Archaeological treasure trove found at Three Gorges Project in China

by Sean McLachlan on

Archaeologists excavating during the Three Gorges dam project in China have discovered nearly a quarter of a million artifacts, the state-run Xinhua News Agency says.

The world’s largest dam project has created a reservoir that’s 410 miles long and more than half a mile wide. Before that reservoir was flooded, China spent $285 million to hunt for cultural treasures, at times using teams of more than a thousand archaeologists. They’ve uncovered artifacts ranging from medieval statues to early stone tools two million years old. While the sites they came from are now lost beneath the water, the artifacts they yielded will give fresh insight into China’s long history.

Now museums across China are busy conserving the artifacts and hopefully soon many of them will be on display for China’s growing tourist industry.

The Three Gorges Project is itself becoming a tourist attraction. It’s the largest dam project in the world, and the largest electrical generating facility. It’s also highly controversial because it displaced 1.3 million people.

[Photo courtesy user Rehman via Wikimedia Commons]

5000 year old navigation system discovered

by Kraig Becker on

A primitive, yet highly effective, navigation system was used by ancient man to navigate their way across England and Wales historians claim, proving once again that ancient civilizations were far more sophisticated in their approach to engineering than was once thought.

According to this story from the Daily Mail, the 5000 year old “sat nav” system used stone monuments, often erected atop high hills, to point the way to similar points, sometimes as far as 100 miles away. This intricate network of stone monoliths, which includes Stonehenge, created a system that would allow ancient travelers to navigate across long distances with an accuracy of within 100 meters.

British Historian Tom Brooks used modern GPS systems to examine more than 1500 historical sites, and his findings were astounding. Each of the sites was connected to one another by vast geometric grid made of of isosceles triangles, in which each triangle has two sides of the same length, and pointed to the next settlement, thus allowing for simple and effective navigation across the landscape.

If Brook’s assertion that the system was created over 5000 years ago is correct, the use of geometry predates that of the Greeks, who were thought to have discovered that branch of mathematics. He also claims that it is the “world’s biggest civil engineering project” as well.

The implications of this theory are very interesting, and it does help to explain what the purpose of sites such as Stonehenge were used for, although their method of construction still remains a mystery. This is a fascinating story of how prehistoric man may have found their way across long distances.
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