The Taliban destroyed Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Buddhas as religious idols in 2001. Now, a group of archaeological conservationists known as the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) wants to rebuild them, despite UNESCO’s decision that there wasn’t enough left of the larger statue to make that possible. Others argue that the money would be better spent developing infrastructure for the region and protecting culture heritage resources that haven’t been intentionally damaged. “Give it time and illicit treasure hunting, earthquakes, and old-fashioned freeze-thaw action will destroy more than the most single-minded iconoclast could ever dream of,” said Llewelyn Morgan, who has written a history of the sculptures.

Bulgarian archaeologists investigating the town of Tsarevo on the southern Black Sea coast have discovered a Thracian settlement dating to the fourth or fifth century B.C. This suggests that the area was settled 2,500 years earlier than previously thought.

New information on the length of an average generation for gorillas and chimpanzees has made it possible for scientists to recalculate the split between the ancestors of modern humans and apes. Molecular anthropologist Linda Vigilant of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology used data from genome sequencing to estimate the number of mutations per generation, and then used the new information on the length of an average generation to derive the yearly mutation rates. She adds that the resulting number would be more accurate than the current estimate of between four and six million years ago, which is based upon estimated mutation rates using fossils from other primate species. The new numbers suggest that the ancestors of humans and chimps split at least seven to eight million years ago, and the split from the ancestors of gorillas happened between eight and 19 million years ago. But have mutation rates remained constant?

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Thursday, August 23, 2012. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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