Tocones de árboles muertos hace al menos 4.500 años han quedado descubiertos en la costa de Gales tras el temporal de lluvias torrenciales que ha asolado el Reino Unido
Las fuertes lluvias han
dejado al descubierto un paisaje cautivador y misterioso en la bahía de Cardigan, en la costa de Gales.
Los restos de un bosque prehistórico han resurgido de debajo de la turba, según han relatado varios medios británicos,
en la bahía situada entre los pueblos de Borth, Ceredigion y Mid Wales.
Las tormentas despojaron a la playa de las miles de toneladas de arena
que la constituían y mostraron cientos de tocones de árboles muertos
hace entre 4.500 y 6.000 años.
Los científicos han identificado entre los restos del bosque prehistórico tocones de pino, aliso, roble y abedul.
Ésta,
sin embargo, no es la primera vez que el bosque resurge de la bahía.
Los restos han podido ser vistos en otras ocasiones en las que las
tormentas también han mellado la zona, como en 2010, cuando parte de los
tocones sobresalió sobre la turba, convirtiendo temporalmente la zona
en un centro de atracción turística. [...] lavanguardia.com
Video: See the 5,000-year-old forest unearthed by storms
Vídeo YouTube por sai ram el 21/02/2014 añadido a Paleo Vídeos > Prehistoria Universal > L.R.2.6 nº 27.
1/3. These 20,000-year-old shell artifacts, on display in Naha, have chips at their tops and are believed to have served as blades. (Shunsuke Nakamura) |
It was Japan’s oldest concurrent discovery of both human bones and artifacts.
Around 40 fragments of shells of the Veneridae family, ledge mussels and other species were found that are believed to have been used as tools by humans.
A human tooth and a foot bone were also found in the same geological formation. Carbon dating of charcoal from the same formation indicated the remains were 20,000 to 23,000 years old.
Also unearthed were two tusk shell fragments believed to have been used as beads, museum officials said.
3/3. Beads made of tusk shells (Shunsuke Nakamura) |
Recent studies by the Okinawa museum have turned out 8,000-year-old earthenware--Okinawa’s oldest--and human bones and stone tools at the Sakitari-do cave site that are more than 12,000 years old.
Bones are preserved better in the typically calcareous soil of Okinawa than in the acidic soil of mainland Japan. This accounts for the large number of human bones from the Paleolithic Age found in these southern islands, while such finds are rare in the rest of the country.
Anthropologists and archaeologists had long been puzzled by the absence of artifacts accompanying Paleolithic human bones from Okinawa.
If any implements were to be found, experts had expected them to be made of stone, like those unearthed on the Japanese mainland. The shells from the cave site dramatically countered that accepted theory.
“The discovery of tools other than stone implements indicates there was cultural diversity in the Paleolithic Age,” said Shinji Yamasaki, a curator with the museum.
The latest finds also help prove the adaptive ability of prehistoric humans, who relied on a variety of readily available materials depending on their environment.
Experts have held high hopes for studies on shell artifacts used as tools to provide clues on the cultural genealogy of the ancestors of modern Japanese people. Such tools could show the influence of marine cultures of islands to the south, where the use of shells has a long tradition.
In fact, a dominant anthropological theory says the ancestors of the Japanese had southern traits in their skeletal builds, such as well-defined facial features. Some argue that Paleolithic humans traveled north by way of the sea via the Okinawa islands before arriving on Japan’s mainland and creating the Jomon culture about 12,000 years ago.
While that theory has little material evidence for support, the latest discovery could provide a push to revisit that hypothesis. SHUNSUKE NAKAMURA / ajw.asahi.com