First humans arrived in Britain 250,000 years earlier than thought

Archaeologists digging on a Norfolk beach found stone tools that show the first humans were living in Britain much earlier than previously thought

Ian Sample, science correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 7 July 2010 18.04 BST
A spectacular haul of ancient flint tools has been recovered from a beach in Norfolk, pushing back the date of the first known human occupation of Britain by up to 250,000 years.
While digging along the north-east coast of East Anglia near the village of Happisburgh, archaeologists discovered 78 pieces of razor-sharp flint shaped into primitive cutting and piercing tools.
The stone tools were unearthed from sediments that are thought to have been laid down either 840,000 or 950,000 years ago, making them the oldest human artefacts ever found in Britain.
The flints were probably left by hunter-gatherers of the human species Homo antecessor who eked out a living on the flood plains and marshes that bordered an ancient course of the river Thames that has long since dried up. The flints were then washed downriver and came to rest at the Happisburgh site.
The early Britons would have lived alongside sabre-toothed cats and hyenas, primitive horses, red deer and southern mammoths in a climate similar to that of southern Britain today, though winters were typically a few degrees colder.
"These tools from Happisburgh are absolutely mint-fresh. They are exceptionally sharp, which suggests they have not moved far from where they were dropped," said Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London. The population of Britain at the time most likely numbered in the hundreds or a few thousand at most.
"These people probably used the rivers as routes into the landscape. A lot of Britain might have been heavily forested at the time, which would have posed a major problem for humans without strong axes to chop trees down," Stringer added. "They lived out in the open, but we don't know if they had basic clothing, were building primitive shelters, or even had the use of fire."
The discovery, reported in the journal Nature, overturns the long-held belief that early humans steered clear of chilly Britain – and the rest of northern Europe – in favour of the more hospitable climate of the Mediterranean. The only human species known to be living in Europe at the time is Homo antecessor, or "pioneer man", whose remains were discovered in the Atapuerca hills of Spain in 2008 and have been dated to between 1.1m and 1.2m years old.
The early settlers would have walked into Britain across an ancient land bridge that once divided the North Sea from the Atlantic and connected the country to what is now mainland Europe. The first humans probably arrived during a warm interglacial period, but may have retreated as temperatures plummeted in subsequent ice ages.
Until now, the earliest evidence of humans in Britain came from Pakefield, near Lowestoft in Suffolk, where a set of stone tools dated to 700,000 years ago were uncovered in 2005. More sophisticated stone, antler and bone tools were found in the 1990s in Boxgrove, Sussex, which are believed to be half a million years old.
"The flint tools from Happisburgh are relatively crude compared with those from Boxgrove, but they are still effective," said Stringer. Early stone tools were fashioned by using a pebble to knock large flakes off a chunk of flint. Later humans used wood and antler hammers to remove much smaller flakes and so make more refined cutting and sawing edges.
The great migration from Africa saw early humans reach Europe around 1.8m years ago. Within 500,000 years, humans had become established in the Mediterranean region. Remains have been found at several archaeological sites in Spain, southern France and Italy.
In an accompanying article in Nature, Andrew Roberts and Rainer Grün at the Australian National University in Canberra, write: "Until the Happisburgh site was found and described, it was thought that these early humans were reluctant to live in the less hospitable climate of northern Europe, which frequently fell into the grip of severe ice ages."
Researchers led by the Natural History Museum and British Museum in London began excavating sites near Happisburgh in 2001 as part of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project and soon discovered tools from the stone age beneath ice-age deposits. So far, though, they have found no remains of the ancient people who made them.
"This would be the 'holy grail' of our work," said Stringer. "The humans who made the Happisburgh tools may well have been related to the people of similar antiquity from Atapuerca in Spain, assigned to the species Homo antecessor, or 'pioneer man'."
The latest haul of stone tools was buried in sediments that record a period of history when the polarity of the Earth's magnetic field was reversed. At the time, a compass needle would have pointed south instead of north. The last time this happened was 780,000 years ago, so the tools are at least that old.
Analysis of ancient vegetation and pollen in the sediments has revealed that the climate was warm but cooling towards an ice age, which points to two possible times in history, around 840,000 years ago, or 950,000 years ago. Both dates are consistent with the fossilised remains of animals recovered from the same site.
"Britain was getting cooler and going into an ice age, but these early humans were hanging in there. They may have been the remnants of an ancient population that either died out or migrated back across the land bridge to a warmer climate," said Stringer.

Sanchi stupas.

In 75 B.C., the tenth king of the Shunga dynasty, Devahuti (also known as Devabhumi) was murdered through a conspiracy by the minister Vasudeva, who founded the short-lived dynasty of Kanvas. Four Kanva kings ruled for only forty-five years; their dynasty’s end came at the hands of the Andhras in 30 B.C. The Sanchi stupas near Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh were built during this period, but it is not possible to trace the precise contribution of the Kanva rulers to this building complex.

The Sanchi region is full of stupas, which number 60 in all: 8 in Sonar; 5 in Satadhara; 3 in Andher; 37 in Bhojpur; and 7 in Sanchi. Most of these are miniature; only a few are large. The building of stupas commenced in the third century B.C., when Ashoka, then governor, married Devi, the daughter of a local businessman. He selected the site of the hillock, which after the construction of the great stupa was known as Mahachetiya. The dimensions of the original stupa are known, though the existing stupa was built two centuries later. A portion of the original Ashokan pillar can still be seen near the southern gate.

The Mahachetiya (Stupa I) is 54 feet (16.5 m) high and covers a circular area 120 feet (36.5 m) in diameter. The hemispherical dome has a truncated top, surrounded by a low railing (harmika) consisting of a stone shaft topped by umbrellas (chhatravali). The body of the stupa is made of bricks surrounded by stone balustrades. At the ground level runs the pathway for clockwise circumambulation around the stupa during worship. This path is surrounded by a railing with 9-foot (2.7 m)-high pillars, placed at an interval of 2 feet (.6 m), with three crossbars. Unlike the Bharhut railing, the Sanchi railing is uncarved.

The four gateways that provide access to the stupa, however, are of great aesthetic merit. An inscription on the southern entrance records that it was executed by the guild of ivory carvers of Vidisha. The minute, low-carved renderings vary from gate to gate, although some episodes have been repeated. The representations are of Jatakas (previous births of the Buddha), life events, yakshas, nagas, mythical beings, nymphs, flora and fauna, processions, and a number of decorative motifs. Like Bharhut and Bodh Gaya¯, Sanchi also suggests the presence of the Buddha through symbols. Similarly, Gajalakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, is standing on a lotus, anointed by two elephants. The number of Jataka tales narrated here is only four, while at Bharhut no fewer than thirty are depicted. Nevertheless, the stupa at Sanchi is one of the most impressive examples of ancient Indian art.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Agrawala, V. S. Indian Art. Varanasi: Prithivi Prakasham, 1965. Arthashastra of Kautilya. Chap. 2. Translated and edited by L. N. Tangarajan. New Delhi and New York: Penguin, 1992. Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. History of Indian and Indonesian Art. New York: Dover, 1965. Gupta, Swarajya P. The Roots of Indian Art. New Delhi: D. K. Publishers, 1980. Lohuizen-De Leeuw, J. E. van. The Scythian Period: An Approach to the History, Art, Epigraphy, and Palaeography of North India from the First Century B.C. to the Third Century A.D. Leiden: A. J. Brill, 1949. Ray, Niharranjan R. Maurya and Post Maurya Art: A Study in Social and Formal Contrasts. New Delhi: Thomson, 1975. Raychaudhuri, Hemchandra C. Political History of Ancient India. Rev. ed. Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Saraswati, S. K. Survey of Indian Sculpture. New Delhi: Munishiram Manoharlal, 1975. Sharma, R. C. Bharhut Sculpture. New Delhi: Abhinav, 1994. ———. The Splendour of Mathura Art and Museum. New Delhi: D. K. Printworld, 1994. ———. Buddhist Art: Mathura School. 1995. ———. “Development of Indian Sculpture from Mauryan to the Kushana Period.” In Life, Thought, and Culture in India: From 600 B.C. to c. A.D. 300, edited by G. C. Pande. New Delhi: Munishiram Manoharlal, 2001. Smith, Vincent A. The Jain Stupa and Other Antiquities of Mathura. 1901. Reprint, Varanasi: Indological Book House, 1969.

WHIRLWIND

Russia
The personification of a whirlwind, sometimes referred to as Vikhor'. In one story he abducts Nastas'ya of the Golden Braid, the wife of Bel Belyanin and mother of Peter Belyaninovich, Vasilii Belyaninovich, and Ivan Belyaninovich, and keeps her in a wondrous palace encrusted with diamonds and other precious stones on a plateau atop a high mountain range. There he also holds three maidens captive as the tsaritsas of his three kingdoms—the Copper Kingdom, the Silver Kingdom, and the Golden Kingdom, the tsaritsa of the latter being Elena the Fair. Each of the four palaces in Whirlwind’s realm was guarded by a multi-headed dragon that could only be placated with water drawn from a well nearby.

Whirlwind renewed his strength periodically from a barrel that contained a magical water that bestowed great strength on anyone who drank it. He also kept a second barrel, which contained a water that sapped the drinker’s strength. These two barrels ultimately were his downfall.

Ivan and his two brothers set off to search for their lost mother. Ivan finally found her, after climbing the tall mountains and passing through the three kingdoms. Nastas'ya of the Golden Braid told Ivan of Whirlwind’s secret, and by drinking of the strength increasing water and then swapping that with the strength-sapping one, Ivan was able to defeat Whirlwind, cutting off his head with a single blow, burning his body, and scattering the ashes in the wind.

Whirlwind had two servants, Lame and One-Eye, who could work wondrous magic. After Whirlwind’s death, these two served Ivan.

Bathymetric map

A bathymetric map is a map that measures water depth across an underwater area. Although many people think of bathymetric maps as measuring ocean depths, this type of mapping can also apply to seas and lakes. A bathymetric map is a lot like a topographical map, except that the features contained in it are underwater. It may use various representations, including color and contour lines, to represent ocean or sea depth in a particular area. Some bathymetric maps use what's called a digital terrain model (DTM) to show how underwater depth levels differ in a region.

When cartographers began to make bathymetric maps, depth was often found by lowering some type of physical probe down into a body of water. This method could be time consuming and inaccurate. In modern times, this method has been replaced by sonar to give mapmakers a much better picture of what's on an ocean floor.

A bathymetric map can serve many different functions. Many of these types of maps give navigators a better understanding of underwater features that could threaten the safety of the specific sea path for a boat or vessel. A bathymetric map can also be helpful in diving missions, where search parties are looking to identify something located on an ocean or sea bottom, from a lost ship to jettisoned cargo. Many interesting undersea diving missions that have unearthed long-sunk treasures or famous lost ships have taken advantage of bathymetric mapping to more easily reach an undersea location. Bathymetric mapping is also used for "paleobathymetry," the study of ancient changes to underwater topography.

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