World's oldest wooden statue

Scientists in Germany are ever closer to dating an ancient wooden statue which they say contains secret encrypted codes written around 9,500 years ago - possibly the oldest on the planet (so far). The Shigir Idol, as it was called, is twice as old as the Egyptian pyramids and was preserved as if in a "time capsule" in a peat bog on the western fringes of Siberia. Now Russian experts say the remarkable relic contains encoded information on the 'creation of the world' - a message to modern man from the Mesolithic Era, during the pré-historic time.

German scientists are now close to a precise dating - within five decades - of the remarkable artifact, which is a stunning example of ancient man's creativity. The results are likely to be known in late February or early March, 2015.

The idol, 'scraped' using a 'stone spoon' from larch timber, is around 4,000 to 5,000 years older than Britain's world famous Stonehenge monument. The idol stands 9.2ft (2.8 metres) in height but originally was 17.4ft (5.3 metres) tall, as high as a two storey house.

Almost 6.5ft (2 metres) of the artefact went missing during Russian's 20th century political turmoil, though Siberian archaeologists drew images of all the pieces. It is a unique sculpture, there is nothing else in the world like this. It is very alive, and very complicated at the same time.

The ornament is covered with nothing but encrypted information. People were passing on knowledge with the help of this Idol. While the messages remain an utter mystery to modern man, the Russian academics have said its creators lived in total harmony with the world, had advanced intellectual development, and a complicated spiritual world.

There is a representation of a straight line in this idol, which could denote land, or horizon - possibly the boundary between earth and sky, water and sky, or the borderline between the worlds. A wavy line or zigzag symbolised the watery element, snake, lizard, or determined a certain border. In addition, the zigzag signaled danger, like a pike. Cross, rhombus, square, circle depicted the fire or the sun, and so on. But the marks could have multiple meanings for the ancient statue-makers who gave the idol seven faces, only one of which is three-dimensional.

If these are images of spirits that inhabited the human world in ancient times, the vertical position of figures (one above the other) probably relate to their hierarchy according to the researchers. Images on the front and back planes of the Idol, possibly indicate that they belong to different worlds.

If there are depicted myths about the origin of humans and the world, the vertical arrangement of the images may reflect the sequence of events. Ornaments can be special signs which mark something as significant.

Sweden's 11,000-year-old relics

Earlier this year (2014) a unique discovery in the Baltic Sea was made. Stone Age artefacts left behind by the Swedish nomads, dating back to 11.000 years ago. Some call it the Swedish Atlantis, as such, this is the oldest settlement in Sweden. But first of all, this as nothing to do with Atlantis, nor does it resemble and old city, not even a small village. But it is exciting nonetheless.

While excavations are still underway, so far, they have uncovered a number of remnants that are believed to have been discarded in the water by Swedes in the Stone Age. Objects which have been preserved thanks to the lack of oxygen and the abundance of gyttja sediment, which is sediment rich in organic matter at the bottom of a eutrophic lake. It is extremely rare to find evidence from the Stone Age so unspoiled.

Buried 16 metres below the surface, Nilsson wood was uncovered as well as flint tools, animal horns and ropes. Among the most notable items found, it includes a harpoon carving made from an animal bone, and the bones of an ancient animal called aurochs, the ancestor of domestic cattle, the last of which died off in the early 1600s.

Such objects were thrown in there, probably because around 11.000 years ago there was a build up in that area, and all the tree and bone pieces are preserved. If the settlement was on dry land, there would probably have been only stone-based things, nothing organic.

However, unlike the stories of Atlantis, the remains do not come from a great city or even a village because the people were nomadic at the time.

Archaeologists are continuing the underwater excavations, and are now particularly interested to see whether there is also an ancient burial site in the region.

Zombie apocalypse during the Stone Ages

Nowadays the zombie apocalypse Tv shows, Movies and Games have many fans worldwide, but this zombie apocalypse thing is much more than a modern horror device, in fact, the fear of the walking dead, coming from their graves to prey upon the living, is  a subject which we can read in almost every culture all over the globe, each religion has its own form of undead, for example the Draugr from the Norse Scandinavian countries,  the ghūl / Ghoul from the Arabian folklore, the Jiangshi from the Chinese Folklore and so on... It seems that we humans have always feared the return of the deceased into the world of the living... but today at this post, I will not talk about the folklore of every culture ( which would be a very interesting subject, but too extensive ), what i will be writing about, is the fact that we thought that such creatures of myth were as ancient as the historical texts..but in truth it comes from a past, way before the first history records.

In Europe and in the Middle East Archaeologists have recently unearthed evidence of a mysterious Stone Age culture that smashed skulls. Human skulls buried underneath an ancient settlement in Syria were found detached from their bodies with their faces smashed in. It appears that the skulls were exhumed and detached from their bodies several years after originally being buried. It was then that they were smashed in and reburied separate from their bodies. This finding could suggest that these people from Stone Age believed that the living were under some kind of threat from the dead. Perhaps they believed that the only way of protecting themselves was to smash in the corpses' faces, detach their heads and rebury them apart from their bodies, which reminds me of how people in Romania back in the Dark Ages and early medieval ages used to kill the so called Vampires, or the moroi or  strigoi, by detaching the head from the body and buring it so, with the tool that was used to cut the head ( usually a sickle, Scythe or a shovel) between each part, so that the body couldn't attach the head again and like so, return. I may have "fled" from the main subject, but a Vampire is also a form of an undead, and also because I love mythology so much.. I couldn't resist.
Back to the subject, archaeologists found a very unusual thing: many of the 10,000-year-old skulls appear to have been separated from their spines long after their bodies had already begun to decompose. Why would this ritual be performed so long after individuals had died? Did they only pose a threat to the living long after their original burial and death? If this was a manner of a  ritualistic exercise, it also raises questions about why only specific corpses were chosen. All of the smashed skulls were from adult males between the ages of 18 and 30. Furthermore, there was no trace of delicate cutting. It appears that the skulls' faces were simply smashed in using brute force with a stone tool. There is always a rational explanation in everything we find, but let us delve into a few facets of zombie mythology. Zombies, as we know, are hungry for the flesh of the living, and the only way to stop them is by striking the head somehow, or the brain. In many zombie movies, this involves shooting them in the cranium. One might surmise that the Stone Age equivalent of this would be smashing in their faces with a big rock and do the most damage possible. Perhaps taking their heads off was then performed to ensure that the job was done and there was no way that these bodies could come to life again. Maybe what seems to be an unearthed body to take its head off and smash the face in, and buried again, was in fact a body that came out by itself, and only after this, it was.. killed again lets just say and placed back into the proper place. But of course, this isn't a thing to be taken into a scientific thesis, according to archaeologists working in this case it is possible that Stone Age people simply believed that they could absorb the strength of the dead young men by performing somekind of ritual, such rituals are commun in many ancient cultures. This would help explaining why all the skulls were from young men. It would also help to explain why the heads were buried directly underneath a thriving settlement. It may also have been an act of revenge.

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