March/April 2019 Issue

NEW ZEALAND: It took several days and heavy equipment, but the well-preserved wreck of a 55-foot colonial schooner called Daring was finally removed from its resting place along Muriwai Beach west of Auckland. The ship was delivering a cargo of grass seed when it was driven ashore by a severe gale in 1865. It had remained buried there until shifting sands and high tides partially uncovered it last year.

JAPAN: Microscopic impressions left by maize weevils on ancient pottery have shown that the destructive pests have been plaguing Japanese societies for thousands of years. But X-ray and CT scanning of one ceramic vessel from a late Jomon period (ca. 2500–1300 B.C.) site on Hokkaido detected as many as 500 weevils incorporated into the fabric of the clay itself. The beetles may have been purposely included in the pot’s design and manufacture in order to secure a good harvest.

TIBET: Due to its perennially freezing temperatures and low-oxygen conditions, human habitation of the Tibetan Plateau is exceedingly challenging. Yet, somehow, humans have lived there for 30,000 to 40,000 years, as evidenced by thousands of fragments of human-made stone tools and blades from the site of Nwya Devu. Located 15,000 feet above sea level, Nwya Devu is the highest Paleolithic site ever identified, and proves that humans were living along the “roof of the world” almost 20,000 years earlier than expected.