Wild Hogs of Ireland

New sections added

I occasionally try to improve my haphazard blog.

Today I added a new "Pics" section: in it you'll see the main image of each post along with a tag line, click either image or text to go straight to the story.

I also added the option to get updates of my blog direct by email, see the option "Follow by email" on the right-hand-side bar ->>>

Suggestions are always welcome, so send me any ideas on how I can improve the site!

Making the Statue of Liberty

There is something incredibly appealing about seeing the various stages of construction of iconic builds, this is definitely up there! Check out this link to see the whole series of amazing images: LINK

Berkeley Castle: newly discovered skeletons

The biggest news of the year, as reported by BBC News:

About 30 skeletons dating back 500 years have been found during an archaeological dig at a castle in Gloucestershire. 


The skeletons were discovered near an old churchyard during excavation work looking for Anglo-Saxon remains at Berkeley Castle.
They will now be taken for reburial at a nearby churchyard.
In 2005, archaeologists uncovered the remains of an Iron Age settlement in the grounds the Grade-I listed castle.
But only last year, a £5m appeal was launched to save the structure from falling into ruin.
A survey by English Heritage had uncovered a list of structural and cosmetic problems needing attention.
The Plantaganet king, Edward II was murdered at the Gloucestershire castle in 1327.

Greece: Gold hunters arrested for excavation blast at ancient site

THESSALONIKI, Greece — Police in northern Greece say they have arrested six men accused of using dynamite to search for buried ancient gold at a protected archaeological area.

Authorities said Thursday that the four Greek and two Albanian men were arrested Wednesday after police discovered a 12-meter (40-foot) tunnel blasted into the side of a mountain near the city of Kavala, 700 kilometres (435 miles) north of Athens.

The tunnel, with support columns and a construction track, was first started in 2008, according to local police, who said the suspects would be charged with illegal excavation, illegal use and possession of explosives, and violating archaeological protection laws.

Archaeological services would not comment on whether they believed there was buried gold in the area.

Source: Associate Press/The Canadian Press via Google News

Quote of the day!

It is no raising sedition, or breaking the peace, to take a blaspheming Hell-Fire Club man by the throat, and swinge him in the next horse-pond, or cool his brains at the next pump...

(Funny) Pic of the day!

This is bloody hilarious! Here's a snippet about the piece:

In the Jack Reese Galleria of the great Hodges Library of the University of Tennessee the art and artifacts of the Centaur excavation at Volos has found a permanent home. This reconstruction of a Centaurian burial site was assembled by Professor William Willers of the University of Wisconsin in the mid-1980s before being moved to the University of Tennessee. This controversial reconstruction has -as intended-- provided the catalyst for countless discussions about (for example) biological possibilities, mythological realities, cultural transmission, psycho-dynamic representations, and occasionally the possibility of an elaborate hoax. As the embodiment of the ideal integration of physical, spiritual, and intellectual strengths, the Centaur is a prominent candidate for University mascot.

Read more here and a bit more here

Pic of the day!

Teeth from ancient human ancestors suggest that females joined new social groups once they reached maturity

Fossilized teeth of early human ancestors bear signs that females left their families when they came of age, whereas males stayed close to home.

A chemical analysis of australopithecine fossils ranging between roughly 1.8 million and 2.2 million years old from two South African caves finds that teeth thought to belong to females are more likely to have incorporated minerals from a distant region during formation than those from males.

"What that's telling us is that the females grew up somewhere else and they died in the caves," says Julia Lee-Thorp, an archaeological scientist at the University of Oxford, UK, and a co-author on the study, published today in Nature. "It's a very small clue, but it's something that is at least hard evidence for what we really didn't have before."

The shape of ancient human families has been the subject of speculation, based mainly on differences in the relative size of male and female fossils, and the behavioural patterns of our primate relatives. Female chimpanzees, for instance, typically leave their social group once they hit maturity. Among gorilla groups, which are dominated by one large male 'silverback', both males and females tend to strike out.

Modern humans, who are influenced by relatively recent cultural practices such as marriage and property ownership, are difficult to compare to our early ancestors, lead author Sandi Copeland of the University of Colorado at Boulder said in a press briefing.

Read more about this type of forensic dentistry here