A new study of the skeletal remains of two women discovered at the Middle Neolithic (4250-3600 B.C.) site of Saint-Paul-Trois-Ch&;acirc;teaux in southern France has revealed they were ritually murdered by an agonizing method still utilized today by the Mafia: by tying their necks to their bent legs until they inevitably strangled themselves. The Italian mob calls this torturous execution method “incaprettamento” (literally “ingoatment” because they’re strung up like goats on a spit)‚ but the Neolithic version one-ups even the cruelty of organized crime by burying the victims alive. Saint-Paul-Trois-Ch&;acirc;teaux in the central Rh&;ocirc;ne Valley was a gathering site in the Middle Neolithic‚ not a residential settlement. Excavations have unearthed numerous silos and pits containing broken grindstones‚ sacrificed dogs‚ ceramics and pebble fills. There are also human remains in some of the pits‚ notably in two pits covered by a wooden structure aligned with the summer and winter solstices. One of those pits‚ pit 69‚ is shaped like a storage silo‚ but it has no traces of seeds or of having been burned (a sanitizing practice for actual storage silos). It contained the skeletons of three women‚ one in the center of the pit positioned on her left side with a vase near her head‚ the other two underneath an overhang. The second was on her back with her legs bent and a heavy piece of grindstone placed on her skull. The third was on her stomach with her neck on the chest of the second woman. Her knees are bent too and she had two pieces of grindstone on her back. Looking into the pit from above at the time of the burial‚ only the first woman would have been visible. The other two women were obscured by the overhang. They were also crammed into the space‚ so much so that the grindstone pieces must have been forcefully inserted when the bodies were put in position. If they were still alive‚ in conjunction with their positioning beneath the pit’s overhang‚ then they could no longer move‚ and breathing became very difficult. Furthermore‚ since the initial descriptions‚ numerous forensic studies have been conducted on individuals in similar positions with pressure applied to them‚ resulting in their deaths. In such a position‚ death occurs relatively quickly‚ even if the victims were not drugged or beaten. The prone position induces inadequate ventilation and a decrease in the blood volume pumped by the heart‚ which can lead to pulseless electrical activity arrest and/or cardiac arrest by asystole. This diagnosis‚ formerly known as positional asphyxia‚ could now be better defined as “prone restraint cardiac arrest.” Some individuals are more sensitive than others‚ but cervical compression is an aggravating factor‚ as is obstruction of the nose and mouth. The intriguing position of the lower limbs of woman 3 is also noteworthy. Her legs collapsed to the side as the body decomposed‚ and from their placement on the corpse‚ it appears that the knees would have been bent at slightly over 90° with the legs held more or less vertically. Given the woman’s prone position‚ this suggests a potential case of homicidal ligature strangulation. In this scenario‚ the woman would have been on her abdomen with a ligature attached to her ankles and neck. The fact that the woman was obstructed by grindstones and the overhang of the storage pit‚ coupled with the possibility of a tie connecting her ankles to her neck‚ supports the hypothesis of a deposit while she was still alive. Otherwise‚ the physical constraints could have been less severe‚ especially considering that the grindstones were not visible from the outside. There is evidence of incaprettamento having been used as a method of human sacrifice from other Neolithic sites in Europe. The research team documents the practice in rock art scenes and in burials from 16 graves at 14 archaeological sites stretching from the Czech Republic to Spain and ranging in date from around 5400 B.C. to 3500 B.C.

New research project investigates the resettlement history of the Iron-Age city of Hazor in Israel A new research initiative at the University of Oldenburg in...

The research notes similarities between the carvings in southern Peru and the ayahuasca-induced art of the Amazon's Tucano people.

“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” – John Piper The post The Editors’ Quote of the Day: appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods. This column is a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from JWR. Our goal is to educate our readers‚ to help them to recognize emerging threats‚ and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. In today’s column‚ an estimate on full capacity magazine ownership. 700 Million+ Full Capacity Mags in Private Hands Reader H.L. sent us this:  Americans Own 700 Million+ Mags With Greater Than … The post The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

My husband and I started following the writings of Jim Rawles many years ago and his advice helped us find our ideal location in the Missouri Ozarks. Then‚ unexpectedly‚ my husband passed away and now Jonathan Rawles’ SurvivalRealty website is helping me sell my homestead. The tapestry of life. My husband and I loved the challenge of creating a sustainable lifestyle‚ a productive homestead‚ and learning the rural life.  We took a piece of rather rough land and created a beautiful place. Not finished when he passed‚ but I’m not sure it would ever be finished‚ that was the enjoyable … The post An Elderly Prepper Moves On‚ by L.T. appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

On April 18‚ 1775‚ British troops marched out of Boston on a mission to confiscate the American arsenal at Concord and to capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock‚ known to be hiding at Lexington. As the British departed‚ Boston Patriots Paul Revere (pictured) and William Dawes set out on horseback from the city to warn Adams and Hancock and rouse the Minutemen. The Doolittle Tokyo Raid was launched on April 18‚ 1942. April 18th is the birthday of pastor and former Washington Representative Matt Shea. (Born 1974). On April 18th‚ 1906‚ the San Francisco earthquake struck northern California‚ … The post Preparedness Notes for Thursday — April 18‚ 2024 appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

A new theory suggests that Titan’s majestic dune fields may be have come from outer space. Researchers had always assumed that the sand making up Titan’s dunes was locally made‚ through erosion or condensed from atmospheric hydrocarbons. But researchers from the University of Colorado want to know: Could it have come from comets&;#63; The dunes of Titan When the Cassini spacecraft arrived in orbit around Saturn‚ nobody had ever seen beneath the thick soupy atmosphere of Titan. So when it dropped the Huygens lander‚ and began probing Titan with cloud-penetrating radar‚ scientists were surprised to learn that Titan has a very earth-like appearance. It has a thick nitrogen atmosphere‚ rain‚ rivers‚ oceans and massive dune fields. But unlike the dunes of Earth’s sandy deserts in Namibia and southern Arabia‚ Titan’s dunes are enormous‚ and fill massive fields covering more than an eighth of the giant moon’s surface. These dunes are about 100 meters tall‚ 1 to 2 km wide at the base‚ and can stretch for hundreds of kilometers in length. Dunes on Earth are made from sand‚ which is blown by the wind and heaped into drifts. Individual sand particles are nudge and blown by the wind with enough force to make them bounce and scatter‚ in a process called saltation. If the particles don’t bounce‚ then they cannot pile up on top of each other‚ but if the wind is able to lift them off the ground completely then they simply blow away. Saltation depends on the size and mass of the sand particles and the strength of the wind‚ but also needs the particles to be dry so that they can move freely without sticking together. Titan’s geology Titan is the second largest moon in the entire Solar System‚ beaten only by Ganymede‚ orbiting Jupiter. It is Saturn’s largest moon‚ and very old. Unlike most of Saturn’s moon‚ which were captured over time‚ Titan would have formed together with Saturn billions of years ago. Despite having so many features in common with Earth‚ it is a very different place. It is so intensely cold that‚ instead of water‚ its rain and rivers are made from liquid hydrocarbons like methane. Water‚ on the other hand‚ is frozen into hard ice; rocks on Titan are made from water ice‚ instead of granite and basalt‚ and Titan’s equivalent of lava and magma are made from liquid water and ammonia. This means that sand on Titan is not made from silica eroded from larger rocks‚ since those materials are not found on the surface. One popular theory is that it could instead be made from ice. When liquid methane rains and flows‚ it could erode the water-ice bedrock‚ grinding chunks together to a sand of ice grains. An alternative idea is that the sand particles are instead made from tholins. These are found all over the colder regions of the Solar System‚ where cold hydrocarbons in comets or the outer atmospheres of planets and moons react with ultraviolet light from the Sun to create complex compounds. Tholins formed in the dry atmosphere of Titan could clump together with static electricity to form small grains of soot that then settle to the ground‚ creating both dust and sand. Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle captured during its last pass by Earth on Nov. 1‚ 1992. Credit: Gerald Rhemann What do comets have to do with this&;#63; But a paper presented at this year’s Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) suggests a new idea: What if the sand came from comets&;#63; Comets‚ as we know‚ are made from materials left over from the creation of the Solar System. Most of the primordial gas and dust that collapsed from an ancient nebula to form the Solar System would have ended up in the Sun‚ with the bulk of the remains forming the planets. But this still would still have left a lot of material floating free‚ and some of that would have gradually coalesced into lumps of dust and ices‚ which we see today as comets. When comets are nudged into elliptical orbits and pass through the inner Solar System‚ some of their ice heats up and sublimates into gas which blows out‚ carrying dust with it. This dust is scattered throughout the Solar System‚ concentrated along the various comet’s orbits. Individual grains often collide with the Earth‚ which we see as meteors‚ burning high in our atmosphere. Recent surveys in Antarctic ice fields‚ where there is no surface sand‚ have found many such particles which have survived atmospheric reentry. But Earth is not the only place where these grains can end up. According to the researchers‚ there was a time when a great many comets were passing close by Saturn and its moons. They ran simulations to study the evolution of the Kuiper Belt‚ using a version of the Nice model. The Nice model‚ named for the city in which it was first presented‚ says that the Solar System was originally arranged very differently from how it is today. Over time‚ the planets migrated to their current locations. During this period‚ Neptune passed through the Kuiper belt‚ nudging many comets into new orbits. Many of these comets passed close by Saturn and its moons‚ and some even collided with the moons. The researchers suggest that much of the sand making up Titan’s dunes may be debris from all these comets. Artist’s concept of Dragonfly soaring over the dunes of Saturn’s moon Titan. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben But is it true&;#63; This idea does fit with what we currently know‚ and is supported by computer modelling‚ but so do the other theories. Fortunately‚ NASA recently confirmed the Dragonfly mission will be launched in July 2028. Dragonfly is a lander‚ which will be sent to Titan. But unlike previous missions‚ this one is an 8-rotor flying drone. Like the rovers on Mars‚ it will be able to move to any areas of interest that scientists would like to study further. When it arrives in 2034‚ it will fly to dozens of locations on Titan’s surface‚ and should settle the question once and for all: Are the dunes of Titan really built from comet dust&;#63; https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2024/pdf/1550.pdf The post Are Titan's Dunes Made of Comet Dust&;#63; appeared first on Universe Today.

What the band was always about. The post ‘Nothing At All’: Ian Gillan on the Deep Purple track that has “everything” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Yesterday‚ the BBC headlined ‘Dubai airport chaos as UAE and Oman reel from deadly storms’. As the BBC said‚ since Sunday‚ heavy rain has been battering Gulf states which has caused flash […]