Giant Megalithic Complex

The megalithic site. (José Antonio Linares-Catela et al., Trabajos de Prehistoria, 2022)

A huge megalithic complex of more than 500 standing stones has been discovered in southern Spain which could be one of the largest in Europe, archaeologists told AFP Thursday.

The stones were discovered on a plot of land in Huelva, a province which flanks the southernmost part of Spain's border with Portugal, near the Guadiana River.

Spanning some 600 hectares (1,500 acres), the land had been earmarked for an avocado planation.

But before granting the permit, the regional authorities requested a survey in light of the site's possible archaeological significance – and revealed the presence of the stones.

"This is the biggest and most diverse collection of standing stones grouped together in the Iberian peninsula," said Jose Antonio Linares, a researcher at Huelva University and one of the project's three directors.

It is likely that the oldest standing stones at the La Torre-La Janera site were erected during the second half of the sixth or fifth millennium BCE, he said.

"It is a major megalithic site in Europe," he said.

At the site, they found a large number of various types of megaliths, including standing stones, dolmens, mounds, coffin-like stone boxes called cists, and various enclosures.

"Standing stones were the most common finding, with 526 of them still standing or lying on the ground," said the researchers in an article published in Trabajos de Prehistoria, a prehistoric archaeology journal in the Iberian Peninsula.

The height of the stones was between one and three metres (3-10 feet).  READ MORE...

Americans Relocating to Europe

With rising interest rates, the COVID-19 pandemic that gave many a new perspective on life and the sting of inflation, more Americans are now looking to Europe for a more relaxed lifestyle.

Countries such as Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece are luring in overseas buyers seeking more of the calm, sun-filled beach days, according to a report by Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices.

The rising interest in moving to these countries can be contributed to many workers who are still working remotely since the onset of the pandemic.

“We don’t expect activity to be near the levels we saw in 2021 or the first part of 2022, but the Spanish market has been very resilient,” Ugo Bagration, head of business expansion at the agency’s office in Marbella, said in the report. “It’s proving to be a hub and destination for foreign investment within the real estate market.”

Spain has seen an influx of buyers from North America due its affordability, Bagration explained. That being said, because of the high property taxes in the country, others are opting for countries with less of a burden, such as Italy.

Rome in particular, is seeing more high-net-worth families investing in property, as many residences have been updated in recent years, according to Marcus Benussi, managing partner at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices.  READ MORE...

Humans Apex Predators

Paleolithic cuisine was anything but lean and green, according to a 2021 study on the diets of our Pleistocene ancestors. For a good 2 million years, Homo sapiens and their ancestors ditched the salad and dined heavily on meat, putting them at the top of the food chain.

It's not quite the balanced diet of berries, grains, and steak we might picture when we think of 'paleo' food. But according to anthropologists from Israel's Tel Aviv University and the University of Minho in Portugal, modern hunter-gatherers have given us the wrong impression of what we once ate.

"This comparison is futile, however, because 2 million years ago hunter-gatherer societies could hunt and consume elephants and other large animals – while today's hunter gatherers do not have access to such bounty," said Miki Ben‐Dor from Israel's Tel Aviv University in April last year.

A look through hundreds of previous studies on everything from modern human anatomy and physiology to measures of the isotopes inside ancient human bones and teeth suggests we were primarily apex predators until roughly 12,000 years ago.

Reconstructing the grocery list of hominids who lived as far back as 2.5 million years ago is made all that much more difficult by the fact plant remains don't preserve as easily as animal bones, teeth, and shells.

Other studies have used chemical analysis of bones and tooth enamel to find localized examples of diets heavy in plant material. But extrapolating this to humanity as a whole isn't so straight-forward.  READ MORE...