” what he really meant was that “water is a human right” (albeit only the 1.5% of it that Nestlé is content not to buy and re-sell). The New Acropolis Museum currently charges a €5 general admission fee for the “heritage of humanity”. The entrance to the British Museum is of course, free; but it leads to suggested donation boxes, gift shops where one can purchase “Elgin Marbles” memorabilia, overpriced cafeterias, and ticketed special exhibitions.View of the Acropolis and Parthenon from the top-floor Parthenon Gallery of the New Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece [Credit: Christian Richters, Bernard Tschumi Architects]
Parthenon regained
The Parthenon marbles form an integral part of a larger whole, a temple dedicated to Athena whose frieze, metopes, and pediments variously depict her birth, the Panathenaic procession, the sack of Troy, and an array of mythological fights and contests.
There is no other example of a piece of art as crudely dismembered as the Parthenon, with even the heads and bodies of individual sculptures located in different countries (a few rogue pieces somehow ended up in the Louvre and other European museums which have yet to make any gestures of return). If the missing sculptures and fragments of this aesthetic travesty were to be reunited with those in the New Acropolis Museum, visitors could study them as one entire whole, with a direct view of the monument to which they belong.
The time is right for all surviving sculptures to be reunited under this single roof. They should be displayed, for free, in a joint Greek and British international museum. This bicentenary provides the perfect opportunity for the two nations to collaborate instead of bicker over ownership. The British Museum would be praised worldwide for all its actions, culminating in a collaborative partnership that genuinely benefits humanity. It is high time that ownership of the past became a thing of the past and we began to think in terms of joint custody instead.
Author: Constantine Sandis | Source: The Conversation [June 07, 2016]
A remarkable archaeological discovery in a Co. Clare cave has pushed back the date of human existence in Ireland by 2,500 years.
Dr Marion Dowd of IT Sligo with the brown bear bone in the Institute’s archaeology lab [Credit: James Connolly]
This discovery re-writes Irish archaeology and adds an entirely new chapter to human colonisation of the island – moving Ireland’s story into a new era.
Radiocarbon dating of a butchered brown bear bone, which has been stored in a cardboard box at the National Museum of Ireland for almost 100 years, has established that humans were on the island of Ireland some 12,500 years ago – 2,500 earlier than previously believed.
Since the 1970s, the oldest evidence of human occupation on the island of Ireland has been at Mount Sandel in Co. Derry. This site has been dated at 8,000 BC, which is in the Mesolithic period, indicating that humans had occupied the island for some 10,000 years.
However, new analysis of the bear patella – or knee bone – originally found in Co. Clare in 1903 gives us undisputed evidence that people existed in Ireland during the preceding Palaeolithic period at 10,500 BC, some 12,500 years ago.
This is a major breakthrough for archaeologists who have spent decades searching for earlier signs of human occupation on the island.
The discovery was made by Dr Marion Dowd, an archaeologist at IT Sligo, and Dr Ruth Carden, a Research Associate with the National Museum of Ireland.
The patella, or knee bone, bears seven or eight marks on its surface that appear to have been made with a stone knife [Credit: James Connolly]
“Archaeologists have been searching for the Irish Palaeolithic since the 19th century, and now, finally, the first piece of the jigsaw has been revealed. This find adds a new chapter to the human history of Ireland,” said Dr Dowd.
Dowd and Carden’s paper on the discovery was published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews. Dr Dowd is a lecturer in Prehistoric Archaeology at the School of Science in IT Sligo and is a specialist in Irish cave archaeology.
The adult bear bone was one of thousands of bones originally discovered in Alice and Gwendoline Cave, Co. Clare in 1903 by a team of early scientists. They published a report on their investigations and noted that the bear bone had knife marks.
The bone was stored in a collection at the National Museum of Ireland since the 1920s. In 2010 and 2011, animal osteologist Dr Ruth Carden, a Research Associate at the museum, was re-analysing its animal bone collections from early cave excavations. She came across the bear bone and documented it along with many others.
As a specialist in cave archaeology, Dr Dowd, became interested in the butchered bear patella and, together with Dr Carden, the pair sought funding from the Royal Irish Academy for radiocarbon dating, which was carried out by the Chrono Centre at Queen’s University Belfast.
“When a Palaeolithic date was returned, it came as quite a shock. Here we had evidence of someone butchering a brown bear carcass and cutting through the knee probably to extract the tendons. Yes, we expected a prehistoric date, but the Palaeolithic result took us completely by surprise,” says Dr Dowd.
Analysis of the bone suggested the cut marks were made while the bone was still fresh, meaning it may have been killed and certainly butchered by some of the first humans in Ireland after the last Ice Age [Credit: IT Sligo]
A second sample was sent to the University of Oxford for radiocarbon dating to test the validity of the initial result. Both dates indicated human butchery of the bear about 12,500 years ago.
The bone was then sent to three bone specialists for independent analysis of the cut marks. These were Dr Jill Cook at the British Museum in London; Prof. Terry O’Connor at the University of York and Prof. Alice Choyke at the Central European University in Hungary.
The experts were unaware of the radiocarbon dating results prior to their examinations but all determined that the cut marks were made on fresh bone, confirming that the cut marks were of the same date as the patella, and therefore that humans were in Ireland during the Palaeolithic period.
“This made sense as the location of the marks spoke of someone trying to cut through the tough knee joint, perhaps someone who was inexperienced,” explains Dr Dowd. “In their repeated attempts, they left seven marks on the bone surface. The implement used would probably have been something like a long flint blade.”
“The bone was in fresh condition meaning that people were carrying out activities in the immediate vicinity – possibly butchering a bear inside the cave or at the cave entrance,” said Dr Dowd.
Dr Ruth Carden said: “From a zoological point of view, this is very exciting, since up to now we have not factored in a possible ‘human-dimension’ when we are studying patterns of colonisation and local extinctions of species to Ireland.
“This paper should generate a lot of discussion within the zoological research world and it’s time to start thinking outside the box…or even dismantling it entirely!”
Dr Dowd and Dr Carden are now hoping to get funding to carry out further analysis of other material recovered during the 1903 excavations, the cave itself and other potential cave sites around the country.
Professor Vincent Cunnane, President of IT Sligo said: “Academic research is often lauded for helping to shape new concepts and innovations of the future, but this ground-breaking discovery for Irish archaeology highlights the vital role it can play in challenging and deepening our understanding of our heritage and history.”
Nigel T. Monaghan, Keeper, Natural History Division of the National Museum of Ireland said: “The National Museum of Ireland – Natural History, holds collections of approximately two million specimens, all are available for research and we never know what may emerge. Radiocarbon dating is something never imagined by the people who excavated these bones in caves over a century ago, and these collections may have much more to reveal about Ireland’s ancient past.”
The remarkable discovery comes just three years after the first evidence of Palaeolithic occupation of Scotland was uncovered. In 2013, a cache of flint tools was unearthed on the Isle of Islay, pushing the date of human existence in Scotland from the Mesolithic into the Palaeolithic era.
Source: Institute of Technology Sligo [March 20, 2016]
The first annual State of the World's Plants report, which involved more than 80 scientists and took a year to produce, is a baseline assessment of current knowledge on the diversity of plants on earth, the global threats these plants currently face, as well as the policies in place and their effectiveness in dealing with threats.
A fifth of the world's plant species are at risk of extinction, according to a survey by Britain's Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew [Credit: AFP/Daniel Leal-Olivas]
"This is the first ever global assessment on the state of the world's plants. We already have a 'State of the World's ...birds, sea-turtles, forests, cities, mothers, fathers, children even antibiotics' but not plants. I find this remarkable given the importance of plants to all of our lives- from food, medicines, clothing, building materials and biofuels, to climate regulation. This report therefore provides the first step in filling this critical knowledge gap." said Professor Kathy Willis, Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew at the report launch on Monday.
"But to have effect, the findings must serve to galvanise the international scientific, conservation, business and governmental communities to work together to fill the knowledge gaps we've highlighted and expand international collaboration, partnerships and frameworks for plant conservation and use," she added.
The status of plants outlined in the report is based on the most up to date knowledge from around the world as of 2016 and is divided into three sections; describing the world's plants, global threats to plants and policies and international trade.
Naming and Counting
The first section focuses on the diversity of plants on earth, noting that there are now an estimated 391,000 vascular plants known to science of which 369,000 are flowering plants -- with around 2,000 new vascular plant species described annually. Some of the most exciting were found during fieldwork while many others were detected only after they have already been preserved and filed as herbarium specimens and a few have been discovered in the glasshouses at Kew.
Logging at the Amazon and other rainforests represents 21.3 percent of the total risk to plant species, according to a study by Britain's Royal Botanic Gardens [Credit: AFP/Raphael Alves]
One of the largest carnivorous plants known (1.5m in height), a new insect-eating plant of the sundew genus called Drosera magnifica was even first discovered on Facebook. Eighteen new species of the genus Ipomoea in the morning glory family, were described from Bolivia last year, among them a close relative of the sweet potato, Ipomoea batatas, offering exciting options for the future of this crop.
"But there are still large parts of the world where very little is known about plants. Identification of these important plant areas is now critical." said Steve Bachman, strategic output leader for the State of the World´s Plants report, RBG Kew. "Similarly, we still only know a fraction of the genetic diversity of plants and whole-genome sequences are currently available for just 139 species of vascular plants. Activity in this area needs to speed up," he added.
Useful plants
In terms of the uses of plants, the report collates data from multiple data sources to reveal that at least 31,000 plant species have a documented use for medicines, food, materials and so on. The majority (17,810 plants) of those now documented have a medicinal use.
British scientists warn that farming -- such as mangroves being transformed into shrimp farms -- poses the biggest extinction threat to plant species [Credit: AFP/Sebastien Blanc]
Aside from the plants that are currently in use, the report looks at where collection efforts should focus to include plants that will be useful in the future. One set of plant species of critical importance to global food security are the wild relatives of crops, a pool of genetic variation that can help to drive the improvement of our crops into the future. A recent inventory has revealed that there are currently 3,546 prioritised global plant taxa identified as 'crop wild relatives' and Kew's Millennium Seed Bank (MSB) includes 688 crop wild relatives among its over 78,000 accessions, but there are still substantial gaps.
Research in this sector has found that the traits that have been bred into crops over years of domestication are not necessarily the same ones that will provide the greatest climate resilience. Given that many of the wild populations of these species are under considerable threat due to land-use and climate change there is an urgent need to conserve those species not adequately represented in current collections. More seed banking will help preserve a wider range of alternatives to the crops on which the world over relies today (report pages 20-23).
Climate change
The report also explores current knowledge around the impact of climate change on plants and finds that while there is a good understanding for some regions of the world, there are still large areas for which little or no research exists. In those areas where good data is available, clear impacts are visible, including changes in flowering times, turnover in plant communities and movement of species with changing climates.
Tim Utteridge of Kew Gardens shows a preserved Ferocactus fordii [Credit: AFP/Daniel Leal-Olivas]
Research referenced in the report shows that all but one of the world's biomes have experienced more than 10% change in land-cover type in the past decade due to the combined impacts of land-use and climate change.
This research, led by teams at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia is also the first of its kind to allocate timeframes for the changes in policy and practice needed to maintain food production and security in Africa. It identifies that up to 30% of areas growing maize and bananas, and up to 60% of those growing beans, are likely to become unviable by the end of the century. But it also highlights some crops like cassava and yams that are showing much greater resilience and could worth focusing on in years to come (report pages 36-39).
"Having proof that root crops like cassava and yams are among the climate-smart crops of the future for sub Saharan Africa is vital for informing policy and planning today," added Professor Willis.
Further research into building a climate resilient coffee economy in Ethiopia published in this report highlights how coffee production is likely to be drastically affected by climate change, but claims that this could be offset if there were interventions now to develop new areas for coffee plantations, which may even lead to gains in coffee production.
Kew Gardens in southwest London has one of the world's largest plant collections [Credit: AFP/Daniel Leal-Olivas]
Important plant areas
1,771 important plant areas have been identified globally but very few currently have conservation protection. In the UK alone, 165 such sites have been recognised, including parts of the Atlantic woodlands and the Celtic rainforests which are considered to be globally important. These sites include the Lizard in Cornwall, the Brecklands in East Anglia and parts of the west coast of Scotland. Important plant areas have also been identified in several of the UK Overseas Territories including the Falkland Islands and plans are underway to extend this programme to the Caribbean UK Overseas Territories.
Invasive species
A large movement of invasive alien plant species is also occurring. Nearly 5000 plant species are now documented as invasive in global surveys. These plants are causing large declines in native plants, damaging natural ecosystems, transforming land-cover and often causing huge economic losses. In the UK, this includes the highly invasive Japanese knotweed (Reynoutria japonica), introduced as an ornamental plant to Britain in the mid-19th century and costing Great Britain more than £165 million annually to control (report pages 48-51).
The report calls for closer collaboration between institutions and organisations working with invasive species to enable the establishment of a single global list that documents taxonomy, threat, distribution, control and other relevant information. Stricter enforcement of legislation and increased implementation of quarantine procedures would minimise the risk of further.
A technician picks up a sample of frozen DNA from a Ficus hispida at Kew Gardens [Credit: AFP/Daniel Leal-Olivas]
Plant diseases
There are many emerging threats also occurring with plant diseases, and research effort into these diseases is skewed towards countries with a wealthier research infrastructure.
Threats and extinction
Best estimates lead us to believe that 21% of the world's plants are currently threatened with extinction and ongoing monitoring will allow us to determine whether the trend is of plants slipping closer towards extinction or becoming less threatened.
Plants and policies
Although trade in plants supports livelihoods worldwide, illegal or unsustainable trade is causing additional pressure on wild biodiversity and strict enforcement of international legislation is crucial. Adoption and implementation of policies such as CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) have had demonstrable benefits and there is cause for optimism that the Nagoya Protocol will enhance the effectiveness with which countries conserve and utilise their biodiversity.
One of the main plant groups that are still widely traded are orchids, a fact confirmed by data from the UK borderforce. Of all plants plants seized at Heathrow airport in 2015 over 42% were wild orchids.
"This is the most significant horizon-scanning document to be released by Kew in recent decades and I hope as many people as possible will access the findings," said Richard Deverell, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
"Plants represent one of the most important constituents of biodiversity, the foundation of most of the world's ecosystems and hold the potential to tackle many of the world's present and future challenges. We are uniquely placed to unlock their importance and are proud to have both the catalogue of over 250 years of collections and active scientific field work globally that allows us to interpret the data so it will have multiple uses for generations to come," he added.
While searching through historical archives to find out more about the 15th-century climate of what is now Belgium, northern France, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, Chantal Camenisch noticed something odd. "I realised that there was something extraordinary going on regarding the climate during the 1430s," says the historian from the University of Bern in Switzerland.
One of the historical documents analysed by the team was a Bernese chronicle which contains the record 'Von einem grossen Sterbot zu Bernn' 1439 (About a great mortality in Bern 1439), Diebold Schilling, Amtliche Berner Chronik (1478-1483), vol. 2, Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Mss.h.h.I.2, p. 6 [Credit: Bern Burgerbibliothek, www.e-codices.unifr.ch]
Compared with other decades of the last millennium, many of the 1430s' winters and some springs were extremely cold in the Low Countries, as well as in other parts of Europe. In the winter of 1432-33, people in Scotland had to use fire to melt wine in bottles before drinking it. In central Europe, many rivers and lakes froze over. In the usually mild regions of southern France, northern and central Italy, some winters lasted until April, often with late frosts. This affected food production and food prices in many parts of Europe. "For the people, it meant that they were suffering from hunger, they were sick and many of them died," says Camenisch.
She joined forces with Kathrin Keller, a climate modeller at the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research in Bern, and other researchers, to find out more about the 1430s climate and how it impacted societies in northwestern and central Europe. Their results are published in >Climate of the Past, a journal of the European Geosciences Union.
Historical documents describing the impacts of the 1430s extraordinary climate [Credit: Zurich, Staatsarchiv]
They looked into climate archives, data such as tree rings, ice cores, lake sediments and historical documents, to reconstruct the climate of the time. "The reconstructions show that the climatic conditions during the 1430s were very special. With its very cold winters and normal to warm summers, this decade is a one of a kind in the 400 years of data we were investigating, from 1300 to 1700 CE," says Keller. "What cannot be answered by the reconstructions alone, however, is its origin -- was the anomalous climate forced by external influences, such as volcanism or changes in solar activity, or was it simply the random result of natural variability inherent to the climate system?"
There have been other cold periods in Europe's history. In 1815, the volcano Mount Tambora spewed large quantities of ash and particles into the atmosphere, blocking enough sunlight to significantly reduce temperatures in Europe and other parts of the world. But the 1430s were different, not only in what caused the cooling but also because they hadn't been studied in detail until now.
Lake sediments from lake Oeschinen, Switzerland [Credit: Benjamin Amann, University of Bern]
The climate simulations ran by Keller and her team showed that, while there were some volcanic eruptions and changes in solar activity around that time, these could not explain the climate pattern of the 1430s. The climate models showed instead that these conditions were due to natural variations in the climate system, a combination of natural factors that occurred by chance and meant Europe had very cold winters and normal to warm summers.
Regardless of the underlying causes of the odd climate, the 1430s were "a cruel period" for those who lived through those years, says Camenisch. "Due to this cluster of extremely cold winters with low temperatures lasting until April and May, the growing grain was damaged, as well as the vineyards and other agricultural production. Therefore, there were considerable harvest failures in many places in northwestern and central Europe. These harvest failures led to rising food prices and consequently subsistence crisis and famine.
Microscopic view of laminated sediments from Lake Oeschinen, Switzerland [Credit: Benjamin Amann, University of Bern]Microscopic view of laminated sediments from Lake Zabinskje in Poland [Credit: Christoph Butz, University of Bern]
Furthermore, epidemic diseases raged in many places. Famine and epidemics led to an increase of the mortality rate." In the paper, the authors also mention other impacts: "In the context of the crisis, minorities were blamed for harsh climatic conditions, rising food prices, famine and plague." However, in some cities, such as Basel, Strasbourg, Cologne or London, societies adapted more constructively to the crisis by building communal granaries that made them more resilient to future food shortages.
Keller says another decade of very cold winters could happen again. "However, such temperature variations have to be seen in the context of the state of the climate system. Compared to the 15th century we live in a distinctly warmer world. As a consequence, we are affected by climate extremes in a different way -- cold extremes are less cold, hot extremes are even hotter."
Finding clues to Earth's past climate in stalagmites [Credit: Adam Hasenfratz]
The team says their Climate of the Past study could help people today by showing how societies can be affected by extreme climate conditions, and how they should take precautions to make themselves less vulnerable to them. In the 1430s, people had not been exposed to such extreme conditions before and were unprepared to deal with the consequences.
"Our example of a climate-induced challenge to society shows the need to prepare for extreme climate conditions that might be coming sooner or later," says Camenisch. "It also shows that, to avoid similar or even larger crises to that of the 1430s, societies today need to take measures to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate interference."
Source: European Geosciences Union [December 01, 2016]
Killer whales in European waters face extinction due to outlawed but long-lived pollutants that also threaten several species of dolphins, according a study published in the journal >Scientific Reports.
Toxic chemicals known by the acronym PCBs are poisoning killer whales in European waters, and in some cases severely impeding their ability to reproduce, researchers reported [Credit: CSIP/ZSL]
Toxic chemicals known by the acronym PCBs are poisoning these marine mammals, and in some cases severely impeding their ability to reproduce, researchers reported.
Becoming more concentrated as they move up the food chain, PCBs settle into the fatty tissue of top ocean predators.
The deadly compounds—used in manufacturing and construction and banned across the European Union in 1987—can also be passed on to orca and dolphin calves suckling their mothers' milk.
"Few coastal orca populations remain in western European waters," said lead author Paul Jepson of the Zoological Society of London, noting that those in the Mediterranean and North Sea have already disappeared.
"The ones that do persist are very small and suffering low or zero rates of reproduction."
A community of 36 orcas, or killer whales, off the coast of Portugal—observed by scientists for decades—has not produced any offspring in more than ten years, the study reported.
An even smaller grouping near Scotland "will go extinct," Jepson told journalists by phone.
The death of a female known as Lulu, whose carcass was discovered on the Scottish island of Tiree last week, reduced this pod from nine to eight.
As well as direct observation, biopsies of individuals in the wild have also shown that these orca populations are not reproducing.
When female killer whales give birth, they transfer about 90 percent of the PCBs accumulated in their bodies—sometimes over decades—to their calves, purging themselves but poisoning their offspring.
Recent biopsies, however, revealed that all the females have the same level of PCB toxins in their system as males, evidence that they had not produced calves in the preceding years.
The toxic effect of PCBs on marine mammals was known, but this is the first overview—based on tissue samples from more than 1,000 stranded and biopsied whales, dolphins and orcas—of the extent of the damage.
Climbing the food chain
PCBs were widely used in manufacturing electrical equipment, paints and flame retardants. Designed to withstand weathering, they were also added to sealants used in buildings.
Europe produced some 300,000 tonnes of the compound from 1954 to 1984, and 90 percent of it has yet to be destroyed or safely stored away.
PCBs—which do not dissolve in water—reach the ocean via several routes.
"It is leaching from landfills into rivers and estuaries, and eventually into the marine environment," Jepson explained.
Sediment dredging to a depth of ten metres (30 feet) along shipping lanes in industrial ports brings the deadly chemicals to the surface.
From there, they gradually climb the food chain, becoming more toxic along the way: from bottom-feeding mollusks to crabs to small fish to the bigger fish eaten by orcas, dolphins and porpoises.
Further north, a healthier population of several thousand orcas living in waters near Iceland and northern Norway provide additional evidence that PCBs are, in fact, causing the decline of their cousins to the south.
Whereas the southern killer whales eat large fish and mammals, such as seals, the Arctic orcas subsist almost exclusively on herring.
Because herring eat plankton, they are outside the food chain along which PCBs climb, explaining why the northern orcas have ten times less PCB in their fatty tissue.
Disposing of land-based PCBs—made to resist heat, chemical attack and degradation—is difficult, Jepson said.
"They were designed to last a very long time, so it is incredibly hard to destroy them."
