December Solstice Traditions and Customs

 

 

 

What happens at the solstice?

The North Pole is tilted furthest away from the sun at the solstice. (Illustration not to scale)

The December solstice occurs when the sun reaches its most southerly declination of -23.5 degrees. In other words, it is when the North Pole is tilted 23.5 degrees away from the sun. Depending on the Gregorian calendar, the December solstice occurs annually on a day between December 20 and December 23. On this date, all places above a latitude of 66.5 degrees north (Arctic Polar Circle) are now in darkness, while locations below a latitude of 66.5 degrees south (Antarctic Polar Circle) receive 24 hours of daylight.
Use the Sunrise and Sunset calculator to find the number of daylight hours during the December solstice in cities worldwide.
The sun is directly overhead on the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere during the December solstice. It also marks the longest day of the year in terms of daylight hours for those living south of the equator. Those living or travelling south from the Antarctic Circle towards the South Pole will see the midnight sun during this time of the year.
On the contrary, for an observer in the northern hemisphere, the December solstice marks the day of the year with the least hours of daylight. Those living or traveling north of the Arctic Circle towards the North Pole will not be able to see the sun during this time of the year.

Solstice’s influence on Christmas

 Yule is also known as Alban Arthan and was one of the “Lesser Sabbats” of the Wiccan year.

In modern times Christians all over the world celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on Christmas, which falls on December 25. However, it is believed that this date was chosen to offset pagan celebrations of Saturnalia and Natalis Invicti. Some believe that celebrating the birth of the “true light of the world” was set in synchronization with the December solstice because from that point onwards, the days began to have more daylight in the northern hemisphere.

Christmas is also referred to as Yule, which may have derived from the Norse word jól, referring to the pre-Christian winter solstice festival. Yule is also known as Alban Arthan and was one of the “Lesser Sabbats” of the Wiccan year in a time when ancient believers celebrated the rebirth of the Sun God and days with more light. This took place annually around the time of the December solstice and lasted for 12 days. The Lesser Sabbats fall on the solstices and equinoxes.
The Feast of Juul was a pre-Christian festival observed in Scandinavia at the time of the December solstice. Fires were lit to symbolize the heat, light and life-giving properties of the returning sun. A Yule or Juul log was brought in and burned on the hearth in honor of the Scandinavian god Thor.
A piece of the log was kept as both a token of good luck and as kindling for the following year’s log. In England, Germany, France and other European countries, the Yule log was burned until nothing but ash remained. The ashes were then collected and either strewn on the fields as fertilizer every night until Twelfth Night or kept as a charm and or as medicine.
French peasants believed that if the ashes were kept under the bed, they would protect the house against thunder and lightning. The present-day custom of lighting a Yule log at Christmas is believed to have originated in the bonfires associated with the feast of Juul.

¿Qué tiene la Constitución de 1978 que no tuvieron las que la precedieron en la historia política española?

La Constitución de 1978 ha sido la primera en nuestra historia que una parte del país no impuso a la otra parte. Esa –la de la imposición del ganador– había sido nuestra triste historia colectiva hasta que la Constitución ahora en vigor rompió con el pasado. Un pasado –no debéis olvidarlo si queréis valorar justamente las virtudes y defectos del texto constitucional que hoy rige nuestra vida colectiva– que era, por utilizar una expresión propia de la época, el del trágala: los que se alzaban con el poder (fuera por medios legales: las elecciones; o por medios ilegales: los golpes de Estado, los pronunciamientos o las revoluciones) imponían a los perdedores sus reglas de juego, sus principios y valores –es decir, su Constitución–, que los perdedores debían tragarse (de ahí el trágala ) como quien se ve obligado a comerse a la fuerza un plato que le resulta más o menos repulsivo. Esa práctica de la imposición del ganador acabó convirtiéndose con el tiempo en una práctica política que, a fuerza de ser habitual, acabó pareciendo a todos, completamente natural: el ganador imponía su Constitución a los demás, que esperaban desde entonces su ocasión para imponer la suya por su cuenta, en cuanto cambiasen las tornas y alcanzasen el poder. La imagen que muchas veces hemos utilizado para explicar tal situación es la del péndulo de un reloj. Nuestra historia política y constitucional sería así una historia pendular, en la que el país habría venido oscilando de derecha a izquierda, y de izquierda a derecha, entre conservadurismo y progresismo, entre avance y retroceso, entre reacción y revolución. Lo cierto es, sin embargo, que en cuanto uno se acerca a esa realidad de nuestra historia con algo más de calma, resulta posible llegar a una conclusión que matiza un poco esa visión pendular de la evolución del constitucionalismo español. Y es que –fijaos– por debajo de esa historia marcada por los gritos opuestos de ¡Viva la Constitución! y ¡Muera la Constitución!, es decir, por debajo de esa sucesión constante de Constituciones y de períodos constituyentes de diferente signo político, de oscilaciones del péndulo de derecha a izquierda y viceversa, la verdad es que a lo largo de nuestra historia colectiva se fueron configurando todo un amplio conjunto de instituciones de poder, y de culturas y prácticas políticas, muy impermeables a las reformas democráticas que, con el tiempo, terminarán haciendo muy difícil la consolidación, a lo largo del siglo XIX, de un Estado constitucional digno de tal nombre; y, ya en el siglo XX, de un Estado democrático. Basta para comprobar hasta que punto las cosas sucedieron de ese modo con realizar una sencilla operación: sí, basta con hacer cuentas del tiempo en que, por seguir con esa imagen de la España pendular, el péndulo permaneció de un lado y no del otro. De los ciento sesenta y seis años transcurridos entre 1812 (cuando se aprobó nuestra primera Constitución: la de Cádiz) y 1978 (cuando se aprobó la que actualmente rige nuestra vida colectiva) España sufrió sesenta y dos años de negación radical del constitucionalismo (los del sexenio absolutista, la década ominosa, y las dictaduras de Miguel Primo de Rivera y Francisco Franco); y sobrevivió otros sesenta y ocho años de constitucionalismo cerrado y ficticio: los transcurridos mientras estuvieron vigentes el texto constitucional de los moderados (el de 1845) y el de los conservadores (el de 1876). En contraste contundente con esos largos ciento treinta años, bien poco significarán los algo más de treinta en los que, a trancas y barrancas, la vida política española estuvo marcada por Constituciones que, verdaderamente, podían recibir tal nombre: las de 1812, 1837 y 1869, durante el siglo XIX; y la de la II República española, aprobada esta última, en medio de una esperanza y una ilusión popular desconocidas hasta entonces, en 1931. Pero esa incapacidad a la que me vengo refiriendo no lo fue sólo para construir un régimen político plenamente democrático, capaz de reconocer la creciente pluralidad política, social, territorial, religiosa y cultural existente en España, sino también para imponer unas reglas de juego aceptadas por la inmensa mayoría de los españoles con la finalidad de dar una salida civil, y por tanto, civilizada, a la lucha de partidos a través de la cual se manifestaba (y, en ocasiones, se azuzaba) el enfrentamiento entre españoles. Esa doble incapacidad acabaría conduciendo finalmente al más terrible drama de nuestra historia común: a una guerra civil devastadora (la de 1936 a 1939), consecuencia directa de un levantamiento militar contra la II República española, guerra que iba a desembocar en una larga y terrible dictadura. Por eso cuando tras la muerte del dictador Francisco Franco España va recuperando poco a poco su libertad, todos los grandes problemas de nuestra experiencia colectiva estaban allí, como congelados, esperándonos, lo que nos obligó a afrontarlos de nuevo para tratar, ahora sí, de darles una solución definitiva. Ese intento es el que explica el sentido de nuestra actual Constitución, un texto de amplio consenso, es decir, de gran acuerdo entre todos los que participaron en su elaboración, con la que se trató de lograr un auténtico pacto nacional para la convivencia en paz y en libertad, mediante un método sencillo, pero no por ello menos meritorio: el consistente en no introducir en la Constitución ninguna norma, regla o principio que resultase absolutamente inaceptable para alguna de las fuerzas políticas que, en representación del pueblo español, redactaron su articulado. El consenso frente al trágala : ese fue el cambio que introdujo en la historia política española la Constitución de 1978, aprobada, primero, por la inmensa mayoría de los diputados y senadores que participaron en las Cortes Constituyentes; y, después, por la inmensa mayoría de los ciudadanos cuando, tras la aprobación por las Cortes Generales (que forman el Congreso de los Diputados y el Senado) fue sometida a referéndum nacional del pueblo español.
Zona joven del Congreso sobre la Constitución

Democracy

A democracy is a form of government in which the people, either directly or indirectly, take part in governing. The word democracy originates from Greek, and means rule of the people.

Distinctions
Democratic governments can be divided into different types, based on a number of different distinctions. The most important distinction is between direct democracy and indirect democracy. The latter type is the most common one. A direct democracy is a political system in which all citizens are allowed to influence policy by means of a direct vote, or referendum, on any particular issue. Indirect democracy is a term describing a means of governance by the people through elected representatives. A representative democracy is a system in which the people elect government officials who then make decisions on their behalf. This is often referred to as Republic, particularly in historical usages and in constitutional theory. Modern definitions of that term, however, refer to any State with an elective Head of State and most monarchies are representative democracies.  Essentially, a representative democracy is a form of indirect democracy in which leaders and representatives are democratically selected. A doctrine ofter known as Edmund Burke's Principle states that representatives should act upon their own conscience in the affairs of a representative democracy. There is also an expectation that such representatives should consider the views of their electors - particularly in the case of States with strong constituiency links. Some critics of representative democracy argue that party politics mean that representatives will be forced to follow the party line on issues, rather than either the will of their conscience or constituents.  Another form of indirect democracy is delegative democracy. In delegative democracy, delegates are selected and expected to act on the wishes of the constituency. In this form of democracy the constituency may recall the delegate at any time. One critique of delegative democracy is that it can be used to filter out the will of the base element if too many layers are added to the structure of decision making. One important issue in a democracy is the suffrage, or the franchise - that is the decision as to who ought to be entitled to vote. Recent example of how the "right to vote" changed over history is New Zealand, which was the first country to give women the right to vote (19 September 1893). In the Athenian democracy, slaves and women were prohibited from voting.  Another important concern in a democracy is the so-called "tyranny of the majority". In a pure democracy, a majority would be empowered to do anything it wanted to any unfavored minority. For example, in a pure democracy it is theoretically possible for a majority to vote that a certain religion should be illegalized, and its members punished with death. In some countries, their Constitution intentionally designs a representative rather than a direct democracy in part to avoid the danger of the tyranny of the majority. Some proponents of direct democracy argue that not all direct democracies need to be pure democracies. They argue that just as there is a special constitutional process for amending articles in the constitutions of traditional Republics, there could be a distinction between legislation which would be handled through direct democracy and the modification of constitutional rights which would have a more deliberative procedure there attached.

Direct and Representative Democracy.  Direct democracy becomes more and more difficult, and necessarily more closely approximates representative democracy, as the number of citizens grows. Historically, the most direct democracies would include the New England town meeting, and the political system of the ancient Greek city states.

 

We can view direct and indirect democracies as ideal types, with actual democracies approximating more closely to the one or the other. Some modern political entities are closest to direct democracies, such as Switzerland or some U.S. States, where frequent use is made of referenda, and means are provided for referenda to be initiated by petition instead of by members of the legislature or the government.

However, elections are not a sufficient condition for the existence of democracy, in fact elections can be used by totalitarian regimes or dictatorships to give a false sense of democracy. Some examples are 1960s right-wing military dicatorships in South America, left-wing totalitarian states like the USSR until 1991 or the more prominent III Reich, in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s.

Representative democracy is the most commonly used system of government in countries generally considered "democratic".

However, it should be noted that the definition used to classify countries as "democratic" was crafted by Europeans and is directly influenced by the dominating cultures in those countries; care should be taken when applying it to other cultures that are tribal in nature and do no have the same historical background as the current "democratic" countries.

 

Discussion on Direct Democracy

The traditional, and to many still compelling, objection to direct democracy as a form of government is that it is open to demagoguery. It is for this reason that the United States was established as, in the terminology used at the time , a "republic" rather than a "democracy". Thus Benjamin Franklin's famous answer, to the question as to what sort of government the "Founding Fathers" had established, was: "A Republic, if you can keep it."

 

Alternative Definition of 'Democracy'

There is another definition of democracy from that given above, though it is less commonly used. According to this definition, the word "democracy" refers solely to direct democracy, whilst a representative democracy is referred to as a "republic". Using this definition, most western coutries' system of government is referred to as a "democratic-republic," rather than a democracy.

The words "democracy" and "republic" were wrongly used by some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. They argued that only a representative democracy (what they called a 'republic') could properly protect the rights of the individual; they used the word 'democracy' to refer to direct democracy, which they considered tyrannical.

From the time of old Greece up to now the definition of the word "democracy" has changed, according to most political scientists today (and most common English speakers) the term "democracy" refers to a government chosen by the people, whether it be direct or representative. The term "republic" today commonly means, a politicial system with a head of state elected for a limited term, as opposed to a constitutional monarchy.

Note however that the older terms are still sometimes used in discussions of politicial theory, especially when considering the works of Aristotle or the American "Founding Fathers". This older terminology also has some popularity in conservative and Libertarian politics in the United States.



NEWS ABOUT STONEHENGE

The people who built Stonehenge in southern England thousands of years ago had wild parties, eating barbecued pigs and smashing up pottery. This is according to recent work by archaeologists—history experts who investigate how human beings lived in the past.

Archaeologists digging near Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain last year discovered the remains of a large prehistoric village where they think the builders of the mysterious stone circle used to live.

The village was shown to be about 4,600 years old, the same age as Stonehenge and as old as the pyramids in Egypt. The village is less than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from Stonehenge and lies inside a massive manmade circular earthwork, or “henge,” known as Durrington Walls.

Remains found at the site included jewelry, stone arrowheads, tools made of deer antlers, and huge amounts of animal bones and broken pottery. These finds suggest Stone Age people went to the village at special times of the year “to feast and party,” says Mike Parker Pearson from Sheffield University in England.

He said many of the pig bones they found had been thrown away half-eaten. He also said the partygoers appeared to have shot some of the farm pigs with arrows, possibly as a kind of sport before barbecuing them.

An ancient road which led from the village to a river called the Avon was also unearthed. Here, the experts think, people came after their parties to throw dead relatives in the water so the bodies would be washed downstream to Stonehenge.

The experts believe Stonehenge was a like a cemetery where ancient Britons buried the dead and remembered their ancestors. “The theory is that Stonehenge is a kind of spirit home to the ancestors,” Parker Pearson says.

Next to the village there was a giant wooden version of the famous stone circle. Archaeologists say this timber circle, which was only temporary because it eventually rotted away, was a symbol of life. Stonehenge, on the other hand, was a permanent symbol of the afterlife.

Parker Pearson says the recent discoveries made around the newly found village show that Stonehenge didn’t stand alone but was part of a much bigger religious site.

People still come to worship and celebrate at Stonehenge today. They meet there when the sun sets on the shortest day of winter and when it rises on the longest day of summer. But the days of barbecuing whole pigs there and throwing family members into the river are a thing of the past.
Text by James Owen

 

LEARN ABOUT THE RENAISSENCE PAINTING WITH THIS FASCINATING VIDEO ABOUT BOTTICELLI

 

 

THE PRIVATE LIFE OF A MASTERPIECE

LA PRIMAVERA DE BOTTICELLI

HISTORIA DE ALMERÍA

Que Almería es un lugar con historia, queda lejos de toda duda; fenicios, romanos y árabes entre otros, dejaron su impronta allá por donde pasaron. La mayor parte de dicha huella quedó perceptiblemente plasmada en sus numerosos pueblos y ciudades, en sus monumentos, calles, edificios.

Pero, la historia de la capital comienza, como no podía ser de otro modo, en el Cerro de la Alcazaba, que fue poblado ya en época prehistórica, en la Edad de Bronce. Después llegaron los fenicios, y algo más tarde los romanos quienes ocuparon la zona desde el primer siglo de la era a las últimas producciones de cerámica fina.

La gran historia de Almería comienza en efecto con la ocupación musulmana, iniciada el año 713 a manos fundamentalmente de poblaciones de origen bereber y yemení, cuya más pronta aportación fue la remodelación sustancial del paisaje y método agrícola.

Las primeras noticias fidedignas sobre la Almería Musulmana se remontan al siglo IX, cuando Abd al-Rahman encomendó la vigilancia de la costa a un grupo de yemeníes con el fin de impedir el desembarco de los normandos. Junto a la población autóctona, se formó una república de marinos con sede en Pechina, y cuya prosperidad se basaba en el comercio, especialmente con el Norte de África.

Pechina se engrandeció y adquirió características de verdadera ciudad, siendo Almería en los siglos IX y 1º mitad del X, el barrio marítimo de Bayyana, habitado por comerciantes y pescadores y defendido por una torre vigía o atalaya, para así controlar fácilmente la bahía.

La torre de vigilancia se situaba en lo más alto del Cerro de la Alcazaba, en lo que hoy es el tercer recinto. De esta torre vigía o atalaya procede el nombre de la ciudad: Al-mariyat Bayyana, la atalaya de Pechina.

La fundación oficial de la ciudad en 955, año en que Abderramán III (o Abd-er-Rahman) ordenó iniciar las obras de una fortaleza, la Alcazaba, cuyo objetivo era defender el área de la amenaza que suponía el califato fatimí, oriundo de Túnez. La Alcazaba se convierte así en la fortaleza musulmana más grande de España y de Europa, con 43.000 metros cuadrados que le permitían albergar todo un destacamento militar de 20.000 hombres, los palacios de los sucesivos reyes e incluso lugares de resguardo para la población en caso de ataque.

De la época musulmana se conservan innumerables restos. A la Alcazaba y los restos de la mezquita mayor hay que sumar los aljibes de Jairán. También se conservan lienzos de la muralla del puerto y restos de la puerta de Pechina, en el subsuelo de la Rambla Obispo Orberá.

En 1489 los Reyes Católicos conquistaron Almería. El siglo XVI es el siglo del retroceso y abandono de la ciudad y la provincia. Especialmente funesto fue el seísmo de 1522, que destruyó la ciudad casi completamente y redujo la población a tan solo 700 habitantes que se asentaron en torno a la catedral de nueva construcción. La Catedral de Almería es un gran ejemplo de edificio defensivo de la época. La segunda mitad del siglo XVI estuvo marcada en toda la provincia por el levantamiento y posterior expulsión de la población morisca. Los siglos XVII y XVIII son quizá los más desconocidos de la historia almeriense. En esta época las condiciones de despoblación y aislamiento son penosas, sin embargo, hay una gran actividad cultural y etnológica. En 1640 se edita el primer libro en Almería.

El siglo XIX rubricó la lenta recuperación iniciada los dos siglos anteriores. Almería fue testigo de una segunda edad de plata, sobre todo a finales de la centuria, que tuvo su origen en la apertura comercial y la consolidación de la minería y la agricultura desde las primeras décadas de siglo.
La fisonomía de la ciudad sufrirá un cambio drástico en lo que se ha venido a llamar la evolución de ciudad conventual a ciudad burguesa. En efecto, Almería se derrama fuera de sus murallas, que terminan siendo derruidas casi completamente en 1855. Se urbanizan los amplios perímetros monásticos (huertas, campos), recién desamortizados, dando lugar a plazas como la de San Francisco (actual de San Pedro). Se dota a la ciudad de un sistema de alcantarillado y agua potable. Se trazan nuevas calles, se abre la nueva Puerta de Purchena, es encauzada la Rambla de Belén y el eje de la ciudad se desplaza de la c/ Real al novísimo Boulevard, de clara inspiración francesa, que tantos otros nombres recibiría antes de convertirse en el actual Paseo de Almería.

 

 

 

Halloween is a secular holiday combining vestiges of traditional harvest festival celebrations with customs more peculiar to the occasion such as costume wearing, trick-or-treating, pranksterism, and decorative imagery based on the changing of the seasons, death, and the supernatural. It takes place on October 31.

Though it was regarded up until the last few decades of the 20th century as primarily a children's holiday, in more recent years activities such as costume parties, themed decorations, and even trick-or-treating have grown increasingly popular with adults as well, making Halloween a celebration for all ages. 

What does the name 'Halloween' mean?
The name Halloween (originally spelled Hallowe'en) is a contraction of All Hallows Even, meaning the day before All Hallows Day (better known today as All Saints Day), a Catholic holiday commemorating Christian saints and martyrs observed since the early Middle Ages on November 1.

How and when did Halloween originate?
According to the best available evidence, Halloween originated as a Catholic vigil observed on the eve of All Saints Day, November 1, in the early Middle Ages.
It has become commonplace to trace its roots even further back in time to a pagan festival of ancient Ireland known as Samhain (pronounced sow'-en or sow'-een), about which little is actually known. The prehistoric observance is said to have marked the end of summer and the onset of winter, and was celebrated with feasting, bonfires, sacrificial offerings, and homage to the dead.
Despite thematic similarities, there's scant evidence of any real historical continuity linking Samhain to the medieval observance of Halloween, however. Some modern historians, notably Ronald Hutton (The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain, 1996) and Steve Roud (The English Year, 2008, and A Dictionary of English Folklore, 2005), flatly reject the popular notion that the Church designated November 1st All Saints Day to "Christianize" the pagan holiday. Citing a lack of historical evidence, Roud goes so far as to dismiss the Samhain theory of origin altogether.
"Certainly the festival of Samhain, meaning Summer's End, was by far the most important of the four quarter days in the medieval Irish calendar, and there was a sense that this was the time of year when the physical and supernatural worlds were closest and magical things could happen," Roud notes, "but however strong the evidence in Ireland, in Wales it was May 1 and New Year which took precedence, in Scotland there is hardly any mention of it until much later, and in Anglo-Saxon England even less."
It seems reasonable to conclude that the connection between Halloween and the pagan Irish festival of Samhain has, at the very least, been overstated in most modern accounts of the holiday's origin.

Earliest Halloween customs
The earliest documented customs attributable to Halloween proper grew out of the tandem observances of All Saints Day (November 1), a day of prayer for saints and martyrs of the Church, and All Souls Day (November 2), a day of prayer for the souls of all the dead. Among the practices associated with Halloween during the Medieval period were the lighting of bonfires, evidently to symbolize the plight of souls lost in purgatory, and souling, which consisted of going door-to-door offering prayers for the dead in exchange for "soul cakes" and other treats. Mumming, a custom originally associated with Christmas consisting of parading in costume, chanting rhymes, and play-acting, was a somewhat later addition to Halloween.
Again, however, despite the obvious similarities between old and new, it may be an exaggeration to say these medieval customs "survived" to the present day, or even that they "evolved" into modern Halloween practices such as trick-or-treating. By the time Irish immigrants brought the holiday to North America in the mid-1800s, mumming and souling were all but forgotten in Ireland itself, where the known Halloween customs of the time consisted of praying, communal feasting, and playing divination games such as bobbing for apples.
The secular, commercialized holiday we know in America today would be barely recognizable to Halloween celebrants of even just a century ago.

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    Were the First Artists Mostly Women?

 

Three-quarters of handprints in ancient cave art were left by women, study finds.

  

Women made most of the oldest-known cave art paintings, suggests a new analysis of ancient handprints. Most scholars had assumed these ancient artists were predominantly men, so the finding overturns decades of archaeological dogma.

Archaeologist Dean Snow of Pennsylvania State University analyzed hand stencils found in eight cave sites in France and Spain. By comparing the relative lengths of certain fingers, Snow determined that three-quarters of the handprints were female.

"There has been a male bias in the literature for a long time," said Snow, whose research was supported by the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. "People have made a lot of unwarranted assumptions about who made these things, and why."

Archaeologists have found hundreds of hand stencils on cave walls across the world. Because many of these early paintings also showcase game animals—bison, reindeer, horses, woolly mammoths—many researchers have proposed that they were made by male hunters, perhaps to chronicle their kills or as some kind of "hunting magic" to improve success of an upcoming hunt. The new study suggests otherwise.

"In most hunter-gatherer societies, it's men that do the killing. But it's often the women who haul the meat back to camp, and women are as concerned with the productivity of the hunt as the men are," Snow said. "It wasn't just a bunch of guys out there chasing bison around."

Experts expressed a wide range of opinions about how to interpret Snow's new data, attesting to the many mysteries still surrounding this early art.

"Hand stencils are a truly ironic category of cave art because they appear to be such a clear and obvious connection between us and the people of the Paleolithic," said archaeologist Paul Pettitt of Durham University in England. "We think we understand them, yet the more you dig into them you realize how superficial our understanding is."

Sex Differences

Snow's study began more than a decade ago when he came across the work of John Manning, a British biologist who had found that men and women differ in the relative lengths of their fingers: Women tend to have ring and index fingers of about the same length, whereas men's ring fingers tend to be longer than their index fingers.

 

These hand stencils found in the El Castillo cave in Cantabria, Spain, were probably made by a man (left) and a woman (right), respectively.

Photographs by Roberto Ontanon Peredo, courtesy Dean Snow

One day after reading about Manning's studies, Snow pulled a 40-year-old book about cave paintings off his bookshelf. The inside front cover of the book showed a colorful hand stencil from the famous Pech Merle cave in southern France. "I looked at that thing and I thought, man, if Manning knows what he's talking about, then this is almost certainly a female hand," Snow recalled.

Hand stencils and handprints have been found in caves in Argentina, Africa, Borneo, and Australia. But the most famous examples are from the 12,000- to 40,000-year-old cave paintings in southern France and northern Spain. (See "Pictures: Hand Stencils Through Time.")

For the new study, out this week in the journal American Antiquity, Snow examined hundreds of stencils in European caves, but most were too faint or smudged to use in the analysis. The study includes measurements from 32 stencils, including 16 from the cave of El Castillo in Spain, 6 from the caves of Gargas in France, and 5 from Pech Merle.

Snow ran the numbers through an algorithm that he had created based on a reference set of hands from people of European descent who lived near his university. Using several measurements—such as the length of the fingers, the length of the hand, the ratio of ring to index finger, and the ratio of index finger to little finger—the algorithm could predict whether a given handprint was male or female. Because there is a lot of overlap between men and women, however, the algorithm wasn't especially precise: It predicted the sex of Snow's modern sample with about 60 percent accuracy.

Luckily for Snow, that wasn't a problem for the analysis of the prehistoric handprints. As it turned out—much to his surprise—the hands in the caves were much more sexually dimorphic than modern hands, meaning that there was little overlap in the various hand measurements.

"They fall at the extreme ends, and even beyond the extreme ends," Snow said. "Twenty thousand years ago, men were men and women were women."

Woman, Boy, Shaman?

Snow's analysis determined that 24 of the 32 hands—75 percent—were female. (See "Pictures: Prehistoric European Cave Artists Were Female.")

Some experts are skeptical. Several years ago, evolutionary biologist R. Dale Guthrie performed a similar analysis of Paleolithic handprints. His work—based mostly on differences in the width of the palm and the thumb—found that the vast majority of handprints came from adolescent boys.

For adults, caves would have been dangerous and uninteresting, but young boys would have explored them for adventure, said Guthrie, an emeritus professor at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. "They drew what was on their mind, which is mainly two things: naked women and large, frightening mammals."

Other researchers are more convinced by the new data.

"I think the article is a landmark contribution," said archaeologist Dave Whitley of ASM Affiliates, an archaeological consulting firm in Tehachapi, California. Despite these handprints being discussed for half a decade, "this is the first time anyone's synthesized a good body of evidence."

Whitley rejects Guthrie's idea that this art was made for purely practical reasons related to hunting. His view is that most of the art was made by shamans who went into trances to try to connect with the spirit world. "If you go into one of these caves alone, you start to suffer from sensory deprivation very, very quickly, in 5 to 10 minutes," Whitley said. "It can spin you into an altered state of consciousness."

The new study doesn't discount the shaman theory, Whitley added, because in some hunter-gatherer societies shamans are female or even transgendered.

The new work raises many more questions than it answers. Why would women be the primary artists? Were they creating only the handprints, or the rest of the art as well? Would the hand analysis hold up if the artists weren't human, but Neanderthal?

The question Snow gets most often, though, is why these ancient artists, whoever they were, left handprints at all.

"I have no idea, but a pretty good hypothesis is that this is somebody saying, 'This is mine, I did this,'" he said.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR

 

In 1763 AD England won the French and Indian War against France. To pay for that war, the English government began to make the English-speaking settlers pay more and more taxes. This brought the English a lot of money, but it made the settlers more and more angry. They were especially angry because they couldn't vote or speak for themselves in England about these taxes. The settlers said this was "taxation without representation" and it was wrong.

The settlers decided to boycott everything they had been buying from English traders - they would not buy their tea, clothes, glass, paper, and so on (This is when many Americans began to drink coffee). To show that they meant it, in 1773 they threw a lot of tea on an English ship overboard, into the ocean - this is called the "Boston Tea Party."

In 1775, two years later, the first shots were fired in Massachusetts.

 

England and the United States were now at war.

George Washington was the commander in chief of the United States' army. At first he won, and on July 4th, 1776 the United States government published the Declaration of Independence. But then the English government sent lots more men to fight and soon the United States was losing the war.

 By 1781, the United States (with the help of the French general Lafayette, other French soldiers, and lots of French money) had won several big battles. So in October the English army surrendered to George Washington. That was the end of the Revolutionary War.

Medieval European History     

 

The Dark Ages. That's one of the terms used to describe nearly 1000 years of history-a history that is often hard to understand due to a lack of surviving documents, and often is clouded by myth and legends. Western Europe was under the rule of hundreds of feudal lords and kings. Castles dominated the landscape, and entire cities were built behind protective walls.

The Roman Empire formally legalized Christianity during the 4th century, and soon afterward, the zeal and evangelism of practitioners spread this faith throughout Western Europe as far west as Ireland. The Church would be one of the most powerful medieval institutions, controlling publication of books and the making of laws. Much of medieval Europe's art and architecture has a direct connection to the Christian church.

 

Knights, soldiers, peasants and pilgrims marched along European roads and trails during the Crusades and brought back with them stories of differing cultures, and began to adopt their architecture, tales of Romance, and advances in medicine. Trade was both a blessing and curse. Merchants began importing silks, cottons and rare spices from all over the known world. But these ships would also bring the horror that became known as the Black Death. The disease ravaged Asia, before wiping out nearly one-third of Western Europe.

Wars took their toll, from William the Conqueror's invasion of England in 1066, to the Hundred Year's War that ended in 1453, there were few years that didn't see battles raging in some part of Europe. This was an era of siege warfare-catapults, trebuchets, battering rams, and towers. Men fought hand-to-hand in the thousands in bloody conflicts using swords, axes, longbows, crossbows, stones and daggers.

 

Medieval Europe saw some humanity-changing developments, such as Gutenberg's moveable types press in the middle of the 15th century. This would bring printed material to the masses, and improve communication between societies. Marco Polo would popularize the account of his voyage to the Orient, and intrigue Europeans about this exotic land.

 

Through these centuries, Europe was slowly waking from a harsh slumber, and begin to sow the seeds of a Renaissance.



      

Importante yacimiento paleolítico en Andalucía: la Cueva del Ángel (Lucena, Córdoba)

 

 

 

 

En 1995, Cecilio Barroso y Daniel Botella, ante el total desinterés que sobre el yacimiento provocaba, y vistas las últimas destrucciones realizadas sobre el mismo, y ante la creencia compartida por ambos de que era posible detectar niveles no alterados por la acción de los clandestinos, les llevó al planteamiento de realizar una actuación de urgencia en el mismo.

 

El día 10 de Julio de 1995 se recibió la autorización iniciándose los trabajos el día 13 de dicho mes, finalizando el 13 de Septiembre, subvencionados en su totalidad por el Excelentísimo Ayuntamiento de Lucena.

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 Los trabajos que se desarrollaron en la Cueva del Ángel, en los años 1995, 1996, 2002 Y 2003, permitieron detectar la existencia de un potente depósito arqueológico con una gran amplitud cronológica que se situaría entre los 100.000 años y más de 480.000 años (según las dataciones efectuadas por U/Th en el IPH de París). Esta circunstancia, unida a la propia determinación y variedad del material lítico y óseo, nos están definiendo un horizonte secuencial que abarcaría desde un Pleistoceno medio al Pleistoceno superior. La estratigrafía que es visible en más de seis metros de potencia, no parece mostrar periodos de interrupción del hábitat humano, muy al contrario, la superposición de hogares en la misma -que pueden llegar a alcanzar hasta los 60 cm. de espesor- confirman que las perduraciones son muy importantes. Así pues estamos en presencia de un yacimiento paleolítico excepcional no sólo en Andalucía sino también en la Península Ibérica.

Desde el año 2005, con la aprobación para la Cueva del Ángel del único proyecto general de investigación en la provincia de Córdoba por parte de la Comisión Andaluza de Arqueología, se han desarrollado ya dos campañas de Excavaciones en los años 2005-09 y dos de Estudios de Materiales. La investigación está avalada por un equipo multidisciplinar de carácter internacional donde se implican instituciones Españolas y Extranjeras.

 

Los trabajos continuos realizados hasta el momento nos determinan un ambiente donde aparece diversidad de especies animales, primando la presencia de grandes herbívoros como elefantes, rinocerontes, bóvidos y sobre todo caballos, todos ellos de hábitat abierto que necesitan abundante comida y agua. Los animales típicos de bosque (ciervo, y jabalí) son escasos, al igual que ocurre con los carnívoros, de los que, por el momento, se ha determinado la presencia de lince y oso. No aparece cabra montesa, aunque el yacimiento se enclava en la ladera sur de una pequeña sierra, posiblemente debido a la poca altitud de la misma y su aislamiento con las formaciones subbéticas cordobesas. También se han recuperado restos óseos de tortuga, conejo y aves de pequeño y mediano tamaño. Es la primera vez que queda documentada, a estas latitudes de Europa la presencia del bisonte.

Durante el año2010 se procedió a la limpieza de la covacha superior y de la parte superficial del cono de derrubios en el interior de la sima, todo ello, bajo una Actuación Arqueológica Puntual de Control de Movimiento de Tierras.

 

Los niveles de ocupación de los habitantes de la Cueva conservan el tránsito cultural entre un Achelense superior y un Musteriense de tradición achelense. Durante todas las campañas planteadas, centradas en un pozo minero del siglo XVIII, se han detectado unos veintiún niveles de ocupación con una alta intensidad de restos líticos y desperdicios de la fauna que los Preneandertales dejaron in situ. En líneas generales no se detectan vacíos en la ocupación humana del yacimiento.

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Túnel Sima del Ángel.

Este proyecto se inició en el año 2007 y se ejecutó a finales de 2008 y la primera mitad del 2009. El objetivo turístico de ejecutar un túnel, de 81 m de longitud, que diese acceso desde el exterior de la Sierra de Araceli a la zona intermedia de la sima de la Cueva del Ángel, ha permitido hacer accesible este patrimonio geológico a todo tipo de visitantes. Las obras, complejas por las pequeñas dimensiones del arco de túnel (2’80 m de altura), usaron para su ejecución tanto medios mecánicos como explosiones controladas. Ello ha permitido poner en valor y hacer visitable la única sima de Europa.  

La sima que el visitante observa es la parte inferior del complejo geológico de la Cueva del Ángel. Éste, en la zona externa, contiene y alberga el yacimiento ocupado por los hombres prehistóricos en el Paleolítico inferior. A través de dos pequeñas cavidades se tiene acceso natural a la misma sima, pero es necesario el uso de equipos de espeleología. Desde estas bocas, con una caída libre de 25 m. se llega al cono de derrubios de la base, que presenta una altura mínima de 65 m. y alberga el caos de bloques calizos que a lo largo de millones de años se han ido depositando en la base del complejo. Las formaciones de espeleotemas (banderolas, estalagmitas y estalactitas), son más abundantes en la cara oeste y el fondo sur, aunque en todo su interior se puede apreciar la línea de fractura y falla que creó este complejo geológico.

Actualmente, tanto el túnel como la plataforma para admirar este complejo, es visitable para todo el público.

La última campaña arqueológica ha tenido lugar en el verano de 2013 con la aparición de importantes restos tanto líticos como óseos que confirman la importancia de este yacimiento. Además, en la sima se han encontrado abundantes restos humanos de la Edad del Cobre que están a la espera de su estudio y que amplían las posibilidades de este gran yacimiento andaluz.

Información extraída de: http://www.museodelucena.com/paginas/Cuevadelangel.htm

Tautavel hunters

                              

An interesting link about our ancestors

Prehistoric hunter of Tautavel

 

En Historia resulta fundamental saber elaborar una línea del tiempo. Aquí os dejo una con las etapas históricas principales y un enlace sobre cómo elaborar una. 

 

 

 

  Cómo elaborar una línea del tiempo

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prehistoria en Almería

El Paleolítico en Almería se caracteriza por reducidos grupos nómadas, cazadores y recolectores. No son demasiado abundantes los yacimientos paleolíticos en la provincia, siendo al más antiguo de ellos el de Cueva de Zájara I, en Cuevas de Almanzora.
Ya en el Neolítico, y aún antes en el Paleolítico superior, aparecen las primeras aldeas y los primeros espacios dedicados exclusivamente a enterramientos. De esta época datan las pinturas rupestres de la Cueva de los Letreros y otra veintena de cuevas y abrigos de la Comarca de los Vélez considerados por la Unesco, en 1989, como patrimonio de la Humanidad.

En uno de esos refugios de los primeros pobladores del levante peninsular, el Abrigo de las Colmenas, todavía se conserva una figura humana con los brazos en cruz que sostiene un supuesto arco iris sobre su cabeza. Dice alguna leyenda que esta pintura rupestre representa un pacto del hombre prehistórico con los dioses para evitar futuros diluvios. Es la primera representación del indalo almeriense, cuyo origen etimológico podría venir del indal eccius, el mensajero de los dioses de los íberos. De indal eccius viene también el nombre de San Indalecio, uno de los siete varones apostólicos y Patrón de Almería junto a la Virgen del Mar.

El indalo se ha convertido, con los años, en el símbolo más conocido de Almería y de lo almeriense. Aunque algunos lo han visto como un hombre sosteniendo un arco iris, no es más que un arquero buscando su presa en el cielo. El indalo dio su nombre al un movimiento pictórico, artístico e intelectual de los indalianos quienes, con Jesús de Perceval y Eugenio d´Ors a la cabeza, sentían una atávica atracción por la población de Mojácar y sus habitantes. Los mojaqueños pintaban indalos con cal en las paredes de sus casas para protegerse contra las tormentas y el mal de ojo. Entonces se le llamaba el "muñequillo mojaquero".

Fue Luis Siret y Cels, eminente arqueólogo belga, quien descubrió la riqueza prehistórica de Almería, particularmente la de la Edad de los Metales. Dijo Siret de Almería que era "un museo a cielo abierto". En efecto, Almería es cuna de dos de las culturas más importantes de la Edad de los Metales en la península: la cultura de Los Millares y la cultura de El Argar.

Es en la Edad del Cobre o Calcolítico, (3000-2150 a.C.), cuando surge la primera ciudad de la que tenemos noticia: el poblado de Los Millares, situado estratégicamente en un espolón de roca entre el río Andarax y la rambla de Huéchar, al sur de la provincia. Se trata de un poblado de más de mil habitantes, protegido por tres líneas de murallas y torreones, y cuya economía se basaba en la metalurgia del cobre y en la agricultura, ganadería y caza a mediana escala. Además construyen grandes necrópolis y exportan sus modelos metalúrgicos y alfareros a gran parte de la península.

Más adelante, en la Edad del Bronce, (1700-1400 a.C.), nace una cultura igualmente influyente, la de El Argar. Allí desarrollan un modelo alfarero característico, el vaso campaniforme, cuyo uso se extenderá por todo el levante español. Sus necrópolis evolucionan con respecto a la cultura de Los Millares y diversifican la producción agrícola y ganadera.