M.J. Rose

This incredible discovery has been all over the net the last few days. We thought we would supplement the news with a link to the scientific abstract published in The American Journal of Physical Anthropology on September 8th…

A female Viking warrior confirmed by genomics

The objective of this study has been to confirm the sex and the affinity of an individual buried in a well-furnished warrior grave (Bj 581) in the Viking Age town of Birka, Sweden. Previously, based on the material and historical records, the male sex has been associated with the gender of the warrior and such was the case with Bj 581. An earlier osteological classification of the individual as female was considered controversial in a historical and archaeological context. A genomic confirmation of the biological sex of the individual was considered necessary to solve the issue.

“Already in the early middle ages, there were narratives about fierce female Vikings fighting alongside men. Although, continuously reoccurring in art as well as in poetry, the women warriors have generally been dismissed as mythological phenomena (Garde?a, 2013; Jesch, 1991; Jochens, 1996).

Archaeological evidence of warrior graves is numerous, especially in the Viking Age of Northern Europe. Situated in Eastern Central Sweden, Birka was a key centre for trade during the 8th–late 10th century (Figure 1) (S1), linked to a social, cultural and economic network that reached beyond the Ural Mountains into the Caliphate in the east and south to the Byzantine Empire (Ambrosiani, 2012). Birka’s population of approximately 700–1000 inhabitants consisted of trading families, artisans and warriors (Hedenstierna-Jonson, 2014). The urban culture in Birka was different from the everyday life and practices of the surrounding region…”

For the rest, click here.

Let us hope that all such cruel injustices are revealed in the light of the truth…

Emmett Till was 14 when he was killed in 1955. Credit Associated Press

From the NYT,

Woman Linked to 1955 Emmett Till Murder Tells Historian Her Claims Were False
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

“For six decades, she has been the silent woman linked to one of the most notorious crimes in the nation’s history, the lynching of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy, keeping her thoughts and memories to herself as millions of strangers idealized or vilified her.

But all these years later, a historian says that the woman has broken her silence, and acknowledged that the most incendiary parts of the story she and others told about Emmett — claims that seem tame today but were more than enough to get a black person killed in Jim Crow-era Mississippi — were false.

The woman, Carolyn Bryant Donham, spoke to Timothy B. Tyson, a Duke University professor — possibly the only interview she has given to a historian or journalist since shortly after the episode — who has written a book, “The Blood of Emmett Till,” to be published next week.

In it, he wrote that she said of her long-ago allegations that Emmett grabbed her and was menacing and sexually crude toward her, “that part is not true.”…”

For the rest, click here.

It seems like the world is going to hell in a hand basket — but at least some forward thinking folk near the north pole are making sure the Earth’s crop diversity is protected in a doomsday vault under the ice.

Alexander Rose, the Executive Director of The Long Now Foundation, shares his experience touring the vault (he goes further in than even Jimmy Carter was allowed to go…)

From The Blog of the Long Now,

Inside Svalbard, the Doomsday Vault Saving the Past and Future of Agriculture

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is an underground repository located at 78 degrees North latitude that currently stores nearly a million seed samples to preserve crop diversity for the future. Many see the vault as a resource for a “doomsday” scenario brought on by severe climate change or other ecological disaster. Long Now has been following the Svalbard vault closely since it was first announced over a decade ago. In 02011, Long Now Executive Director Alexander Rose had the opportunity to visit Svalbard with unprecedented access to the vault through a partnership with the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI).

Rose’s account of the trip follows below, and includes an update on the recent surge in public interest surrounding Svalbard over the past year.

Video below —

For the entire story, click here.