Misleading Title - But Interesting Meteorite Discovery

From Archaeo News
11 February 2012

A meteorite as a ritual offering for ancient Britons

A meteorite spanning about 1.6 feet (0.5m) across and weighing 205 pounds (93 kg) fell from space some 30,000 years ago in what is now Britain. And after much sleuthing, researchers think they know where it came from and how it survived so long without weathering away. The giant rock was likely discovered by an archaeologist about 200 years ago at a ancient burial site near Stonehenge, according to said Colin Pillinger, a professor of planetary sciences at the Open University.

     Pillinger curated the exhibition 'Objects in Space' at the Royal Society's London headquarters (through March 30) and is the first time the public will get a chance to see the meteorite. The exhibition explores not only the mystery that surrounds the origins of the giant meteorite, but also the history and our fascination with space rocks.

     As for how the meteorite survived its long stint on Earth, researchers point to the Ice Age. "The only meteorites that we know about that have survived these long ages are the ones that were collected in Antarctica," said Pillinger, adding that more recently, some ancient meteorites have been collected in the Sahara Desert. This rock came from neither the Sahara Desert nor Antarctica, but rather the Lake House in Wiltshire.

     "Britain was under an ice age for 20,000 years," Pillinger said, explaining the climate would have protected the rock from weathering. At some point, ancient people likely picked up the meteorite when scouting for rocks to build burial chambers. [That does not make it a ritual offering, just building material.] Then, years later, an archaeologist likely found the rock while excavating those ancient burial sites. The archaeologist then brought the rock back to his house in Wiltshire, where its more recent residents took notice and alerted researchers. "The men whose house this was found at spent a lot of time opening these burial sites 200 years ago for purposes of excavating them," Pillinger said. "Our hypothesis is that the stone probably came out of one of those burial chambers."

     Other objects on display include a much smaller meteorite, weighing about an ounce (32g), and excavated from a grain pit where peoples of the Iron Age stored their crops. It was discovered in the 1970s at Danebury Hill Fort in Hampshire, though it wasn't until the 1980s when scientists analyzed metal in the walnut-size object did they realize its extraterrestrial origin.

Edited from Discovery News, Space.com, Huffington Post (9 February 2012)

Friday Night Miscellany

It's late, so this will be a short one! A meteor crashed and burned somewhere near Pendleton, Oregon, on Tuesday night, according to this detailed report at the National Geographic website. It's light from the burn-through was bright enough to wake people up in the wee early morning and there was a sonic boom. Scary stuff, actually! Makes one wonder what it would be like if something the size of say "Meteor" hit the Earth - or the remnant that the good guys left over in "Armageddon"... Over at New Scientist, an interesting series of articles on music, sound and our perception of it. I tried the #2 experiment - "Phantom Words" - not sure what would happen. It took a little bit to download the soundtrack (it's a few minutes long) and at first I just heard tones, but then I did "discern" words. First, something that sounded like "melting", then it became "melt me" (which makes absolutely no sense, except I'm sick and tired of the ice I've had to trek over for the past 10 days since our last major ice/snow/rain/blizzard storm, ice that is getting more slippery every day), then it became "no brain" (har!), then "melt me" again, and then for awhile "melt me" and "no brain" alternated, and then the end of the experiment I heard mostly "no brain." Guess that should teach me, heh? These "phantom words" are not to be confused with being woken up in the middle of the night with what are passed off in the scientific world as auditory hallucinations - or hearing someone calling you in the middle of broad daylight while you're full awake, except no one is around (cue spooky music....) I've had both kinds of experiences over the years and they ain't fun, let me tell you! Tee hee hee - got a good laugh over this one: U.S. to Share Satellite Strike Data with China. Did Tom Clancy ghost write the article, perchance? This story got me so angry, I've been doing searches using gool old AltaVista since reading it - Google, eat my nose smuts. Corruption in the U.N. is not a News For Google News (please, try to ignore the lady with the impossibly enlarged bossom in the bikini - she looks like an advertisement for "Steroids for Boobs!") Are the fearless leaders in China finally getting the hint that to play in the bigs they have to be "stake-holders" (remember the laugh a minute about how that term was translatable into Chinese and how the Communist nit-wigs claimed to not "get it?") The USA, in particular, has subsidized the corrupt regime of mainland China almost since the day of it's creation by massively importing it's inferior products. Pig intestines, anyone? It's about time the Chinese government started doing something other than claiming "we no speaky English." China, in New Role, Presses Sudan on Darfur