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169 lines
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From fork-admin@xent.com Mon Sep 23 22:48:14 2002
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<fork@xent.com>; 23 Sep 2002 21:29:07 -0000
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Subject: Re: Goodbye Global Warming
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From: James Rogers <jamesr@best.com>
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To: fork@spamassassin.taint.org
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In-Reply-To: <DAV266HHGNZ4mF1IT1800002aed@hotmail.com>
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References: <AMEPKEBLDJJCCDEJHAMIKEAFFIAA.ejw@cse.ucsc.edu>
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<1032813374.21921.43.camel@avalon>
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Date: 23 Sep 2002 14:48:41 -0700
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I've seen articles on this type of stuff passing through various forums
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for several years. I've always found archaeology interesting for no
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particular reason. Here is a recent article from U.S. News that I
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actually still have in the dank recesses of my virtual repository.
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-James Rogers
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jamesr@best.com
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--------------------------------------------
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http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/020916/misc/16meltdown.htm
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Defrosting the past
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Ancient human and animal remains are melting out of glaciers, a bounty
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of a warming world
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BY ALEX MARKELS
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As he hiked near Colorado's Continental Divide in the summer of 2001, Ed
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Knapp noticed a strange shape jutting from a melting ice field at 13,000
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feet. "It looked like a bison skull," the building contractor and
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amateur archaeologist recalls. "I thought, 'That's strange. Bison don't
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live this high up.' "
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Knapp brought the skull to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science,
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where scientists last month announced that it was indeed from a
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bison<EFBFBD>one that died about 340 years ago. "This was an extraordinary
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discovery," says Russ Graham, the museum's chief curator, adding that it
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could alter notions of the mountain environment centuries ago. "There's
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probably a lot more like it yet to be found."
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And not just bison. Colorado isn't the only place where glaciers and
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snowfields are melting. Decades of unusual warmth in regions from Peru
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to Alaska<6B>a trend some think is linked to emissions from cars and
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industry<EFBFBD>have shrunk or thawed many of the world's 70,000 glaciers. As
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the ice recedes, a treasure-trove of human and animal artifacts is
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emerging, extraordinarily well preserved after centuries in the deep
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freeze. The fabrics, wood, bone, and DNA-rich tissue found on the mucky
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fringes of the ice are revising scientists' understanding of our
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predecessors' health, habits, and technology, and the prey they pursued.
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"It's mind-boggling how many different fields are being advanced through
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studying these remains," says Johan Reinhard, a high-altitude
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archaeologist and explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic
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Society. Rare, spectacular finds like the frozen mummies he discovered
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in the Andes of Peru in the 1990s and the legendary 5,300-year-old "Ice
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Man," found at the edge of a receding glacier in the Alps in 1991, have
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offered time capsules of cultural and biological information. Now, as
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the ice continues to retreat, it is yielding not just occasional
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treasures but long records of humans and animals in the high mountains.
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Vanishing act. The trick is finding such specimens before Mother
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Nature<EFBFBD>and looters<72>take them first. Once uncovered, frozen remains can
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deteriorate within hours or be gnawed by animals. Moreover, they're
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often so well preserved when they emerge that people who come upon them
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don't even realize they're ancient.
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That was the case when three men hunting sheep near a high glacier in
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British Columbia, Canada, three years ago saw what they thought was a
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dead animal. "It looked a little like sealskin buried in the ice,"
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recalls Warren Ward, a teacher from nearby Nelson. "But when I looked
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closer I could see leather fringe from a coat and finger bones."
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Figuring they had found the remains of another hunter, or perhaps a fur
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trapper, the men stowed a flint knife and other artifacts in a Zip-Loc
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bag and delivered them to local officials. Archaeologists later exhumed
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the fallen hunter's body, along with a woven hat, fur clothing, and what
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seemed to be a medicine bag. Carbon dating revealed that the hunter
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lived about 550 years ago. Dubbed Kwaday Dan Ts'inchi, or Long Ago
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Person Found, by people of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations (who
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may be his direct descendants), he is perhaps the best-preserved human
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from the period ever found in North America.
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Other findings from melting ice in the neighboring Yukon region could
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explain what that long-ago person was doing in the mountains in the
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first place. "Before this there was no archaeological record of people
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living here," says Greg Hare, a Yukon government archaeologist. "Now we
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see that this area was very much part of people's seasonal activities."
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Like Ward's discovery, the search began by chance, when Kristin Benedek
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caught a whiff of what smelled like a barnyard as she and her husband,
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Gerry Kuzyk, hunted sheep at 6,000 feet in the mountains of the south
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Yukon. They followed the scent to a melting patch of ice covered in
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caribou dung. "It was really odd, because I knew there hadn't been
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caribou in the area for at least 100 years," recalls Kuzyk, then a
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wildlife biologist with the Yukon government.
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Caribou cake. Returning a week later, he found "what looked like a
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pencil with string wrapped around it." It turned out to be a
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4,300-year-old atlatl, or spear thrower. Further investigation of the
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ice patch<63>and scores of others around the region<6F>revealed icy layer
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cakes filled with caribou remains and human detritus chronicling 7,800
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years of changing hunting practices.
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Scientists now believe ancient caribou and other animals flocked to the
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ice each summer to cool down and escape swarming mosquitoes and flies.
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Hunters followed the game. They returned for centuries and discarded
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some equipment in the ice. "We've got people hunting with throwing darts
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up until 1,200 years ago," says Hare, who now oversees the research
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project. "Then we see the first appearance of the bow and arrow about
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1,300 years ago. And by 1,200 years ago, there's no more throwing
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darts."
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Now scientists are trying to make the search less a matter of luck. They
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are developing sophisticated computer models that combine data on where
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glaciers are melting fastest and where humans and animals are known to
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have migrated to pinpoint the best places to search in Alaska's Wrangell
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and St. Elias mountain ranges<65>the United States' most glaciated
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terrain<EFBFBD>and in the Andes. Johan Reinhard thinks the fast- thawing
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European Alps could also deliver more findings, perhaps as exquisite as
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the Ice Man. "Global warming is providing us high-altitude
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archaeologists with some fantastic opportunities right now. We're
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probably about the only ones happy about it."
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