by JESSICA E. SARACENI
Israeli archaeologist Ehud Netzer has died after falling at Herodion. He was 76.
Pressure flaking, a sophisticated technique used to make stone tools, was invented in southern Africa 75,000 years ago, according to researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder. It had been thought that pressure flaking was first employed 20,000 years ago in Europe. You can compare a tool made by pressure flaking with one made by a hammer at Science Now.
X-rays have revealed that two Civil War era dolls shipped to the Confederacy from Europe had hollowed-out heads. Experts think that the dolls may have been used to smuggle morphine and quinine past Union blockades. “In all of the research that I have been able to do, these are the only two confirmed smuggling dolls that I’ve been able to find,” said Catherine M. Wright of The Museum of the Confederacy.
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