Early human ancestor on display at London’s Natural History Museum

by Sean McLachlan on

The Natural History Museum in London has put an important fossil of one of our species’ early ancestors on display.

Australopithecus sediba lived 1.98 million years ago in what is now South Africa. It’s thought by some scientists to be a transition species between the more ape-like Australopithecines and the later, more human-like genus Homo. While it has the small brain size of the Australopithecines (although larger than most), its jaw and body look more like the Homo species. The hands are especially well-formed and it may have used tools.

Two exact replicas of the most complete Australopithecus sediba skeletons were recently donated to the museum by the University of the Witwatersrand and the Government of the Republic of South Africa. At the moment only one skull is on public view. Hopefully the full skeletons will go on display soon. It’s the first public exhibition of this species in the UK.

These are exciting times in paleontology. New human ancestors are unearthed almost yearly, and more and more of our family tree is being pieced together. At the same time, scientists are being forced to defend and explain their field of study to Creationists, who have already made up their minds that science and religion are automatically enemies.

The most impressive display of human evolution I’ve ever seen was at the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa. It has a huge collection of fossil hominids, including Lucy, an Australopithecus afarensis who lived in Ethiopia 3.2 million years ago. One room shows the precursors to modern humans arranged in chronological order to show how primate-like traits gradually gave way to a more human appearance. This is also done with other animals like the horse and hippo. Anyone looking, really looking, at these displays will have a hard time dismissing evolution as some sort of conspiracy on the part of Godless scientists, many of whom are actually devout Christians.

Photo courtesy Brett Eloff.

London’s Temple of Mithras is moving back to its original location

by Sean McLachlan on


London got its start as the Roman city of Londinium in the first century AD. Back then the so-called “mystery religions” were very popular in the Roman Empire. These cults, with their personal connections to the divine and secret rites, gave believers a more personal experience than the giant temples to Jupiter, Mars, and the rest of the standard pantheon. One of the most popular mystery religions was that of Mithras, an eastern deity whose worship appears to have been open only to men, mainly soldiers.

Since Mithraic rites were secret, not much is known about their beliefs, but there are many similarities between Mithraism and Christianity, such as Mithras being born on December 25 to a virgin, and having died and been resurrected for the salvation of mankind. Both faiths practiced baptism and communal meals. The similarities were so numerous that early Christian writers claimed the older religion was invented by the Devil as a cheap imitation of Christianity before Jesus was even born!

Temples to Mithras, called mithraea, have been found all over the Roman Empire, including one in the heart of London. The mithraeum in Roman London was discovered in 1952 and moved 90 meters away and set up on Queen Victoria St. The restoration wasn’t a completely accurate one. One major problem was that it was put on a podium when mithraea were generally underground.

Now the site has been bought by Bloomberg LP, which plans to build its European headquarters there. Bloomberg LP is going to dismantle the temple and put it back in its original location, according to a press release from the Museum of London Archaeology. The temple will be dismantled starting on November 21 and the corporation says the new reconstruction will be much more accurate. There’s no word yet on when this whole project will be completed. Such a large and delicate process will probably take several years.

Nazca lines face threats from elements, negligence

by Sean McLachlan on


The Nazca lines are some of the world’s most mysterious ancient monuments. Giant images of people, animals, plants, and geometric shapes scratched onto the surface of the Peruvian desert by three different cultures from 500 BC to 500 AD, they’ve made generations of researchers scratch their heads over their purpose and meaning.

Now it turns out these unique figures aren’t so unique after all. They’re among the many ancient wonders under threat from the natural and man-made causes. The UNESCO World Heritage Site has been listed in the World Monuments Fund’s 2012 Watch because of threats from flooding and tourism. As you can see from these pictures, roads actually cut through some of the images.

Popular Archaeology has reported that trash has accumulated at the site and that tourism facilities are crowding the area. Some mudslides and flooding nearby didn’t seriously hurt the designs, but serve as a warning of what could happen. The regional government is working on a plan to save the situation. The region makes a good deal of money from tourism, so they have every reason to preserve these enigmatic figures for the next generation.Sadly, there’s another threat to the Nazca lines–the threat of ignorance. Most of what you see about the lines in the media is New Age pseudoarchaeology about Atlantis and aliens. I’ve written before about how the ancient astronaut theory is racist, being implicitly based on the assumption that cultures with dark skin couldn’t possibly have scratched out designs in the dirt without help from beings from another planet.

Yes, they’re so big they can only be seen from the air, but all you have to do is make a smaller drawing you can see easily and then expand the dimensions to create your final product. There’s also a theory that the builders had hot air balloons, although there is no direct evidence of this. There’s no direct evidence that they were UFO runways either, like Erich von Däniken would have us believe. While I’m not sure I buy the balloon theory, that’s no reason to immediately jump to the least plausible explanation.

[Condor image courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Monkey image courtesy Maria Reiche]

Medieval pilgrims journeyed deep into Africa, archaeologists discover

by Sean McLachlan on


The Kingdom of Makuria is the quintessential forgotten civilization. Very few people have even heard of it, yet it ruled southern Sudan for hundreds of years and was one of the few kingdoms to defeat the Arabs during their initial expansion in the 7th century AD. Makuria was a Christian kingdom, born out of the collapse of the earlier Christian kingdom of Axum. Makuria survived as a bulwark of Christianity in medieval Africa until it finally collapsed in 1312.

Now excavations of some of its churches at Banganarti and Selib have revealed that this kingdom was a center of pilgrimage, attracting people from as far away as Catalonia, in modern Spain. The 2,300 mile journey from Spain to southern Sudan is a long one even today, but imagine when it had to be done on horseback, walking, and boats powered only by sails and oars. Yet an inscription records that one Catalan named Benesec made the journey almost a thousand years ago, probably to pray for a cure to an illness. “Benesec” was a popular Catalan name in the 13th and 14th centuries.

Another inscription with an accompanying painting shows a Muslim man, Deif Ali, making a pilgrimage to the church to pray for a cure to his blindness. This isn’t as unusual as it might sound. In regions where religions mingle, some people will go to holy places of the other religion. When I covered the Hindu pilgrimage of Kumbh Mela for Reuters back in 2001, I met Christians, Muslims, and Sikhs all coming to be a part of the religious festival.

Makurian artists produced some amazing religious frescoes, like this image of the birth of Jesus, courtesy Wikimedia Commons, and this closeup of St. Anne, also courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Both come from the cathedral of Faras, an important Makurian city.

The churches are in southern Sudan, not the new Republic of South Sudan. The nation of Sudan (the northern one) has many sites of archaeological and historical interest and is a popular destination for adventure travel.

Major tourist site restored in Herat, Afghanistan. Please send me there!

by Sean McLachlan on


While Afghanistan may not be high on your places-to-go list, the government is trying hard to offer more sightseeing opportunities.

A giant citadel overlooking the city of Herat has just reopened after several years and $2.4 million of restoration. The citadel dates back to when Alexander the Great’s armies marched across Afghanistan on their way to India in 330 BC. It was used by a succession of dynasties and cultures before being destroyed by the Mongols. Most of the current citadel dates to the 14th and 15th centuries.

The restoration was done with the help of the U.S. and German governments and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. The National Museum of Herat has opened inside the citadel, showcasing artifacts from the region’s long history.

The citadel was a favorite stop on the old Asian overland hippie trail in the 1960s and 70s popularized by Lonely Planet. While Afghanistan is courting tourists once again and a few hardy adventure travel companies such as Hinterland Travel are offering tours, only a trickle of visitors are coming to this ancient region.

Afghanistan has always been at the top of my list of places to go. I visited Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province in the 1990’s and spent several pleasant weeks among the Afghan communities there. Afghanistan’s long history and varied cultures would make a great Gadling series. I gave you Ethiopia, I gave you Somaliland, and I’d love to give you Afghanistan. . .

. . .but I can’t afford it. So I’m asking for your help. If you’d like to see a boots-on-the-ground series on Afghanistan written by yours truly, say so in the comments section and tell AOL to be my sugar daddy. I really want to go, and if enough of you vote, maybe they’ll send me! Tell your friends to vote too!

[Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons]