Word: ancient
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...Museum. Merely 5 feet 4 inches tall, I gazed up at almost 12 feet of canvas. The painting left me dumb-struck as it brilliantly resonated with a passion, power, and emotion as if it were a living thing. The colossal mural commemorates the brutal aerial bombardment of the ancient Basque town Guernica by German and Italian squadrons during the Spanish Civil War. As a modern historical painting, it draws on archetypal images such as bulls, horses, and melancholy women—particularly Spanish themes but nevertheless universal. These images, fragmented and pained, startlingly convey the horrific bombing without resorting...
...uncomfortable message for the illegal collectors and dealers. The skulls may have been smuggled out of reach of the p.n.g. authorities, but locals believe their protective spirits travel with them. In their new resting places, looking out at comfortable Western living rooms from expensive display cases, ancient malevolent magic may yet be brewing...
...What has riveted archaeologists since the 2003 discovery of this ancient cemetery at Teouma, on the main island of Efate, is that it's not only the oldest burial ground ever found in the region but dates back around 3,000 years - to when people first arrived in this part of the world. Never before has such a large collection of skeletal remains from these early wanderers, known as the Lapita people, been found. Excavations by an international team working with the Vanuatu National Museum began last year, followed by a second, more extensive dig, which finished last week...
...contained a jawbone from another skull, which hasn't been found. In the past few weeks, another 10 individuals have been found, interred in a range of unusual positions - some lying on their side, others with their legs apart or face down, a fate sometimes associated in ancient burials with those guilty of awful crimes. One female was found laid carefully on her back, with all her vertebrae in place but her ribs and one foot missing; another had its feet resting on a coral shelf. These skeletons too were headless; some had had their clavicles removed as well. Teeth...
...farmers of Taiwan before moving through Melanesia and into Polynesia, or whether the Lapita culture was indigenous to the Bismarck Archipelago. In Auckland, Matisoo-Smith's lab has begun the intricate task of following that trail by trying to extract dna from the bones. Only one other study of ancient dna, collected from a range of younger sites, has ever been done in the region, and it was undertaken, Matisoo-Smith says, when less rigorous protocols produced less reliable results. While her results are still incomplete, Matisoo-Smith says the Teouma bones, along with information from the bones...