Leherensuge

Reminder: Leherensuge is dead, two new blogs took its place

2011-10-27T01:01:00.002+02:00

I see that still some people keep not just following Leherensuge but even joining it. Naturally I appreciate such attention but you are in the wrong place because Leherensuge came to an end a year ago (Oct 1st 2010) and was replaced by these two more specialized blogs:

For what they were... we are

(prehistory, history, genetics, anthropology...)

For what we are... they will be

(current affairs, politics, class war...)

Please, join them (if so you wish) because no more interesting posts will appear in Leherensuge, which is only kept as archive.

Thanks.

Archive pages

2011-03-09T14:04:00.001+01:00

Better late than never. Now you can more easily browse through all that matters on Genetics and Prehistory (and similar) that was posted in Leherensuge in its three years of existence: I created two archive pages that are accessible from the top of the blog (tab bar).

These two archives were originally posted at the new blog For what they were... we are but their location had become hard to find even for myself. I believe this is a much better location.

Also, on occasion of the formal year change, I wrote a yearly review of 2010 anthropology and prehistory stuff that mostly revisits Leherensuge posts.

Remember please (some seem not to have noticed yet) that Leherensuge was discontinued on October 1st 2010 and replaced by two more sectorial blogs:

For what they were... we are (anthropology, genetics, prehistory...)
For what we are... they will be (the real thing: politics and such)

Hope that this change has been for the best.

We apologize for the incovenience - new blogs reminder

2010-12-22T16:05:00.001+01:00

My blogs as well as my whole Google account was disabled on a weirdo error (spam?) this morning. I finally managed to get them back but for hours this blog and the others have been impossible to access.

So I apologize for the inconvenience (even if it was not my fault).

Reminder of the new blogs

I take this occasion to remind all followers of Leherensuge, that the blog was discontinued on October 1st and replaced by two new blogs with more specific contents:

You may want to check them out.

Update (Dec 27): I forgot to put the links, corrected.

THE END IS A NEW BEGINNING: Leherensuge discontinued but continued in two new blogs

2010-10-01T08:52:00.001+02:00

Finally the day has come. The three-years story of Leherensuge ends here.

It is since now replaced by two more "sectorial" blogs:

For what they were... we are

and

For what we are... they will be

The names taken from Pio Baroja's famous sentence, reflecting long-term continuity through our ephemeral lives, imply a more past and present-future orientation of each blog. They also reflect a more purely scientific-historical approach in For what they were... and a more socio-political one in For what we are...

Hopefully they will serve me and you as well or better than Leherensuge did.

Choose your favorite one or choose both, up to you. Join as follower and/or update your feeds and/or bookmarks. All what I blog from now on will be there.

See you around.

Note: Leherensuge will remain as archive. Also comments in Leherensuge remain open, at least for the time being.

Budget cuts cause revolt in Ecuador too

2010-09-30T21:30:00.001+02:00

Update: Oct. 1: all this is nonsense. I was mislead by intoxications and lack of information. I can be a fool too at times and should be much more cautious, specially in a situation as confuse as this one. See my correction at my new blog For what we are... they will be. The only truth in all this is that there was a coup attempt, which failed, but everything else is wrong.

President Rafael Correa was hurt by tear gas shot by mutinied police. Not only the police is mutinying but his own party has blocked Correa's attempts to cut spending by reducing the public sector. While the Army has sided with the president, there are reports of riots in Quito and the airport has been shut.

Correa could technically rule up to two years without Parliament, assuming that this decision is approved by the Supreme Court, what is not likely.

Ecuador, like many European countries, has a budget problem (even after partial bankruptcy years ago) because it does not control the money it issues since the dollarization imposed by an unpopular right-wing government in the past. In order to take control of its own economy, it should be able to issue its own money, even if inflationarily.

Correa and the parliamentary majority (59/100 seats) belong to Alianza PAIS (Patria AltIva y Soberana), a moderate left-wing political party, that sympathizes with the Bolivarian system of Venezuela. However it is surrounded by US allies with right-wing governments: Colombia and Peru, being maybe the weakest piece of the Bolivarian bloc, organized in the ALBA economic group.

Sadly it is likely that the USA and its local puppets will try to take advantage of the situation, if they have not already helped to trigger it. A better solution is maybe that Correa is impeached or abdicates, as it is obvious that his new IMF-style policies have no support and governing by decree is not a viable solution anyhow (Ecuadoreans have already thrown away more than one such pretentious president)

Source for the main news item: Al Jazeera.

Ireland to waste 30 billion euros in bailing out pointless bank

2010-09-30T20:59:00.001+02:00

As a commenter explains under the extremely brief BBC news note, that is the cost of two years of public healthcare. All commenters agree: let it fall, use public money in public investment to generate much needed jobs instead.

You are probably familiar with this image already: in yesterday's class war pan-European protests a demonstrator crashed this truck, representing the burden of Anglo Irish Bank to the Republic of Ireland, against the Parliament's gates. The incident has become known as cementgate, and is generating a number of silly jokes involving the words concrete and gate, as well as others such as constructive protest, crash, foundations, etc.

But the issue is much more serious: why should a state bail out a private bank? If anything it should nationalize it or, alternatively, just let it fall. Most business do not have the heavy state protection some banks do, nor see even a fraction of the absurdly high profits and disparate salaries for their managers. And most business, unlike banks, contribute to the real and not just the speculative economy.

Ireland is one of the European countries worst affected by the budget crisis, along Greece, Latvia and Hungary, all which are under IMF intervention (with the only result that their recession has aggravated many levels since then). I imagine that the least they can do is to waste 30 billion in a useless bank.

Can anyone tell me what do banks contribute to the real economy? I can't find a single idea, specially since they do not even issue loans anymore.

Let them fall, all the banks except the public ones (which are the ones issuing money and which can lend directly to the public and even make a benefit from that).

Venneman's exposition of Vasconic substrate in Western Europe

2010-09-30T19:34:00.002+02:00

Found at Iruinaoka's page at YouTube, which also includes many videos on Iruña-Veleia, most of them in Spanish language.

However linguist Theo Venneman's exposition is in English, even if his German accent and poor sound quality make sometimes difficult to follow. Turn volume up, adjust balance and be patient... or look for a better quality video/book/paper. I apologize in advance for that poor quality, which is annoying, but I cannot do anything about it.

Video 1: greeting in Basque, introduction on Basque known and speculated history (Upper Paleolithic) and vigesimal system in Basque, Western Romance, Gallic and Germanic:

Video 2: Verbs: difference between to be at/in/on (egon) and to be something (izan). Accents.

Video 3: Loanwords: kinfe (< ganibet), silver (< zilar), star (< izar), andra (lady, woman), grand (< grandi < handi)...

Video 4: More loanwords: cheese (< Käse < gazta < gatz = salt), bust and bush. Toponimy: Lech.

Video 5: Toponimy:

Is- (Isar, Isère, IJzer, etc.), from Iz- found in compound words like izurde = dolphin ("water boar"), and ur- (from ur = water).

Aran (valley), from which: Arn- in Germany/Austria, -earn in Scotland.

Ibaso (ancestor river?) -> Ybbs, Ibar (river bank) -> Eber-, Iberus/Ebro...

Suffix -oz (place?)

Video 6:

Toponimy: -os.

Heint/haint (German): today, from hi naht ('this night'), construction similar to Basque gaur (gau: night + (hau)r: this), also reported by Caesar in Gaulish.

Coherence between linguistics and genetics.

European protests, Spain's general strike

2010-09-30T05:08:00.001+02:00

In a general strike that has been delayed for all the summer by the duopolistic unions UGT and CC.OO., finally Spaniards had yesterday occasion to vent their anger and frustration and go on strike.

It was, it seems, a massive success, considering the appeals to demobilization and police violence by the entrenched institutional actors. Unions estimated the impact in 71.7%, with some media reporting a rounded up figure of 75%. Even the minister of labor had to admit that the impact was of 100% in the automotive sector, with air carrier Ryanair also canceling all its flights and some key services such as trash collection generally paralyzed.

Southern Basque Country

CNT picket in Bilbao

In the Southern Basque Country the impact was smaller, as the major unions did not join the strike, disgruntled by passive and manipulative attitude of the Spanish union duopoly. However in Navarre, the impact was similar to that of Spain with 74% of workers joining according to Gara and the airport completely paralyzed. Reports from industrial areas in the Western Basque Country, talk of some key industries paralyzed and industrial areas nearly stopped, as well as a total blockade of the harbors of Bilbao and Pasaia. Non-industrial sectors however were only mildly impacted.

Catalan Countries

Reports from the Catalan Countries tell of strong following in general and riots in Barcelona. With demonstrations in the thousands in many cities (Barcelona, Sabadell, Tarragona, Valencia, Lleida, etc.) and some arrests.

Fire barricade at Barcelona

Closing Mercavalencia at dawn

Asturias

In Xixon (Gijón) the walkout was generalized, with few incidents. The demo was called by Corriente Sindical de Izquierdas (CSI), SUATEA and CGT but was boycotted by institutionalist unions UGT, CC.OO. and USO, who were accused of making secret pacts with the patrons and government, trying to demobilize popular anger.

Aragon

The reports also talk of a general success, not just in Zaragoza but also in Teruel and other towns. They also talk very bad and of the attitude of UGT-CC.OO, who posed for the photo and then left in most pickets. Combative unions in this country were CGT, Sindicato Obero Aragones (SOA) and CATA.

Closing El Corte Inglés, more images at NoblezaBaturra

There are also reports of police charges and arrests.

Andalusia

I could only find reports so far on Málaga, telling of irregular impact but stopping the key sectors. The demo was of several thousands.

Castile

The most important city by large is Madrid, which was strongly affected by the General Strike according to La Haine.

While the "official" UGT-CC.OO. demo gathered some 500 people, the alternative one called by other unions (CGT, Solidaridad Obrera, etc.) was massive (photos).

Very symbolically, regional public TV Telemadrid cut its emission, reminding somewhat of the impacting cut of TVE in the quasi-mythical general strike of 1988, which was a massive success.

While the unity and strength of genuine labor-unionism was an important element, the violence of police was another one. Police did not only charge against pickets, including the bycicle picket, but there are reports of seven live ammunition caskets being found after a specially violent charge in Airbus-EADS Getafe.

Madrid

Another city where the strike had major impact was Valladolid.

Valladolid

In Salamanca instead the reports tell of low following.

Salamanca

Elsewhere in Europe

There was a call for protests and demos to take place around Europe yesterday and I am aware of such protests in Ireland, Portugal, Italy and several Central European countries, however in the wealthy central bloc of the EU the impact of this call for mobilization seems to have been pretty low or nil, excepting the central demo at Brussels.

Brussels

Dublin (Parliament gates)

Brief Analysis

Combative labor unions clearly made gains both in charisma and unity yesterday in the State of Spain, while traditional subsidized unions seem to have tried to make a posse strike instead to save their face before a growingly angry working class, which massively joined the strike in spite of all.

Much remains to be done at European level, which, in my understanding, is a key level of organization if we want to stop and reverse the offensive of Big Capital.

Some relevant links: CGT, CNT, Solidaridad Obrera, Rojo y Negro, La Haine.

Update: according to Cuestionatelotodo ("questioneverything") the sectorial impact was:

Metal 74%
Wood 59%
Construction 70%
Chemical 80%
Textile 77%
Mining 100%
Air transport 82%
Road transport 78%
Sea Transport 90%
Urban transport 85%
Markets 90%
Public education 60%
Private education 32%

By autonomous communities:

Andalusia 76.8%
Asturias 87%
Balearic Islands 72%
Canary Islands 70%
Cantabria 70%
Castile-Leon 72.3%
Castile-La Mancha 80.2%
Catalonia 80%
Valencian Country 78%
Extremadura 70%
Galicia 80%
Madrid 76%
Murcia 72%
Navarre 74 %
Western Basque Country 30%
La Rioja 71%

Maternal care modifies gene regulating key neurotransmitter

2010-09-30T03:05:00.001+02:00

Physorg reports new research that emphasizes again the crucial epigenetic effects of maternal care of lack of it.

Researchers bred two different clades of rats, ones affective with their offspring and the others extremely detached. The offspring of the latter experimented an epigenetic modification obstructing the expression of the GAD1 gene, which regulates the key neurotransmitter GABA.

GABA helps to regulate emotions and people with schizophrenia may have GABA deficits. Similarly the rats raised by the detached mothers also had low GABA production.

Inversely, the rats raised by cuddly mothers showed high expression of GAD1.

Rodents are genetically very close to primates and hence a very good model for our own biology even within the restricted spectrum of placental mammals.

The research is attributed to Tie-Yuan Zhang to be published in September 29 in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Boy buried near Stonehenge was from the South

2010-09-30T03:03:00.000+02:00

A teenager who died c. 1550 BCE and was buried near Stonehenge with an amber necklace was not raised in Britain but further south, near the Mediterranean, reports BBC.

The burial was discovered in 2005 5 km south of Stonehenge, in a mound at Boscombe Down, while doing roadworks for military housing. His age at death is estimated to have been 14-15 years old.

The burial shows the characteristic fetal position of Bell Beaker but not the usual grave goods of this subculture

The oxygen isotopes found in his enamel evidence that he grew in a warmer climate than Britain, near the Mediterranean. Date and context suggest to me Portugal, where an important Megalithic civilization was still active at that time. However other places of Megalithic culture in Iberia, Southern France or even North Africa or Italy cannot be discarded with the available information.

Other people buried near Stonehenge known to have arrived from afar are the Amesbury Archer, a member of the Bell Beaker subculture, known to have grown at the Northern Alps, and the Boscombe Bowmen, also with a Bell Beaker style burial, known to be from Wales or Brittany or maybe even farther away. However all these belong to a much earlier period, 750 years earlier than the boy of the amber necklace. This strongly suggests that Stonehenge and the religious/cultural (and maybe political) complex around it kept attracting people from the wider Megalithic and Bell Beaker area for almost a whole millennium, possibly more.

Stonehenge, no doubt, was a Mecca of its time. Pity that we know so little about the beliefs and society that motivated such pilgrimages.

European HR Court condemns Spain for not investigating tortures

2010-09-30T03:02:00.000+02:00

It refers to the case of Basque citizen Mikel San Argimiro who was arrested, held incommunicado and (allegedly, most likely) tortured for five days by the Guardia Civil (militarized police corps) in 2002. The sentence condemns Spain to pay 23,000 euros for the fault of investigating the denounces of torture. The sentence is likely to establish a precedent in the matter because Spain almost systematically does not investigate torture while in detention.

The forensic report in San Argimiro's torture case established the first day that he had many lesions, which were dismissed as they could be "compatible with the development of the arrest and the maneuvers of immobilization". This same argument was held by the state attorney in the case of Igor Portu and Mattin Sarasola, which, in an exceptional development, resulted in the accusation of several policemen (Guardia Civil again) which will be judged in a month.

In the second day of arrest the forensic physician reported new lesions without attributing them to any particular cause. Four days later, after being sent to prison, another physician found a broken rib.

The European tribunal cannot judge the existence of not of torture, because there is no investigation but can judge that not investigating it is a serious fault, a breach of article 3 of the European Covenant on Human Rights forbidding torture.

There is a long list of similar cases involving Basques as victims; next in line are the well known cases of Unai Romano, whose photos with the face totally deformed by the beatings caused a tremendous impact, and Martxelo Otamendi, director of Basque language newspaper Egunkaria, which is one of the most aggravating cases of persecution against freedom of speech and linguistic diversity.

Unai Romano before and after his arrest

In the past the European tribunal has only ruled against Spain in few occasions, one involving Catalan nationalists, tortured in the context of the Olympic Games of 1992, the other two affect Basque victims: nationalist MP Miguel Castells, who was deprived of parliamentary immunity, judged and sent to prison for a crime of opinion (denouncing that the death squads of the 1980s were not being investigated) and the other happened last year, when Strasbourg condemned Spain to pay 170,000 euros to Mikel Iribarren, who was almost killed by a rubber bullet shot at short distance against his face.

Hopefully this sentence will help to at least contain a bit the systematic impunity of police torture.

Source: Gara.

Hyenas another european mammal extinct at the end of the last ice age

2010-09-29T19:04:00.002+02:00

Spanish researchers have published a new paper on the extinction of spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta, the same species dominant in Africa) in Europe and Asia. Apparently hyenas lived without much trouble in the Mediterranean areas of Eurasia until c. 10,000 years ago, when they became extinct. This is also the time of the end of the last Ice Age.

Lead researcher Sara Varela says that climate change in the past was not directly responsible for the extinction of the spotted hyena in southern Europe, but it was a factor in its disappearance.

Source: Science Daily, illustration from Wikipedia.

Ref. Sara Varela et al., Were the Late Pleistocene climatic changes responsible for the disappearance of the European spotted hyena populations? Hindcasting a species geographic distribution across time. Quaternary Science Reviews 2010. Pay per view.

Physical anthropologist claims (again) that Homo floresiensis was cretin Homo sapiens

2010-09-29T18:46:00.006+02:00

This hypothesis has been proposed before by the same team and then rejected. However I feel obliged to mention it as I'm sure that some readers will find it interesting and also because, if real, it would mean that LB1 is not an Homo erectus (maybe a cretin H. erectus?) nor a new species but a marginal representative of our own expansion in Eurasia and beyond.

However I am skeptic, specially because Oxnard fails to compare with Homo erectus.

Cretinism is a severe chronic medical condition caused by low iodine intake. Iodine is mostly ingested with drinking water and also from sea salt, but not refined table salt (unless enriched).

Judge yourself anyhow:

Charles Oxnard et al. Post-Cranial Skeletons of Hypothyroid Cretins Show a Similar Anatomical Mosaic as Homo floresiensis. PLoS ONE 2010. Open access.

On strike

2010-09-29T04:00:00.006+02:00

Several volcanoes may have severily damaged Neanderthals

2010-09-28T15:46:00.002+02:00

This is the hypothesis proposed by Liuvob Golovanova in the latest issue of Current Anthropology, according to Science News.

Golovanova's team has found two different volcanic ash layers in the Neanderthal site of Mezmaiskaya, in the North Caucasus, the first one is dated to c. 45 Ka ago and the second one to c. 40 Ka ago. This one seems to have sealed the fate of Neanderthals in the Caucasus.

Some time later, c. 38-37 Ka ago, items that are mostly associated with Homo sapiens, such as perforated shell ornaments, bone points and other items, appear at the site.

A similar situation is found, as far as I know, in the not too distant site of Kostenki, in southern Russia. The 40 Ka eruption is also associated with the cold episode known as HE4 and has been related to the expansion of Aurignacian culture in SW Europe.

However it must be noted that in the same issue, geologist Biagio Giacio, challenges Golovanova's account, mentioning the presence of artifacts under the ash layer in several Mediterranean locations. I presume that these are the same sites that Julien Riel-Salvatore has been digging in Southern Italy, of Uluzzian culture.

Riel-Salvatore stands today at his blog by his published claims of Uluzzian being a Neanderthal industry, mostly because of the existence of a Mousterian (probably Neanderthal) buffer in Central Italy arguably preventing Sapiens influences from arriving, but other researchers have already proposed that it is of H. sapiens manufacture because of it srather unmistakable Upper Paleolithic style, including bone tools (unknown to have been ever made by Neanderthals), and specially the presence of perforated decorations.

The debate continues.

Ref. L.V. Golovanova et al. Significance of ecological factors in the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition. Current Anthropology. Vol. 51, October 2010, p. 655. doi:10.1086/656185.

General Strike tomorrow

2010-09-28T13:10:00.000+02:00

Labor unions have called a General Strike of 24 hrs. in the state of Spain tomorrow, September 29th. While I have my reservations, I will join it and therefore Leherensuge will be idle tomorrow. I won't reply to comments either.

The most representative unions in the Basque Country, ELA and LAB, which organized a separate national strike in June, declared weeks ago that they will not back the strike, because it has been unprepared and the Spanish unions have not counted with them. Another reason is that they argued that tomorrow there would be a Europe-wide strike and there is nothing like that (they lied). Other state-wide unions have joined the strike also critically.

However I am of the opinion that not one day but many of general strike are needed in order to put the State, Big Capital and EU against the ropes. So I am not renouncing to the opportunity to adhere to this strike, even if I am strongly critical of the subsidized Spanish union duopoly and I strongly suspect that the main motivation they have is to demobilize workers, rather than actually present battle against Big Capital and their administrators in Madrid and Brussels.

________

On a separate note:

Leherensuge will be discontinued in October 1st. Two new blogs: will take its place that day:

This follows the plan I have already outlined in the past, with a slight delay. The strike is another reason to delay it a few days more (avoiding confusion), even if the new blogs are ready, I believe.

A final post will formalize the change. Leherensuge will remain online as archive and, at least for some time comments will be allowed.

Please make preparations for the replacement: bookmark, follow and/or update your feeds. Thanks.

Spain arrests Basque internationalists

2010-09-28T12:26:00.000+02:00

Spanish police has arrested tonight seven members of the, so far legal, internationalist organization Askapena. It has done so ordered by the Neoinquisition's new boy, judge Juan Pablo Ruz, who is replacing B. Garzón, who is in trial for daring to investigate fascism or something).

The seven arrested are Gabi Basañez, Unai Vázquez, Itxaso Lekuona, Rubén Sánchez, David Soto, Aritz Ganboa and Walter Wendelin. Wendelin, who has German citizenship, was expelled from Venezuela in March in a cowardly action by the Bolivarian government, upon pressure from Spain. In spite of all the manipulations he was free until yesterday.

There is of course concern because of the recent reports of tortures against other people arrested arbitrarily by the Audiencia Nacional (Neoinquisition).

Source: Gara.

Analysis

This is obviously another sabotage against any possible peace process and a provocation to the whole Basque Nationalist Left. There is no question about it. The only question may be who is directing the judges (and police, as tortures are not something that judges can order) into arbitrary arrests of political nature in this delicate time. I do not have an answer but it is clear that, if it is not the Spanish Government directly (it might be the right wing opposition), it casts a huge shadow on the real power wielded by Rodriguez Zapatero (PM) and Rubalcaba (Minister of the Interior) and therefore on whether something can be negotiated at all with the PSOE government.

Question remains is how much patience will ETA have with the blatant disinterest of Spain in reaching to any agreement or even respecting the most basic protocol towards any sort of negotiation. And how much patience will the Basque people have as well because what is obvious by now, and is likely to become more obvious in the near future, is that Spain does not want peace and democracy and Basque people does instead.

By the way, there is some persistent helicopter noise out there. Not too unusual but sign that they are monitoring the streets from the air, whatever the exact reason. As there is no demonstration called for today, it should be related to the arrests.

Jewish boat to attempt to breach the siege of Gaza

2010-09-27T07:52:00.002+02:00

A small (10 m long) catamaran with pro-Palestinian activists of Jewish ethnicity has set sail from Cyprus in yet another attempt to breach the siege of the macro-camp for displaced persons in South Palestine. The boat, named Irene, carries fishing nets in a nonviolent act of defiance against Zionist apartheid, 8 crew members and two journalists.

Reuven Moskovitz, an Holocaust survivor, 82, declared:

It is a sacred duty for me, as a survivor, to protest against the persecution, the oppression and the imprisonment of so many people in Gaza, including more than 800,000 children.

He also said: we are two peoples but we have one future.

The crew of the Irene

The crew members are:

Reuven Moskowitz, Israeli citizen. Founder of unsegregated village Neve Shalom – Wahat al Salaam (Oasis of Peace). He is an Holocaust survivor.
Rami Elhanan, Israeli citizen. Lost his daughter Smadar in a suicide bombing in 1997 and is founding member of Bereaved Families Circle of Israelis and Palestinians (association of victims of the conflict).
Lilian Rosengarten, US citizen. Peace activist and psychotherapost. She is a refugee from Nazi persecution.
Yonatan Shapira, Israeli citizen. Former military pilot and member of Combatants for Peace.
Glyn Secker, British citizen. He is the boat captain and a member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians Executive Commitee.
Edith Lutz, German citizen. She is peace activist and a nurse. She was in the first boat to Gaza in 2008.
Itamar Shapira, Israeli citizen. Yonatan's brother.

The two journalists are Eli Osherov, from Israeli Channel 10 News, and Vish Vishvanath, freelance photographer and reporter.

More information at Jewish Boat to Gaza and also at the support organizations:

See also news items at Al Jazeera and BBC.

Update: somewhat anecdotally, Jews sans frontieres mentions today that Marion Kozak, mother of the two confronted Labor party leaders Ed and David Miliband, is among the 1600 signatories supporting the boat, whose names will be displayed in colorful banners by the crew, as member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians. She is a veteran left wing and Labor Party militant.

Update (Sep 28): Israel has taken the boat today. Not yet known whether in international or Gaza waters, in another illegal action in any case. The boat flies British flag so this is technically an act of war against the United Kingdom.

Physicians for Human Rights has asked for access to the kidnapped crew, as at least one of them is known to have a chronic illness and needs medical care.

Mapuches take UN see in Chile

2010-09-27T05:51:00.001+02:00

This happens after two days ago they briefly took other UN offices in Santiago (International Work Organization and Economic Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean).

As the hunger strike of Mapuche prisoners goes beyond the 70 days and government and prisoners failed to reach an agreement last Friday, native organization Maulen Huanchu took yesterday the offices of the United Nations in Santiago de Chile with intent of remaining there indefinitely.

Source: Gara.

Pentagon burns all copies of revealing 9/11 book

2010-09-26T07:40:00.001+02:00

From Alexander Higgins Blog, originally from Fox News.

In a most incredible, yet real, move, the US Department of Defense has purchased and then burnt all copies from a book on 9/11, revealing uncomfortable facts such as the USA knowing about Mohammed Atta (the alleged leader of the attacks) and having him under surveillance as a security threat long before 9/11 (and yet allowing him to live freely in the USA).

The Pentagon had first authorized the book by reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, titled Operation Dark Heart, but then realized they had committed and error, as, allegedly, it contains secret information that hurts "national security".

Specifically, the DIA wanted references to a meeting between Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, the book's author, and the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow, removed. In that meeting, which took place in Afghanistan, Shaffer alleges the commission was told about "Able Danger" and the identification of Atta before the attacks. No mention of this was made in the final 9/11 report.

Shaffer, who was undercover at the time, said there was "stunned silence" at the meeting after he told the executive director of the commission and others that Atta was identified as early as 2000 by "Able Danger."

Dr. Philip Zelikow approached me in the corner of the room. 'What you said today is very important. I need you to get in touch with me as soon as you return from your deployment here in Afghanistan'," Shaffer said.

Once back in the U.S., Shaffer says he contacted the commission. Without explanation, the commission was no longer interested. An inspector general report by the Department of Defense concluded there was no evidence to support the claims of Shaffer and others. But Fox News has obtained an unredacted copy of the IG report containing the names of witnesses, who backed up Shaffer's story when contacted for comment.

As I commented at AHB: I’d say that impressively stupid because how do they think they can block info from flowing unless they close the Internet down (which in turn would only cause them to effective lose the little control they may have on the Internet, as other countries would soon push their own versions to fill in the void).

I think that this essentially shows that the whole mentality behind the 9/11 operation and all that is antiquated: it belongs, as its ringleaders (all them members of the Nixon-Ford administration), to the pre-Internet age and that’s why is doomed. Not that in the past information would not flow but was slower and less exuberant, allowing a lot greater control by the governments and media corporations.

Related news: rumor of domestic military deployment of US troops, possibly, Tuesday.

Not sure what to make of this but it does sound quite alarming. According to a YouTube video by SmokinJoeTrainer, he has received several confidential reports from trusted friends in the army being called for domestic deployment by the end of the weekend. It's just an unconfirmed rumor so far but watch it out.

Source: Alexander Higgins Blog.

Online edition of the origina Siret study on Iberian Metal Ages

2010-09-25T12:43:00.000+02:00

Belgian archaeologist Louis Siret (also known as Luis Siret y Cels) was a pioneer of archaeology in Spain and the discoverer of the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age civilizations of Los Millares and El Argar in SE Iberia.

His original book Les premiers ages du metal dans le sud-est de l'Espagne (The early Metal Ages in the Southeast of Spain) has now been made available online, after restoration, by the Junta de Andalucía (Andalusian autonomous government). It can be accessed online at Archive.org in several formats including scanned facsimile. It is only available in French though.

Thanks to Pileta de Prehistoria.

Judge accepts denounce against Julio Núñez and provincial government in the Iruña-Veleia archaeological destruction case

2010-09-25T09:51:00.006+02:00

In a hopeful twist in the Iruña-Veleia scandal, Instruction Judge no. 1 of Vitoria-Gasteiz has accepted the denounce against the new site director Julio Núñez (left, "at work") and the provincial government of Araba for the alleged destruction of patrimony, as evidenced by photos, videos and testimonies previously discussed in this blog.

In the denounce it is requested that the Director Plan for the Vasco-Roman site of Iruña-Veleia is paralyzed urgently on light of it not being even respected at all by chief archaeologist Núñez. It is also requested that judicial police and independent experts survey piles of disposed soil with embedded archaeologically remains.

Source: Noticias de Alava[es]

Update: a comic by Zaldieroa (Crazy Horse). It's not really new (May) but it is funny anyhow:

1st panel:

In the Ivory Tower of Irati (a large forest in the Pyrenees)

2nd panel

Goblin: My Lord, here there are the latest reports on Veleia.

Lord: Still with that issue around?

Goblin: Yes, my Lord.

3rd panel

Lord: But... tell me... has the ergative been found in Veleia?
Goblin: Not, my Lord, there is no trace of any ergative.
Lord: Then they are false, 'leñe'!! That is not genuine Basque!

Note: the Lord is described in previous cartoons, as Euskal Taliban Jatorra (the purebred Basque Taliban), the goblin is called Yoda. The "Taliban" is depicted often as a linguistic purist of the worst kind.

US court sentences kidnapped Pakistani woman

2010-09-24T09:03:00.000+02:00

The kidnappers were US soldiers and FBI agents acting outside their jurisdiction: in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Aafia Sidiqqi, who is a neuroscientist and hence a most unlikely "Taliban" (who are against any sort of education for women), was allegedly suspected by her captors to be an Al Qaeda sympathizer who claim that they found instructions for making bombs and New York maps in her apartment (what to me looks like the typical made-up evidence).

Sidiqqi however she denies the accusation's claims and says that she was kidnapped and held for five years in a secret prison in Afghan soil.

According to the accusation it was then when she managed to grab one of her captors' guns but she was the only one injured in the shooting that ensued. She also denies this accusation.

Lacking any objective evidence other than the statements from the parties should cause, in good justice, an acquittal but instead she has been sentenced to what is in practice a life sentence.

The case has caused an uproar in her native Pakistan, where people simply don't believe the accusations, specially as we all know that the "extraordinary rendition" strategy of kidnapping suspects and holding them in secret prisons in foreign soil was and still is a most disturbing reality.

Sidiqqi declared in the trial that she is committed to World Peace:

I do not want any bloodshed. I do not want any misunderstanding. I really want to make peace and end the wars.

Gulf of Mexico oil spill was many times the government figures

2010-09-24T06:35:00.001+02:00

Researchers from Columbia University (NY, USA) conclude that the amount of oil released daily by BP's Deepwater Horizon well until the first cap was placed on June 15 was 56-68,000 barrels per day, maybe more. This is many times more than the official figures, which evolved from a ridiculous claim of of one thousand barrels to 19,000.

The total oil released to the environment is at least 4.4 million barrels, most of which is still there even if it has been hidden by the use of massive amounts of highly toxic dispersants, in what is the most massive environmental and public health scandal in US history and globally only comparable to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986.

Possible variations in the flows from day to day lead to some uncertainty. Additionally, the analysis does not include other smaller plumes from several holes near the broken pipe, holes that are believed to have grown with time.

Lead author, Timothy Crone, developed his technique of optical plume velocimetry to study deep undersea thermal vents in the Pacific Ocean in 2006.

Source: Science Daily.

Reference: Timothy Crone and Maya Tolstoy, Magnitude of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Oil Leak. Science 2010. Pay per view.

UN: Zionist attack against Mavi Marmara broke International Law: summary executions and torture

2010-09-23T04:41:00.001+02:00

What we all knew already but it is always good to see it ratified by an international institution such as the UN Human Rights Council.

The report also said that there was clear evidence to prosecute Israeli criminals under article 174 of the Geneva Convention for the charges of: willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment and willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health.

The Mission considers that several violations and offences have been committed. It is not satisfied that, in the time available, it can say that it has been able to compile a comprehensive list of all offences. However, there is clear evidence to support prosecutions of the following crimes within the terms of article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention:

wilful killing;
torture or inhuman treatment;
wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health.
The Mission also considers that a series of violations of Israel’s obligations under international human rights law have taken place, including:

right to life (article 6, ICCPR);
torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (article 7, ICCPR; CAT);
right to liberty and security of the person and freedom from arbitrary arrest or detention (article 9, ICCPR)
right of detainees to be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person (article 10, ICCPR);
freedom of expression (article 19, ICCPR).
The right to an effective remedy should be guaranteed to all victims. The mission must not be understood to be saying that this is a comprehensive list by any means.

266. The Mission notes that the retention by the Israeli authorities of unlawfully seized property remains a continuing offence and Israel is called upon to return such property forthwith.

The report also hopes that Israel will cooperate in handing the perpetrators of these crimes and compensating the victims adequately and promptly. But they regret the lack of cooperation by Israel.

They also state that:

All the passengers on board the ships comprising the flotilla who appeared before the Mission impressed the members as persons genuinely committed to the spirit of humanitarianism and imbued with a deep and genuine concern for the welfare of the inhabitants of Gaza.

Hoabinhian neolithic site

2010-09-23T00:17:00.000+02:00

Issue #36 of Stone Pages' bulletin, Archaeo News, has arrived to my mailbox with at least one item worth mentioning

New Neolithic (Hoabinhian) site found in North Vietnam

The cave, known as Tham Choong, (Na Hang district, Tuyen Quang province) is dated to 8000-7000 years ago. The tools belong to the Hoabinhian culture, which lasted from some 34,000 years ago to c. 2000 BCE, spanning through Paleolithic and Neolithic.

The thousand or so stone tools recovered served for cutting, chopping and grinding. Bone tools were also found, including a sharply pointed one that archaeologists believe was used for stitching the bark clothes they probably used.

Source: Vietnam News.

Other news

Check the newsletter for other news, such as digs in North America (Utah, already mentioned here from another source, Wyoming, Wisconsin) and Britain (Bronze Age cremation cemetery at projected commercial center near Inverness, Scotland, Bronze Age person from the Isle of Man died violently, trekking path projected between Avebury and Stonehenge, etc.)

There's also a mention on Timothy Taylor's hypothesis on the baby sling being a decisive invention in human evolution (I'm a bit skeptic but who knows?)

More importantly maybe, Paola and Diego mention that they are heading again to Sardinia, accompanied by archaeologist George Nash, with the intention of persuading the authorities to open the badly sealed and spectacular Tomba della Scacchiera (image below), a Megalithic site that has serious conservation risks and also has a strong touristic potential (already mentioned at Leherensuge).

Advance notice: Leherensuge to be replaced very soon by two new blogs

2010-09-22T09:02:00.000+02:00

Not yet, but as I promised some months ago, Leherensuge will be branched out into two new more specialized new blogs. And it will be soon.

The reason I have delayed so much is because I could not find good names. However, finally the light came to me after posting on the Congress of Historians of Navarre a few days ago. This post closed with a sentence from celebrated Basque author Pio Baroja:

For what they were we are, for what we are they will be.

This sentence of deep historical meaning, both looking to the past and to the future, really reflects well what I have been trying to address in Leherensuge so far and the two halves in which I mean to split my future blogging.

And that's how the two new blogs are named:

For what they were... we are, will deal with the past: Prehistory, Anthropology, Genetics, some History too maybe. One of the pillars of this blog.

For what we are... they will be instead will deal with news from here and there, the Class War in all its aspects, as well as whatever other issue of current affairs I can think of.

Admittedly, some times I may have doubts where to post something. In such cases, I may double post it.

So, I insist, this won't be yet but will be very soon (days or weeks). The most difficult task was to figure out the names, now only the preliminary work remains to be done (design details, maybe a page or post with thematically organized links to most important posts in Leherensuge for the past-looking blog).

One of these days, when I feel satisfied with those last details, I will write my last Leherensuge post, which will be the closure notice, with due links and all that.

Feel free to visit either or both blogs in their preliminary state and comment on the design (here preferably for now). I welcome criticisms and ideas (though I will follow my own preferences ultimately, of course).

I hope you will all like and enjoy these two new sites, which are nothing but this blog's continuity, the same or even more as you did here.

Neolithic seal found near Izmir, Turkey

2010-09-21T21:38:00.002+02:00

A seal (stamp) dating from 6200 BCE, roughly when most of Europe (except the Balcans) was still in the Epipaleolithic, and older than those from Mesopotamia as far as I can tell, has been unearthed at Yesilova Höyuk in West Turkey, in the Izmir metropolitan area.

The seal is shaped like a bull but the marking is a radial figure (8 radii, maybe representing the Sun or a star) and is speculated it belonged to an administrator of some sort.

The site of Yelisova Höyuk looks interesting because not much was known until recently of the Neolithic of West Turkey, the missing link between West Asian and Balcanic Neolithic. However the oldest dates for this site so far are whole millenium more recent than those from Thessaly, Greece, so this particular site does not look like going to inform directly about the ultimate origins of Balcanic, and hence European, Neolithic.

Source for the seal discovery story: Hürriyet - Daily News (found at Archaeology in Europe).

Much more detailed information on the site overall at the dig's site.

Pottery from layer III

Upper Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic vegetation and climate of NW Iberia

2010-09-21T21:02:00.007+02:00

Just a brief mention of an important palaeoclimatic paper (in Spanish language):

Pablo Ramil Rego, Cambio climático y dinámica del paisaje en Galicia (Climate change and environmental dynamics in Galicia). Recursos Rurais, 2009. (Direct PDF link).

Most informative is maybe figure 12, that I reproduce here:

Click to expand

It is pretty evident that in the Last Glacial Maximum (first map), the region was dominated by grass and mountain dwarf shrubs, but with importance of forest in the south (Northern Portugal) and even in Asturias (something I was not clearly aware of and that should be general for all the Cantabrian strip).

Forests gradually expanded in the Late Upper Paleolithic, as climate warmed gradually, becoming clearly dominant in the Epipaleolithic (last map), when climate was already pretty much like today's. Epipaleolithic would anyhow last for some three millennia after the period covered here.

Later deforestation is apparent (fig. 15) but mild at some locations since c. 5000 calBP (beginnings of Neolithic), in the Iron Age, but specially since the Roman and Medieval periods.

Found at Arquêociencias[por].

Testimonies of tortured by Spanish police

2010-09-21T07:30:00.002+02:00

Political repression in the Basque Country, including arbitrary arrests, false accusations, trials without guarantees and tortures, is so common that I cannot certainly make mention of everything. In fact, I fear that I am so used to reading about repression that I don't even give it too much importance or even try to take it off my mind.

But at least now and then I must make mention so my readers get an idea of what is going on here. These is what happened, by their own accounts, to the last spat of arrested and tortured Basques, the victims of the reaction of the state to the confirmation by ETA that they were in a unilateral truce. All them were arrested by the Guardia Civil, a military police corps similar to the French Gendarmerie or the Italian Carabinieri, that has the worst reputation. The typical journey to Madrid by car may last some 4-5 hours but tortures continued once in police dependencies. Sexual abuse has become lately a common way of torture.

Sandra Barrenetxea had her upper clothes removed while being transported to Madrid. In the transport, she was systematically insulted, beaten and touched. Eventually a policeman took away her pants, forcing her to open her legs while another hit her on the head. She was forced to wear only her underwear in the interrogations and was threatened with rape repeatedly. In one occasion she was forced to lie her torso on a piece of furniture while the policemen tied her legs with a rope and threw cold water to her genitals between threats of rape.

Ugaitz Elizaran claims to have suffered more than 20 times the torture known as "the bag" (they put a plastic bag on your head and tighten it so you cannot breath and experience the agony of death). In one case, while suffering this torture, they tied his hands at the back and enveloped him in a mattress, with several policemen sitting on him. He tells that he even lost his sight once. Additionally they forced him to make physical exercises and beat him, as well as issuing threats against his relatives and friends, showing him a manipulated photo to make him believe, falsely, that his couple was also arrested.

Rosa Iriarte told that she was forced to touch a white narcotic dust, what caused her lose the feeling of her hands. Then they threw the same dust on her legs loosing sense in that part of the body as well. When they finally gave her a glass of water, she also ingested some of the substance, having all the mouth "asleep". Additionally she was forced to hear how the other arrested were tortured and was applied electrodes but no shocks (a threat).

Eneko Compains suffered the bag as well since the very moment he was introduced in the police van. He also denounced a very harsh psychological treatment with systematic threats against his relatives and a threat of anal rape with a stick. Curiously, he mentions that when he rejected to make a declaration at the police station the attitude of the cops relaxed. He asked to the physician for habeas corpus but his petition was rejected by the tribunal.

Aniaiz Ariznabarreta was, like Barrenetxea, deprived of her upper clothes in the journey to Madrid, suffering touchings and sexist insults. The same pattern was repeated at the police station for the four days of the arrest, when she was forced to stay naked and suffered sexual abuse (touchings on breasts and vagina). Ariznabarreta also reports that she was once enveloped in a blanket and then in a mattress, with a policeman sitting on her while the other five officers did not stop yelling, insulting and making threats.

Egoitz Garmendia was also applied the bag with some peculiarities (tape on his mouth and sometimes throwing water to his face when releasing the grip). He was heavily beaten and also enveloped in a blanket and/or mattress for policemen to jump on him (one on his genitals). He also reported repeated hits against his genitals (without the mattress) and threats of rape with a stick. In one occasion, when being brought back to the cell, they threw water on him, forcing him to stay naked with the only aid of a blanket (police cells are not warm, I can tell you).

Erika Bilbao was forced to stay in difficult postures, beaten and threatened, reporting as well a harsh psychological treatment full of threats against her loved ones. Like the rest, she could not rest because of continuous noise and yelling.

Joxe Aldasoro was kept in a dark room in which he could see nothing. When moved, he was blindfolded. Otherwise he reports continuous threats against his relatives and friends.

Urko Aierbe was beaten so badly that his leg was injured and he cannot walk normally now. His report includes the bag (twice), forced positions and continuous beatings.

Source: Gara.

Make up your own mind. But this is essentially what we read, hear or just know from experience that happens when someone is arrested, in particular (but not only) by the Guardia Civil. Spanish 'anti-terrorist' laws allow for incommunicado arrest without any guarantees for several days and when these are applied the usual thing to happen is torture of this or that sort. Later they may well let you free with or without charges, for the media your a "terrorist" anyhow and most won't listen to your denounces.

The 'Homer Simpson gene' found

2010-09-20T04:25:00.004+02:00

No kidding. A gene that makes mice dumber than they can potentially be and which also exists in humans (mice are very close relatives of us). Naturally the researchers have nicknamed it the "Homer Simpson gene".

The gene is techically known as RGS14 and is part of the CA2 region. Mice with the RGS14 gene knocked down (marvels of genetic engineering) surprisingly were much faster and effective than their normal cousins navigating mazes and overcoming obstacles. In other words: they were mice geniuses of sorts.

Naturally this finding begs a question:

why would we, or mice, have a gene that makes us less smart -- a Homer Simpson gene?

Good question. Scientists still do not know. I wonder if they should knock out that gene in themselves before the next research. Ok, sure, now I am kidding... or maybe not.

Why do we have a gene that makes us, it seems, dumber than we could potentially be. What advantages does stupidity confer?

Or does its absence cause some other kind of problems? Researchers speculate on some possible related issues (epileptic seizures, altered social behavior) but so far have not been able to find any clear correlation: the Homer Simpson gene makes you dumb and its absence does not seem to confer any disadvantage whatsoever.

So what's going on? Why hasn't this gene be selected against? Nobody knows... yet.

Source: Science Daily.

Ref. Sarah Emerson Lee et al., RGS14 is a natural suppressor of both synaptic plasticity in CA2 neurons and hippocampal-based learning and memory. PNAS 2010. Pay per view depending on where and when.

First Congress of Historians of Navarre

2010-09-20T01:12:00.003+02:00

In 2012 it will be the fifth centenary of the conquest of Navarre by Castile (and Aragon, and with English help taking positions in Bayonne to prevent French intervention). Technically the centennial milestone can go for almost a decade because until 1521 the conquest was not consolidated but 1512 is the fateful date of the first invasion and the one recorded in most history books, which in many cases do not mention any of the rest, be it background or aftermath.

In preparation of this date, the historical town of Biana (Viana), where Prince Charles was imprisoned by his cruel father and where Cesare Borgia fought his last battle as captain of Navarre, Nabarralde has organized the First Congress of Historians of Navarre, which took place this weekend.

Gara newspaper reports on it, mentioning the most important insights:

From the organizers, Joseba Asiron, said in the conclusions that we already lost in 1512, there is no way we will lose again in 2012. He also appealed to dismantle the systematic manipulation by a partial and interested historiography.

Jean Louis Davant discussed the role of France, the main ally of Navarre, in the conflict, saying that France looked for its own interests and that, in any case, helping Navarre was truly complicated.

Iñaki Sagredo dealt with the military aspects of the invasion, saying that the modern Castilian army, which occupied some 13 kilometers, cut like a knife through butter through the many but obsolete Navarrese fortifications.

Floren Aoiz explained how the myth of "free adherence" to Castile was built not so much by the invaders but by the Navarrese aristocrats (late Navarre had suffered a feudalizing evolution, unlike the earlier one where noblemen were nothing but appointed governors), who hoped that way to retain their privileges.

Cartoon by Oroz (source)
The Spanish invader (left) is saying: "C'mon, smile man... You don't want to be remembered like that by the Fifth CentenaryCommittee?!!" In the right corner the maimed arm reads "Low Navarre".

Peio Joseba Monteano, who has just published a book on the conquest, focused on the Battle of Noain, in 1521, where the last hopes of recovering freedom were defeated. He analyzed why the defeat of Asparros (Bearnois general very much criticized for disbanding the infantry too early).

Mikel Legorburu addressed the struggle from the Navarrese Parliament for the preservation of the signs of identity of the Kingdom, such as the heraldry in coins and the insistence of numbering the monarchs by the Navarrese and not the Castilian count. He said that, in order to recover the identity of Navarre as independent state, we should address Ferdinand VII as Ferdinand III, as there were no Ferdinand monarchs in Navarre before the Castilian conquest.

Pello Esarte dismantled the myth of civil strife among Navarrese as trigger of the invasion of 1512, blaming it instead to the ambition and plotting of the Trastamara monarchs (antecessors of the Habsburgs) and described the Beaumont faction as mere mercenaries of the Aragonese monarchs.

Jon Oria dwelt in the intellectual heights of the surviving Lower Navarre (and Bearn, Foix, etc.) after the invasion under Queen Marguerite (left), a close friend of Anne Boleyn and a precursor of Reformation, whose court caused Shakespeare to write that "Navarre will be the wonder of the World".

Mikel Sorauren discussed how Navarrese identity has been kidnapped and diluted by the Spanish Empire, which imposes a historical imaginary that is not the one of the country. Similarly, Bixente Serrano Izko explained how Spaniards have treated Navarre and how much this historical European country has been relegated to the background. However he said that in the last 23 years (i.e. since 1987) independent research is flourishing.

José Luis Orella dealt with the pretexts used by Castile-Aragon, which issued fake Papal bulls that justified the conquest.

The congress closed with a homage to the later author Pablo Antoñana, native of Biana, and also remembering the figure of the just deceased Aragonese musician, author, documentalist and nationalist politician José Antonio Labordeta, who died yesterday.

Besides pure history, the congress also had room for some present-day initiatives:

Nafarroa Bizirik (Navarre Alive) suggests that the work of historians must be conjoined with the awareness of the people and the reality of a popular movement that rescues Navarrese history and identity.

Gorka Palacio is promoting a Basque-language wiki to gather all the information on Navarrese history (nafarroa@wikispaces.com).

Idoia Arrieta said that we have been very much careless on how the conquest is taught to children, not really explaining how the state was removed from history by the force of arms.

Luis Martínez de Garate (Nabarralde) made a similar point to that of Nafarroa Bizirik, suggesting that there is a subtle difference between what is in the history books and what the people knows and, in this sense, he made an appeal to recover collective memory, closing with the famous sentence of Pio Baroja:

For what they were, we are.
For what we are, they will be.

Yet another international linguist takes a stand in favor of Gil in the Iruña-Veleia affaire

2010-09-19T23:41:00.006+02:00

In this case it is Roslyn M. Frank, professor emeritus of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Iowa and a scholar who has dedicated some good time to deal with Basque language, visiting this little corner of Europe very often since 1974 and authoring several books on Basque theme, mostly on linguistics.

Roslyn M. Frank (linguist)

In her latest visit, these days, Frank offered two interviews with Noticias de Alava (local newspaper in Spanish language):

In one of them she states her astonishment and that of the European scientific community because of the lack of analytics on the controversial pot shards with inscriptions (mostly in Basque and Vulgar Latin).

Two weeks ago I was at a congress in Germany in which there were a lot of scientists from everywhere in Europe, among them several archaeologists. When I told them about Iruña-Veleia, the first thing they asked was: 'Which were the results of analytics?' And I had to reply that they were never made. They could not understand. And asked once and again: 'But why were they not made?' And I did not know what to answer.

She compares the Kafkian circumstances surrounding Iruña-Veleia with a paternity demand in which the alleged father is the one demanding a paternity test after being declared guilty without any evidence.

It is impossible to talk of scientific consensus in this case. The data provided by the [official] report are very weak because of 359 pages most do not even have bibliographic references.

She is outraged by the procedure executed by the new director, Julio Núñez, which she considers an attack against the patrimony. A position held by this blog and SOS Iruña-Veleia, among others.

For linguists, she argues that the philological reconstruction of proto-Basque (the main argument held against the Lurmen archaeological team led by Eliseo Gil) cannot ever disprove any archaeological finding:

... the word 'proto' always means a reconstruction, which is hypothetical, because the appearance of new data often changes the nature of the reconstruction.

In other words, the academic inquisition of the Philology department of the Basque Country University has, consciously and mischievously, put the cart before the horses in this case.

In the other interview, she says that she hopes the best but expects little for Iruña-Veleia, at least while Núñez is in charge. Her denounce of his destructive methods contrasts with the support for the period in which the site was under the direction of Eliseo Gil and Idoia Filloy, when the site attracted as many as 35,000 visitors (2008).

In both interviews she lists a number of other important supporters of the original methods and findings, some of whom have already been mentioned here: Juan Mari Elexpuru (linguist), Hector Iglesias (linguist), Emilio Illarregi (archaeologist), Luis Silgo Gauche (archaeologist) and Edward Cecil Harris (archaeologist).

Found at Iruña-Veleia, Gezurra Ala Egia?[eu], where a paper by Roslyn Frank on the graphological analysis used to smear Eliseo Gil is also linked (click on 'descargar', PDF in Spanish). This document, which concludes with a request for the provincial government be stripped from its role as custodian of the original graffiti in benefit of the right of defense, is part of the procedures of the trial against Eliseo Gil. In this procedure it has also been ordered an official analytic by police as the provincial government has refused to do so.

For background and further information on this most sad scandal, see the category Iruña-Veleia in this blog.

French Inquisition persecutes Israel boycott activists

2010-09-19T22:50:00.003+02:00

A French court has accepted a denounce by the Zionist Lobby (specifically an organization called "National Bureau of Vigilance Against Antisemitism", which looks similar to the USA-based Anti-Defamation League, or as it's popularly known: "Defamation League") has brought charges against the Coordination of Appeals for a Just Peace in the Near East (CAPJPO by its French acronym) for allegedly constituting an "offense of incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence against a group of people on account of their belonging to the Israeli nation", for filming and posting the video below (a festive boycott protest at a Carrefour supermarket against Israeli imports).

Source: Jews Sans Frontieres.

The accusations, obviously meant to criminalize the anti-apartheid movement for a free Palestine, have only been brought against the main promoter of the action and not against the many other signatories, including a Jewish organization (IJAN) and a state-wide party (New Anti-Capitalist Party), which would have been inconvenient for the Zios to attack.

Well, the least I can do is to post here the video again:

Who is the Nazi? Who is persecuting in our dear Europe freedom of speech and democracy? Who is the Antisemite here? We must remember that Palestinians are, by nature of their language, Semites, at least as much as any Jew (many of which don't even speak Hebrew fluently or at all). Furthermore, as I have argued before Palestinians are much more likely to be the genuine descendants of ancient Jews (and Canaanites, etc.) than the Euro-Mediterranean Jewish diaspora, which seems rather related to Lebanese and Cypriots (Phoenicians?). Yes Semitic as well, but not the only ones. The modern Antisemitism is irrational hatred against Arabs, and in this Zios are avant-guard. Hitler would be very proud of them. After all you don't need to be German to be a Nazi, you can perfectly be Jewish or whatever.

I'm damn tired of the tolerance and official protection provided to these Zionazi groups. Jews are not persecuted anywhere anymore, Israel is a genocidal imperialist project that has no right to exist from the viewpoint of Justice and the rights of the peoples. It's time to stop once for all this abhorrent situation in the Mediterranean. It's time to dismantle Israel or what is the same: the Jewish racist state of apartheid and genocide in the land of Palestine.

And it's about time for Europe to fully break all links to Israel and ostracize it as the rogue fascist state it is.

Latest developments in the fragile Basque process

2010-09-19T09:44:00.004+02:00

I'm not even going to call it "peace process" jet, just "process". Because the news are not really hopeful in general.

After rumors on the bilateralness of the truce, the Spanish government decided to dismiss these by the path of action and jailed a number of Basque politicians diffusely accused of belonging to the "all is ETA" conspiracy theory that prevails in Madrid since some 12 years ago. In effect they are accused to belonging to Ekin, a ghostly political avant-guard organization that would lead the similarly ghostly KAS bloc, including the Basque Nationalist Left, ETA and a host of other organizations. The KAS (Patriotic Socialist Coordination) bloc did exist in the 80s and 70s but it's not clear it does exist anymore nor that it ever included ETA at all and, in any case, it should be the same as the Basque Nationalist Left political movement (now illegal but still very real). No evidence of the existence of Ekin now or in the past exists (just police reports).

All the arrested denounced tortures, triggering some protests and, rather unusually, a pre-trial. All them been jailed "preventively".

But the most important meaning is to say, not just to ETA, but to all those hopeful of some kind of solution in the short run, who are most in the Basque Country (not so many in Spain it seems), that the State of Spain is not accepting the good will signals from the armed group.

It is also and foremost a message to the Spanish Right that the government is not renouncing to the repressive road to peace, a road that most here would consider impossible or even undesirable.

We are therefore witnessing, I understand, a sign of weakness of the Spanish socialdemocrats, who, the same as other "liberal left" parties elsewhere appear only to be able to govern under the ominous shadow of the right, specially the belligerant Reganist quasi-fascist far-right. This phenomenon is known as "violin government": supported by the left but effectively played by the right.

In this sense, ETA has now issued a new communication, which is published by Gara today but only in the print edition it seems.

The armed group responds in this communication to the Brussels Declaration issued by a number of senior public figures from South Africa, Ireland and Britain and declares to assume its part of responsability in this. The Brussels Declaration reads:

Statement by International Leaders in Conflict Resolution and Peace Processes

We, the undersigned, welcome and commend the proposed steps and new public commitment of the Basque Pro-independence [Movement] (Abertzale Left) to "exclusively political and democratic" means and a "total absence of violence" to attain its political goals. Fully carried out, this commitment can be a major step in ending the last remaining conflict in Europe. We note the expectation that the coming months may present a situation where the commitment to peaceful, democratic and no-violent means becomes an irreversible reality. To that end, we appeal to ETA to support this commitment by declaring a permanent, fully verified ceasefire. Such a declaration appropriately responded to by [Spanish] Government would permit new political and democratic efforts to advance, differences to be resolved and lasting peace attained.

Signatories:

-Nelson Mandela Foundation
-Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Peace Nobel Prize. South Africa).
-Frederik Willem de Klerk (Peace Nobel Prize. Former South African President).
-Mary Robinson (Former Irish President).
-John Hume (Peace Nobel Prize. Took part in the Good Friday Accord for Ireland).
-Albert Reynolds (Former Irish Prime Minister).
-Jonathan Powell (Chief of Cabinet form Tony Blair).
-Nuala 0'Loan (First Police Ombud in North Ireland).

The wording chosen by ETA seems subtle but I am not in condition to judge it until I buy the newspaper (if I do), as it doesn't seem that Gara is publishing it integrally online this time. The online article quotes the sentence: disposition to study jointly the steps needed by the democratic process, included the compromises to be adopted by ETA.

ETA hence seems to emphasize the democratic process of resolution (i.e. eventual self-determination) and seems to condition any permanent demilitarization steps to advance in the negotiation process. Nothing new really but I would not have expected anything else either. Meh, it's been more than 40 years now! And the last time they already issued a "permanent" declaration of ceasefire, what in the end lasted "only" one year. So issuing another would be futile rhetoric.

You may agree or not with what ETA says or does, but that is exactly what has been going on for the last 40-plus years. All my life. On one side there is a Spanish nationalist (Jacobin/Post-Fascist) state that has as principle the territorial integrity of the remaining state (after losing the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium and most of Italy, most of America, Philippines, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, West Sahara, etc.) as "sacred" and on the other there is this armed group and akin political movement saying that they do not settle for anything but the right of self-determination and sovereignty of the Basque People. They have been bumping heads forever (ETA is just the latest symptom, we can easily go back through the centuries to the Bagaudae with almost no stop in the struggle) and it does not seem likely they will suddenly find any kind of agreement possible.

The case of Ireland shows us that other possibilities do exist but a very different thing is to actually implement them, specially as the approach of Britain is generally less dogmatic than those of Jacobin Latin European states, derived ultimately from French Absolutism.

ETA says: if there is democratic will, it is possible to solve the conflict now and here.

It also attributes itself, with mariner language, the bravery of relaunching the opportunity for peace:

Before the close-mindedness of Spain and France, ETA has launched again the ship of opportunity for the democratic solution of the conflict. And it has taken the first decision without throwing the anchor, ready to sail into deeper waters.

They look as reference anyhow not only to Ireland but also to Central and Eastern Europe, where many new states have formed recently, as well as to Greenland and Scotland, where self-determination processes are ongoing with full normality.

They also make an appeal to international institutions and agents to impel the peace process: a democratic process that provides a permanent, just and democratic solution to a centuries old political conflict.

ETA confirms that it has been willingly for six full months without committing any attack. And complains that the various Spanish governments have wasted all opportunities for peace so far.

Source: Gara[es]. More briefly also at BBC[en].

Summer ending

2010-09-19T05:55:00.004+02:00

Dear diary:

Yesterday I had to get a sweater on me in the evening. Today I woke up at 6 and it was still dark like a cave. Signs that, even if not yet officially, Winter is coming.

I hate Winter! I have hated it since the beginning of Time!

'Clovis impact' theory finds new support

2010-09-16T11:58:00.003+02:00

I briefly mentioned two weeks ago that the Clovis impact theory had been rejected. The argument being that nanodiamonds (lonsdaleite or n-diamonds) were not such but mere graphene.

But now researchers from US universities, working with Greenland ice cores, have found the controversial "diamonds" in an ice layer roughly dated to that same fateful date of c. 12,900 years ago. Furthermore, the analysis seems to confirm these are genuine n-diamonds and that:

... the shape and size of the Greenland n-diamonds suggest that they formed not by shock metamorphism but rather by processes such as high-temperature CVD and/or high-explosive detonation, which duplicate conditions known to occur during a cosmic impact.

The authors also examined lonsdaleite from Caravaca (Spain) and Needles Point (New Zealand), concluding that they also seem to support the impact theory.

Of course, it is possible that the NDs in Greenland formed through some as-yet undiscovered natural process other than cosmic impact; however, that seems unlikely, since intense diamond research spanning more than a century indicates that the formation of NDs, and lonsdaleite in particular, requires extraordinary temperature, pressure and redox conditions that rule out natural processes that occur either on or below the surface of the Earth (DeCarli and others, 2002).

The theory known as 'Clovis imapact' or 'Younger Dryas event' claims that a sizable meteorite hit Earth, possibly in North America, c. 12,900 years ago, causing the cold millennium known as Younger Dryas, just before the definitive post-glacial warming that marks the beginning of the end of the Paleolithic era. This impact would have been decisive in the megafauna extinctions that defined that time

Ref. Andrei V. Kurbatov et al., Discovery of a nanodiamond-rich layer in the Greenland ice sheet. Journal of Glaciology, 2010. (Direct PDF link).

Found originally at Science Daily.

Late human evolution maps

2010-09-14T01:39:00.012+02:00

Kambiz Kamrani at Anthropology.net mentions this site of a colleague and also his own dedicated page on human fossils. Both are very interesting and, using their data, I made some maps in order to better understand the chronology of recent human evolution in the range between 1.3 million years ago (oldest estimate for Neanderthal-Sapiens divergence, cf. Aida Gómez) and 60,000 years ago, when the expansion of these two species towards Asia was surely already in action.

As Asian fossils, excepted West Asia, are not relevant for my purpose (they are all Homo erectus senso lato with no transition happening there at all) I have used a base map that only includes the Western parts of the Old World.

Note: I used median ages but, when these overlapped too much with two of my arbitrary time frames, I placed them in the two relevant maps (check for safety but they are likely to be the same specimen.

1. 1.3 million years to 800,000 years ago:

While most of the findings are Homo erectus (purple dots), the likely first known individuals in the H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis lines appear already, at the end of the period, at Atapuerca (H. antecessor) and Saldanha Bay (H. rhodesiensis).

2. 800-600,000 years ago:

We can appreciate in this period an expansion of H. rhodesiensis to the Horn of Africa and transition to H. heidelbergensis at Atapuerca (c. 600,000 years ago according to fossilized.org).

3. 600-400,000 years ago:

The expansion of Homo heidelbergensis becomes apparent in this period. Restricted to Europe however. Notice how in spite of these changes there are still many specimens categorized as H. erectus around the Mediterranean.

4. 400-200,000 years ago:

While it looks a dull map on first sight, most significant here is the existence of a fossil that may be transition between H. rhodesiensis and H. sapiens. This one is Lake Eyasi, in Tanzania (red-orange hue, not easy to appreciate possibly), dated to c. 240,000 years ago.

5. 200-60,000 years ago:

Whoa! Everything goes a lot faster now: Neanderthals and Sapiens everywhere! Well, each in their specialized area: Sapiens in and around the tropics, Neanderthals in the fresh regions of the North. Even the map caption becomes small as the earliest Neanderthal and Sapiens fossils (controversial chronology) show up in Central and East Asia respectively. I reflected this with a mere two color-coded arrows.

The oldest uncontroversial fossil of H. sapiens is Omo II (c. 195 Ka ago), followed by Herto (Idaltu) and Jebel Irhoud, in Morocco (both c. 160 Ka ago).

ZERO, An Investigation Into 911 (documentary film)

2010-09-11T19:32:00.007+02:00

You just must watch this film. A genuine research on 9/11, you just cannot still believe the official version after watching this. If you don't have time, watch at least the first bloc, which deals with the Twin Towers.

A version doubled to Spanish (single video, duration: 1 hour 45 min.) can be found at Vimeo.

World Trade Center (Twin Towers)

How three huge buildings collapsed in free fall in what cannot be but controlled demolitions with military grade explosives.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The Pentagon

How the best defended military zone on Earth was breached, how an amateur pilot made impossible acrobatics with a huge passenger plane and how the airplane made a tiny hole and was nowhere to be found. How the defense protocols were changed right before and after 9/11 by Donald Rumsfeld himself and how all the relevant command chain was altered for the event and how all these ad hoc commanders got promoted and not punished for their failure.

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

The terrorists

Who are they? Who are Mohammed Atta, Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda? Who pays them? Did they do anything other than serve as decoy?

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

The investigation

Or lack of it thereof. And the frustration of the victims about this big lie.

Part 10

Part 11

Italian production. Credits in the last video.

Appendix: complementary information

1. Thermal camera film of the Twin Towers before they were demolished ("collapsed"). The scale at the left margin, allows us to estimate temperatures as not higher than 100 degrees Celsius, which is way too low to melt steel. While there are fires in the impact areas, the rest of the buildings are at ambient temperature, so much that they can't be seen when no fire is in the frame:

2. A new video from Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth explaining some important details on the demolition of Tower 1:

3. Interview with Kurt Sonnefeld, former high ranking FEMA official who filmed Ground Zero after the attacks and who is now exiled in Argentina. Text format at Voltaire Net.

Update (Sep 12): Press conference by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.

Full press conference available at Archive.org.

Key part with detailed scientific exposition of why they find the official hypothesis clearly false and the demolition hypothesis absolutely confirmed and also announces the formation of Scientists for 9/11 Truth and Military Officers for 9/11 Truth:

9/11 nine years on

2010-09-09T20:09:00.011+02:00

Washington Blog has a lengthy list of "old" news telling of important people (members of the official 9/11 commission, senior intelligence officers, congressmen and other government officials) strongly doubting the official version on the attacks and denouncing the cover-up around this key event of recent history, of ongoing history.

This should be enough almost anywhere to have a ongoing national debate on the authorship and real goals of the attack. It should be enough certainly to consider that the inside-job theory is pretty much mainstream.

But the media is being gagged in this as in many other key issues, ranging from Israel to the Louisiana oil spill catastrophe. One wonders what media that cannot be critical with the authorities is worth for... and the obvious answer is: mere propaganda and mass brainwashing.

And without the media echoing the alternative versions of what was in fact 9/11 and thoughtlessly repeating once and again the official and obviously false version of the events, a lot of people can still keep their blind faith in the system and the authorities.

Lincoln seems to have said that "you can't fool everybody forever" but the Cheney-Rumsfeld school of imperial ruling seems to think that it's enough if you can fool most for a few decades. And for that they have the unbelievably sheepishly or coerced consent of the media, every day concentrated in less and less hands, and hence every day less and less free.

But it's not just the usual media, I knew recently that the most relevant person (of a small camarilla) controlling that the Wikipedia article on the September 11 attacks, someone known as MONGO, works for the US Department of Homeland Security, issue that was "resolved" by declaring he has no "conflict of interest" whatsoever. This kind of manipulations and lack of justice and balance and even the difficulty to speak the truth if it happens to be "unpolite" was what brought me out of collaborating with Wikipedia anymore. Obviously there needs to be new wikipedias because the extant one cannot be neutral, just institutionalist.

This is nothing new, really, and it means that the attack on freedom of speech and truthful information has also arrived to the Internet and did in fact some time ago. But it brings me to what do I understand 9/11 was and is: a coup d'êtat.

The 9/11 coup

In this cases, when there is any doubt, it is always good asking qui bono?: whom does this benefit?

I had doubts right that fatal day. As I watched avidly the news, as did nearly everybody on Earth, I realized that there were very odd contradictions regarding the figure of Mohammed Atta, the supposed leader of the attacks, who allegedly died in one of the planes. On one side the German secret service, BND, famed for its seriousness and efficiency, claimed that they had watched Atta in Hamburg and were certain he was not any Taliban nor member of Al Qaeda but actually a member of the insurgent Northern Alliance. His father then claimed from Egypt that he had talked with him after the attacks and that he was alright. Additionally I was surprised that the popular leader of the Northern Alliance, Ahmad Shah Massoud, had been just murdered on September 9, just two days before the attacks.

I became strongly suspicious and time and information has only made those suspicions grow to a clear understanding that what happened in 9/11 was an inside job. An inside job like no other I could think of, not just because of its dimension, but specially for its implications for the USA and its "Empire", and by extension the whole World.

I started to think that it was nothing but a coup. A coup intended to further institutionalize the Empire and specially a coup against freedoms and rights in the Western World.

Besides Afghanistan which was clearly in the equation when the macabre performance went off, and besides Iraq, which was soon included in the package (it seems that this was Rumsfeld's idea)... besides the Greater Middle East becoming this way an easier target for US-NATO imperialism, there are clear implications for the US and its global extensions. The implications are loss of civil rights and even residual democracy altogether, whose most infamous expression is the Patriot Act but that actually include a large array of fascist laws and directives duly implemented by the George Bush Jr. government but also now by Obama's, who has all the time not just avoided to discuss these extremist abuses by his predecessor but is actually using and expanding them.

The situation is not much better in Europe. Ten years ago the fascistoid attitudes of Berlusconi and Aznar were rather exceptional in my continent. Today they are totally "normal" (Sarkozy for instance, Berlusconi is not anymore snubbed...) and the diffuse dream of a united democratic Europe that existed then has totally waned, as the constitution was imposed by the bureaucracies and EU has now become a mere secretariat for the corporations and NATO. You still do not see many of the involutionary extremes that happen in the USA but it's clear that the EU will follow the USA to hell if demanded as the lapdog it is. Any dream of reorganizing EU as an independent power in the wake of the Cold War has vanished.

But maybe most important is the growing role of the imperial military and corporative superstructure across borders and oceans. Probably the coup really means to create a real Empire, gradually maybe but steadily in any case. And for that civil liberties and freedom of speech must be curtailed and brought under control.

Whatever structures are to exist in an Empire they must be not really democratic. Some formal or consultative democracy and also local subordinated democracy can be tolerated but the structure is designed for the oligarchs, not the common people, so it does not matter too much what these think.

Besides there is no real need for the human rights, democratic and welfare decorations to exist anymore now that the Soviet threat has been annihilated. Earlier it was maybe necessary in order for people not jump the Berlin Wall in the "wrong direction" but now it is superfluous. Triumphant Capitalism can now show itself naked even if ugly and scary. This display of terrifying ugliness is, according to George Orwell, one of the characteristics of totalitarianism, of bullies: I am ugly but you don't dare to laugh at me.

So the oligarchs can now get rid of all those extras, those crumbs they used to throw to their subjects in order to keep them content. 9/11 served, by creating a mass panic to "terrorism" to introduce all kind of abuses and totalitarian laws, specially in the USA but not only.

The perfect foe: Islamic Fundamentalism

Also, the new sock-puppet enemy, Islamic Fundamentalism, a creation of the USA, Israel and Saudi Arabia essentially anyhow, is the perfect foe. As the ghetto ideology and as the reactionary ideology it is, it poses no significant threat of expansion, unlike Communism, and can be used in a wide and strategic but limited area of the World to pit factions against factions in the usual policy of divide et impera. For these geopolitical engineers, who may have some evil genius after all, the whole Muslim World is a petri dish with very special conditions and Islamic Fundamentalism is a bacterial culture they are experimenting with. Experimenting with in order to cause panic and in order to get pretexts for imperialist interventions of all sorts.

And it is also intended to cause confusion in the ideological sphere, because, since 9/11 util very recently, the debate, which still was about Capitalism and Socialism, has been hijacked by a pseudo-debate on religion and culture on which little can be said other than I like or I don't like this or that. It has been hijacked in the Muslim World, where it has been used to promote reaction, and it has been hijacked in the West, where it has been used to promote reaction as well.

In depth, both sides of the Fundamentalist false debate agree: let's fight, and let's bring our peoples back to the Dark Ages, be them Muslim, Christian, Jewish or Hindu... but Dark Ages in any case. There is absolutely nobody arguing for human progress and human freedom in this false debate, just for "join us" and "hate them". The goal is to kill illustration and democracy so the oligarchs can reign unopposed.

It is a coup with very deep and very evil intent.

I could continue but it is not my intention to write a book, so I'll stop here.

Further resources on why 9/11 was an inside job and its implications:

Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, specially the Evidence section. [Update: their evidence presentation today has attracted some media attention: Yahoo News, Forbes and other agencies and media echo it].

Pilots for 9/11 Truth.

Voltaire Net: Themes: September 11th, 2001

Global Research: 9/11 and "War on Terrorism"

The evidence for a controlled demolition of both Twin Towers and building 7 (not hit by any airplane or anything but key for the plot) is overwhelming. Other counter-evidence is pretty strong as well. The official version is a huge lie.

More on megafauna and humans: Iberian peninsula

2010-09-09T18:25:00.003+02:00

There is an interesting article at Science Daily today that adds important information for one of the discussions that have arisen in Leherensuge recently: did humans caused megafauna extinctions?

The answer is clearly no. Not directly at least. Woolly mammoths are known to have existed in the Iberian peninsula, specially but not only in the North, not just in the Neanderthal (Middle Paleolithic) period but specially in the Upper Paleolithic period, when modern humans were already established and thriving in the region.

These species lived alongside different human cultures. There is evidence in some sites of the Basque country, Navarra and Catalonia that the Neanderthals coexisted with the mammoths and the reindeer at specific times. However, the majority of evidence of these faunae coincides with the periods of the Gravettian, Solutrean and Magdalenian cultures.

The most important detail for me is the word Magdalenian. We know with some certainty that population grew quickly in the Magdalenian period, after the Last Glacial Maximum, yet megafauna was still there and seems rather abundant.

The key element for the vanishing of these large herbivores in Iberia was the end of the Ice Age, when forests became the dominant feature of a warmed up landscape in which these animals, adapted to cold and steppe, could not survive.

There is however an ill-understood gap in the 31-26 Ka period (Aurignacian period, which in Iberia lasts from c. 30 Ka to c. 22 Ka. BP uncalibrated), when the megafauna findings are lacking.

Ref. Diego J. Álvarez-Lao and Nuria García, Chronological distribution of Pleistocene cold-adapted large mammal faunas in the Iberian Peninsula. Quaternary International, 2010. Pay per view.

Clinton wants to occupy Mexico

2010-09-09T17:33:00.007+02:00

US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has declared that she wants the USA to intervene in Mexico "against drug gangs", the same it has been doing in Colombia and other countries. In fact she likened the decaying situation of Mexico to Colombia, however she claimed that the Plan Colombia, that has allowed the USA to establish an effective protectorate over the South American country, has been a success, what is plainly false - unless by success you mean taking over a whole country.

In this sense we must not forget that, on a similar pretext, the, until this year, famously demilitarized and rather prosperous, Republic of Costa Rica, allowed a few weeks ago the USA to take over it. Additionally the USA also controls Haiti, a major narcotrafficking hub (because of deep poverty and lack of democracy, thanks to Uncle Sam again). And we must not forget that, what used to be considered the main US base in Central America, Honduras, suffered a reactionary military coup last year, ousting the legitimate President and turning the country in a factual autocracy with US blessings.

Geopolitics of Middle America
Dark blue: USA and protectorates, light blue: US allies and their colonies
Red: Bolivarian bloc (ALBA), pink: other left-leaning governments
Green: Mexico

So now Hillary wants to add Mexico to the cyclops' menu. But this has rallied all Mexican politicians against. Even if this would not be the case, Mexico may indeed be a too big and too resentful piece of meat to swallowed by giant Uncle Sam. Mexico lists among the 20 largest economies of Earth, has a reasonably strong popular movement, and has many historical reasons to be wary of the USA, which took Texas, California and all what is between them and also partly invaded the Aztec country again during the Mexican Revolution.

There is already a lot of opposition in Mexico to the North American Free Trade Agreement (and the less known Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America) which is considered by many as the main culprit of the degeneration the country is suffering in the last decade or two.

The country's political system is however pretty much blocked by the fact that the PAN (conservatives) won the last elections by means of massive vote rigging. However the left is divided between those supporting AMLO and the PRD (social-democrats) and those who see no or little change possible with them. It is a clear case of "revolution needed urgently" and that is precisely why the USA wants to get greater direct control, probably. However it may well backfire, because a US invasion, even if sanctioned by Mexican institutions, would provide a rally point for all proud Mexicans who are never really happy about their beefy neighbor by the North.

News source: The Guardian.

The greatest Basque shame

2010-09-08T20:04:00.005+02:00

Every nation has its shameful realities, not always apparent, and Basques are no exception.

Every year the Bidasoa river towns of Hondarribia and Irun celebrate their fiestas around the main act of a copycat military parade that is representation of battles held long ago, when the local militias played a key role in defending the fortified places. These are known as "alarde", Spanish word that means posse or bravado but that originally meant military review.

They used to be male-only activities with a unique token decorative role for women, as "cantineras" (one per company), sort of fangirl and maid (and who-knows-what) for the military unit. Eventually what had to happen happened and "mixed" companies (with female "soldiers") demanded their place. Unlike in other cases of gender discrimination, where this change has been adopted quite naturally, in the Bidasoan towns the reaction was extreme, up to the point that Xabier Muguruza wrote a song calling them fundamentalists. Most local politicians sided with the reactionary majority even up to the point of challenging their own parties and bordering challenging the law at times. However tribunals forced them to accept that mixed companies had to be allowed in the official parade.

This was confronted by the fundamentalists by boycotting the official parade and making their own. So at the moment the only company taking part in the official parade of each town is the mixed company. Being followed soon after by the unofficial parallel parade.

To make things worse and increase the sociological violence against the mixed companies, the fundamentalists have systematically organized year after year a display of black plastics and black umbrellas with slogans like "we did not came to watch you".

However gradually their numbers have been dwindling. This year the presence of supporters of the mixed company at Hondarribia (Irun is yet to have its fiestas) has been very notable, for the first time maybe competing with the fundamentalist display.

The photo above is a quite clear example: there are still black umbrellas but what is more apparent is the lot of people cheering the brave company Jaizkibel, which is patiently winning this most important battle of today.

Source: Gara.

100 million Indians strike against liberalization

2010-09-08T17:54:00.004+02:00

Besides French, Indians also went to general strike yesterday, with the main goal of blocking the growing prices of basic products, specially food and oil, and of stopping the sale-out of public companies.

While the figure is high, we should remember that India has some 1 billion inhabitants of which maybe half are actual workers. On the other hand, the wide spread of irregular economy and mafioso pressures of the capitalist class surely also influenced the outcome. So I admit it is difficult to judge if this figure represents a mere 20-30% of strikers (still a major figure, specially for such a large and heterogeneous country) or it is in fact a much larger fraction of the regular workers.

Whatever the case it seems that the impact was very irregular with maybe 99% success in communist-ruled states of Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura and variable impact in other states. In Delhi and Mumbai, the strike was only apparent in the absence of rickshaws, whose drivers massively seconded the walk out. Other affected states were Manipur, Assam, Maharastra, Gujarat, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.

Sources: Insurgente, People's Daily, The Jakarta Post. The information I found is not too precise anyhow, so complementary accounts and links are welcome.

Louse TMRCA provides estimate for human clothing

2010-09-08T17:27:00.005+02:00

Research on age estimates for the evolutionary divergence of head and body lice suggest that clothing was already in use when humans left Africa.

Melissa A. Topus, Origin of clothing lice indicates early clothing use by anatomically modern humans in Africa. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2010. Open access.

The following graphic synthesizes the paper very well:

However it must be said that there are other alternative dates jumping around in the paper. For example the 95% CI estimate for head/clothes louse divergence is 29-691 Ka ago, the mean is 229 Ka and the mode just 83 Ka. So 170 Ka is just a reasonable good hunch, considering always their methods.

Also a much older date is suggested by a single author for hair loss: 3 million years ago. This however would have forced Homo erectus in Asia to make their own clothing, of which we have no evidence so far. Interestingly, the 1.2 Ka figure would allow our Neanderthal cousins to be hairy, a rather convenient biological equipment in Ice Age Europe, provided that the long chronology for Neanderthal-Sapiens divergence is correct (Gómez defends 1.3 million years, a date with strong, and growing, archaeological support).

String Theory makes first falsifiable prediction

2010-09-08T04:25:00.007+02:00

The main problem of String Theory is that it had not been able to make falsifiable predictions so far that could be tested down here on Earth. Now for the first time it does.

According to Science News, physicists have now stumbled upon an answer to the unsolved quantum information theory question: in how many ways can four qubits be entangled. According to the authors (only co-author Michael Duff is mentioned by name), the answer is exactly 31.

It seems that they stumbled upon this solution while researching black holes, whose physics seem to be oddly similar to those of qubits somehow. Even the researchers themselves admit to be mystified by this finding.

And more cosmology: after the Big Bang there was true Chaos.

PhysOrg reports today that another cosmological conundrum has been solved: the state of the Universe right after the Big Bang: it was absolutely chaotic, not just relatively chaotic (i.e. as perceived by some observers but not others) but absolutely chaotic (for all possible observers). This means that unpredictable and incalculable tiny perturbations determined how the Universe would evolve.

Also at SD.

Ref. Katrin Gelfert, Adilson E. Motter. (Non)Invariance of Dynamical Quantities for Orbit Equivalent Flows. Communications in Mathematical Physics, 2010.

Strike journey paralyzes France and London

2010-09-07T20:49:00.003+02:00

Workers in the French Republic have gone today on general strike in opposition to Sarkozy's plans to cut pensions and rise the minimum retirement age. The date has been chosen in order to make the greatest effect on the parliamentary debate to happen this autumn. School teachers also went on strike yesterday in protest for mass cuts in public education, suppressing 7,000 jobs.

About 60% of workers did not go to work today in the Northern Basque Country (left: demo at Baiona/Bayonne). Meanwhile official and union sources disputed if the mobilizations across the republic reached 1.1 million of 2.7 million.

Besides pensions, the issue of racist mass deportations of European citizens of Roma ethnicity has also been present in the massive protests.

Meanwhile, in London, subway workers have walked out against some 800 job cuts. The strike has been rather strong and has caused major difficulties in the English capital today.

Sources: Berria, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, BBC (links: France, London) [British media seem to be hiding the London Tube strike]

Time for a Worker Party in the USA?

2010-09-07T19:16:00.004+02:00

That is what In Defense of Marxism and their friends of Socialist Appeal believe: that time is ripe for a mass party of Labor [at IDOM, at SA]. Hence they have launched the Campaign for a Mass Party of Labor.

It is difficult to judge from the distance but when I see stuff like what is happening to the working class and in general all residents in the Gulf of Mexico with the US government (a Democrat government that raised mass support in the last elections!) as corrupt and detached from its own people as to let them be poisoned and their whole social and environmental fabric destroyed only to help Big Oil corporations and how this big lie (added to the others) is slowly raising awareness and what is still powerless rage but can easily become in powerful collective action and organization, I'd dare say that they may well be right.

It is surely too early to plan or even dream of a revolution taking place in the USA. Class consciousness, while growing, is still too diffuse and Big Capital really seems in power, if not really anymore in control of the situation. But it is certainly the kind of context that strongly calls for sowing the seeds and nurturing the saplings that one day soon may become the forces driving such a necessary change ahead. The situation is certainly ripe, in the USA, in Europe and probably in many other places for the formation and/or strengthening of the instruments of class struggle and eventually class power: true total democracy.

This context was addressed quite well by Alan Woods recently: while the unions would want "social peace" and negotiate some sort of inter-classes sharing of wealth and living conditions, as was possible to some extent in the past (only in the developed world), this is not possible in the current conditions of radical adjustment that Capitalism is going through. In the present context and for the foreseeable future, Capital will only be able (and willing) to squeeze more and more, without any compassion, the working classes in order to foot the bill of their luxurious lifestyle and wealth-based power structure.

However I do not know if this appeal is "the right one", that's up to you to judge, or even if the Marxist-Leninist concept of political organization makes any sense in the context of Late Capitalism (Toyotism). I do agree although with the consideration that unions should have a central role however and that, ideally at least, the class organization should be one. Albeit one radically democratic.

Psylocibin effective and safe in calming anxiety

2010-09-07T14:23:00.003+02:00

Psylocibin is the main active ingredient of "magic mushrooms" (Psylocibe sp., here known as mongis or bongis). It was confirmed in 2008 as the "best trip" by quality rating of the experience in all aspects.

Now it seems it is also the magic herb that can calm people affected by anxiety, at least in advanced cancer patients. Sadly, because of socio-cultural prejudices, the research on the hopeful effects of psychedelic drugs was halted in the 1970s under a heavy load of repressive laws.

Read more at Science Daily.

Ref. Charles S. Grob et al., Pilot Study of Psilocybin Treatment for Anxiety in Patients With Advanced-Stage Cancer. Arch Gen Psychiatry, 2010. Pay per view.

The Zionist Party in the USA

2010-09-06T15:56:00.004+02:00

A rather brief, albeit synthetic, new article has been published by US sociologist James Petras, describing the reality of the Zionist Lobby or, as he prefers to call it, the Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC) in the USA. A must-read.

James Petras, The State and Local Bases of Zionist Power in America (PDF).

The ZPC, a true political party on its own right, even if it works within both mainstream US electoral machines, can hence be divided in two sections: the government section (presence of key operatives in strategic positions in the government) and the mass movement section (the activities of local Zionist organizations affiliated with mainstream Jewish organizations and religious orders).

They are organized into 52 organizations, associated in the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CoP or Presidents' Conference for short), an institution promoted by Eisenhower in the 1950s.

The grassroots membership ranges from several hundred thousand militants in the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) to one hundred thousand wealthy contributors, activists and power brokers in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

AIPAC, the most visible and impressive face of the Zionist Party, is special in the sense that, as we learn from Wikipedia, its board of directors is the same as that of the CoP, so there is no real distinction between both.

In addition scores of propaganda mills, dubbed think tanks, have been established by million dollar grants from billionaire Zionists including the Brookings Institute (Haim Saban) and the Hudson Institute among others. Scores of Zionist funded political action committees (PAC) have intervened in all national and regional elections, controlling nominations and influencing election outcomes. Publishing houses, including university presses have been literally taken over by Zionist zealots, the most egregious example being Yale University, which publishes the most unbalanced tracts parroting Zionist parodies of Jewish history (Financial Times book review section August 28/29 2010). (...) Jewish billionaires and the Israeli state foot the bill.

The activities of the mass movement section are impressive: from recruiting and indoctrinating young Jewish students, favoring selected sympathizers in ethnic minorities... to directly influencing US foreign (and maybe domestic) policy in favor of a foreign power (Israel) by means of the most powerful lobby in Washington D.C. (and every other seat of power).

Petras' dissension with Chomsky goes open:

Those who deny Zionist power over US Mid East foreign policy are left-Zionists namely Noam Chomsky and his acolytes.

I must say that I became really aware of the oppression of Palestine and, crucially, of how the media impacts our perceptions of the world by means of selectively highlighting or hiding information and by means also of the choice of words, by a booklet of Chomsky more than 20 years ago. However, it is very true that Chomsky does not want to fully accept the criminal (colonialist, genocidal, imperialist) nature of the state of Israel nor he admits to the importance of the Zionist Party in the political and media reality, specially in the USA.

Back to the main theme:

Zionist policymakers in strategic positions depend on the political backing and work closely with their counterparts in the “lobbies” (AIPAC) in Congress and in the national and local Jewish Zionist organizations. Many of the leading Zionist policymakers rose to power through a deliberate strategy of infiltrating the government to shape policy promoting Israel’s interest over and above the interests of the US populace.

This is critical to understand. Indeed all lobbies have to some extent this potential and now and then do exert it successfully but the influence of the Zionist Lobby can only be said to be all pervading. Not just Jews (most of them Zionist) are disproportionately represented in all sectors of power but most non-Jews in such positions are also Zionists and may have needed the blessing of the ZPC to reach such offices.

Additionally foreign relations of a sovereign country, specially if this country is the only global superpower, are supposed to take place essentially through diplomatic channels and not via internal lobbies/parties/networks. Sure that there is room for the cultural and even political recognition of minorities within a state's border but these are not supposed to significantly influence foreign policy, which is first of all, the external projection of the country's own interests. In fact, it is technically illegal to act as an agent of a foreign power in the USA as the Israel Party does.

Not that such a technical legal issue means much, it seems.

Interestingly:

In 2004, AIPAC successfully pressured the Bush Administration to create the office of Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (UTFI) and to name its protégé Princeton graduate Stuart Levey to that position. Before, but especially after his appointment, Levey was in close collaboration with the Israeli state and was known as an over the top Zionist zealot with unbounded energy and blind worship of the Israeli state.

I had not heard this name before, I will try to remember it.

But, as said above, it's not just Washington what matters. The Zionist Party could not achieve its goals without a much wider network of strategical control and pressure.

Other active divisions of the ZPC mentioned are active at all local and intermediate levels. A key sector is of course the media, full of Zionist propaganda, Zionist investors, Zionist CEOs and Zionist journalists.

The level of infiltration the Senate subpoenaed Zionist documents in the 1960’s reveal has multiplied a hundred fold over the past 50 years in terms of financing, paid functionaries and committed militants and above all in structural power and coercive capability.

They have whole networks of committed activists sending mails and writing opinions for all levels of media influence and policymaking, they organize Zionist speeches with no second opinions and make all they can to impede anti-Zionist acts or impose a Zionist counterpart.

Local militant Zionist is very strong and powerful:

Local Zionist functionaries form rapid response committees to visit and threaten any local publisher and editorial staff publishing editorials or articles questioning the Israeli party line. Local leaders police (“monitor”) all local meetings, speaker invitations, as well as the speeches of public commentators, religious leaders and academics to detect any “anti-Zionist overtones’ (which they label “covert anti-Semitism”).

From the Conclusions section:

The power of Israel in the US does not reside only in the influence and leadership of powerful Washington based “pro-Israel lobbies”, like AIPAC. Without the hundreds of thousands of militant locally based dentists, podiatrists, stockbrokers, real estate brokers, professors and others, the “lobby” would be unable to sustain and implement its policy among hundreds of millions of Americans outside the major metropolises. As we have seen from the Senate declassified documents, over a half-century ago, local Zionist organizations began a systematic campaign of penetration, control and intimidation that has reached its pinnacle in the first decade of the 21st century.

...

Over the decades, the distinction between Zionist power exercised by a “lobby” outside the government and operatives “inside” the government has virtually vanished.

However Petras warns that this growing power relies on shaky grounds, as most US Jews now marry outside the ethnic community and are therefore less likely to support the colonial state of Israel and its continuous policy of ethnic cleansing and apartheid, specially not fanatically and acritically. For that reason they are more and more aggressive in recruiting anyone with Jewish ancestry or relations but they have also colluded with the US extreme right, as has become very apparent in the "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy.

In this sense I must say that they are actually inciting a new form of Antisemitism: the so-called Islamophobia.

A Spanish version of Petras' article is available at La Haine, site that also hosts his repository of articles in both English and Spanish languages.

ETA-Spain negotiations clearly active

2010-09-05T15:15:00.006+02:00

ETA has issued a new communication. It is available in original Basque language in PDF and video format. A Spanish language translation is available here. A BBC "exclusive" video can be found here (at the moment is too busy to load but I presume it has English translation of some sort). The BBC also has an excerpted version of ETA's communication in English.

Still image of ETA's video

Introductory section

The first part of the communication is an apologetic synthesis of ETA's history, emphasizing its "responsible" role in rejecting the post-fascist arrangements made in the late 1970s and their strong stand for the self-determination of the Basque People.

Then they talk of the existence of a current "crossroads" situation, which they interpret in terms of "exhaustion of the autonomic frame":

The Spanish State is conscious of the Basque Country being at a crossroads, and that it can still take the option of independence. That is why such a fascist offensive. They want that the conditions of political change rot in the despair of blockade: deviating the political debate to prevent a democratic resolution and drown the popular will in this state of exception.

They seem to mean here the legal offensive of the last decade that has rendered many political and other popular organizations illegal, heavily distorting the electoral and media representation in the Southern Basque Country, and bringing many political activists to jail, often under fictitious accusations.

In this regard they appeal for the Basque actors and citizens to answer by assuming responsibilities and taking firm steps in favor of the organization of the independentist project, in creating conditions for democratic change (read "self-determination"), in response to repression and in the defense of civil and political rights.

Political change is possible. But in that journey there are no shortcuts. (...) Without confrontation, negation and stubbornness cannot be defeated. (...)

Negotiation and truce

At this point they reinstate their compromise with a democratic solution... through compromise and negotiation.

If the Spanish government has the will, ETA is willing, today as in the past, to agree the democratic minimums necessary to initiate the democratic process.

They make an appeal to the "international community", which, they say, are already informed of this, to support this process.

Then they inform that, already some months ago, they decided not to make any offensive armed actions.

[In fact it has been a whole year, with the last attack taking place in August 9 2009 in Majorca.Since then, there have been some kale borroka (street fight) actions (incendiary devices and such, made not by ETA but by irregular militant cells) and one seemingly accidental shooting with the French police near Paris but it was clear for any knowledgeable casual observer that there was an undeclared unilateral truce by ETA.

Spanish repression has only loosened in the last few months. Not too much but the lack of ETA arrests in the last few months clearly suggested me already by early summer that the truce had finally become bilateral, a clear sign of progress in negotiations].

They conclude with a repetition of the call to all Basque political actors to assume their responsibilities in order to produce solid steps as People for when the democratic rights are acknowledged.

Analysis

The tone of this penultimate paragraph is suggestive of ETA having big hopes on this negotiation but myself, having watched many previous negotiations end with no results, I can't but be highly skeptic.

The international economic and political situation, unlike maybe 10 or even four years ago, is not the kind of situation that could push for a surrender of ETA with only cosmetic concessions maybe. In fact the deep and persistent economic and socio-political crisis of the West (and by extension Spain) is the kind of scenario that would support continued armed struggle in any case. You don't surrender when the enemy is weak, do you?

Anyhow, I do hope that the negotiations this time end up to the satisfaction of all. But I am highly skeptic because:

I do not see that Spain has any immediate need nor intent of dropping the fight against Basque rights (civil, political and the rights of self-rule and self-determination)
While independentist politicians may be in some "hurry" to get legally recognized again and hence be able to participate in elections normally, that is not what ETA nor their voters surely give priority to but to the persistence of the struggle, including armed struggle. So they won't settle for anything less than the legal recognition of the right of self-determination, what implies a radical reform of the Spanish constitution.
The ruling Socialist Party (PSOE) probably has not enough backing in this from the right wing (PP), which are the ones who really represent the Spanish state since fascism and who will probably and predictably boycott any serious concessions.
The social-economic frame is favorable to radical struggles rather than negative. A surrender of ETA is therefore not likely and, would it happen for whatever political or otherwise circumstances, it'd surely cause a schism and the creation of a new ETA.

So, well, my expectations are pretty much limited: a year or so of frustrating and mysterious negotiations ending up most likely in a return to "normality", i.e. the low intensity war I have known all my life. However there are some political elements that may favor a constitutional reform:

The situation in Catalonia, where independentism is very strong (and nearly all non-independentist parties would want at least federalism).
The weakness of Spanish economy (and hence social order) weights somewhat against Madrid risking to keep the Basque military front open.
The incipient formation of a Basque indepentist front. However, given the low vote support of the legal parties involved (EA, Aralar) its effect is certainly limited.
So far the right wing has remained rather silent. This is a good signal because it should mean that they are assuming (for a change) their state responsibilities and supporting the social-democrats in the negotiation. Certainly no negotiation can succeed without the effective support of the Spanish right. But they can easily decide to sabotage the negotiations at any moment.

We'll see. This is what I can think of at this time.

What is clear is that this communication is written to emphasize the will of negotiations and the reality of the truce, hence I would expect some sort of confirmation of extant bilateral negotiations from Madrid soon.

__________

Update: first reactions.

The main government-aligned speaker so far has been Rodolfo Ares, Western Basque Councilor (regional minister) of Interior (police) and possibly the most visible leader of the PSOE in the Basque Country, who has reacted very harshly, deeming the statement insufficient, ambiguous and fraudulent because it falls short of his demand of immediate self-dissolution.

He rejected the idea that the government has also initiated a truce.

On the other side, members of the Basque Nationalist Left (illegal but important political movement) welcomed the communication as an element of unquestionable value for the arrival of peace and the consolidation of a democratic space as necessary framework to open spaces of dialogue and negotiation towards the definitive resolution of the conflict.

The say that, together with their own conclusions from the debates in previous months, make irreversible the beginning of a new political phase. They also make an appeal to the international community and to the Basque people to take active part in this new phase.

For Basque Solidarity (EA, Basque nationalist and social-democrat), the news are hopeful and say they will work for results. For Aralar party (break up faction of former Batasuna) it is a positive and important news item, but demanded from ETA a unilateral and definitive ceasefire. United Left-The Greens considers the announcement insufficient. The Navarrese People's Union (UPN, Spanish nationalist far right, close to Opus Dei) said that ETA cannot get anything from this ceasefire. The largest labor union, Basque Workers' Union (ELA), said that the Spanish government should take the announcement prudent and responsibly, revising their current policies and making decisions that contribute to distension. [Source for miscellaneous reactions].

In the international scene, two personalities have come to make declarations encouraging the search of a definitive solution. These are South African mediator Brian Currin and Northern Irish leader Gerry Adams.

Currin emphasizes that ETA does say that the time has come for the construction of a democratic frame for the Basque Country respecting the will of the majority of the Basque People. For the South African lawyer the key elements of this announcement is that ETA is adopting a unilateral and unconditional ceasefire and also that this decision is a response from ETA to the political leadership of the Basque Nationalist Left.

For Adams, now it is vital that the Spanish government produces a positive answer, takes the opportunity and establishes quickly inclusive political negotiations.

I'd take the declarations of politicians with a good pinch of salt but I think that the opinions of ELA, Currin and Adams are sincere, thoughtful and well-intended.

Update (Sep 6): more reactions.

Spanish Minister of Interior, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, declared today to a public TV program, that the announcement is far from the democratic minimums that this society is imposing to the Basque Nationalist Left to be allowed back to make [institutional] politics. He also expressed distrust that the ceasefire would last. Other officers of the ruling PSOE party, including Prime Minister Rodríguez Zapatero, went in the same line, demanding the total abandonment of armed struggle.

Aralar speaker, Patxi Zabaleta, said that it is impoverishing to attempt to reduce the debate on whether this communication is enough or not, on whether it is satisfactory or has not fulfilled the expectations. That is a short-term analysis and in politics we have to look to the long term.

The European Commission welcomed the announcement with prudent hope and announced it will follow the developments closely.

Bonobo mtDNA... and some human implications.

2010-09-03T15:52:00.005+02:00

Researchers from the University of Bonn have published a new paper on Bonobo mitochondrial genetics:

Gabor Zsurka et al., Distinct patterns of mitochondrial genome diversity in bonobos (Pan paniscus) and humans. BMC Evolutionary Biology. Open access.

Background

We have analyzed the complete mitochondrial genomes of 22 Pan paniscus (bonobo, pygmy chimpanzee) individuals to assess the detailed mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) phylogeny of this close relative of Homo sapiens.

Results

We identified three major clades among bonobos that separated approximately 540,000 years ago, as suggested by Bayesian analysis. Incidentally, we discovered that the current reference sequence for bonobo likely is a hybrid of the mitochondrial genomes of two distant individuals. When comparing spectra of polymorphic mtDNA sites in bonobos and humans, we observed two major differences: (i) Of all 31 bonobo mtDNA homoplasies, i.e. nucleotide changes that occurred independently on separate branches of the phylogenetic tree, 13 were not homoplasic in humans. This indicates that at least a part of the unstable sites of the mitochondrial genome is species-specific and difficult to be explained on the basis of a mutational hotspot concept. (ii) A comparison of the ratios of non-synonymous to synonymous changes (dN/dS) among polymorphic positions in bonobos and in 4902 Homo sapiens mitochondrial genomes revealed a remarkable difference in the strength of purifying selection in the mitochondrial genes of the F0F1-ATPase complex. While in bonobos this complex showed a similar low value as complexes I and IV, human haplogroups displayed 2.2 to 7.6 times increased dN/dS ratios when compared to bonobos.

Conclusions

Some variants of mitochondrially encoded subunits of the ATPase complex in humans very likely decrease the efficiency of energy conversion leading to production of extra heat. Thus, we hypothesize that the species-specific release of evolutionary Background We have analyzed the complete mitochondrial genomes of 22 Pan paniscus (bonobo, pygmy chimpanzee) individuals to assess the detailed mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) phylogeny of this close relative of Homo sapiens.

Pan genus mtDNA phylogeny (fig. 1)
PanTrog = Pan troglodytes (chimpanzee), PP = Pan paniscus (bonobo)

It is very apparent that bonobos have three major mtDNA haplogroups, named A, B and C.

Unlike humans (or at a lesser extent common chimpanzees), bonobos live in a well defined area of the SW Congo basin, limited by rivers, and have therefore never experienced a expansion since they became separated from their chimpanzee cousins. This makes them a good reference to better understand how demographic expansion affected our genetics, specifically our mtDNA.

Chronology

The authors say that the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all bonobos (by mtDNA) lived some 540,000 years ago (430-670 Ka. with 95% confidence interval).

If the graph above has a scale (and I understand it does) and assuming this estimate is correct, then the divergence of both Pan species happened c. 2.1 million years ago (1.7-2.6 Ma at 95% CI) - using simple linear maths.

Notice that Caswell 2008 already suggested a possible divergence age of 1.5-2.0 Ma in order to make it coincident with the formation of the Congo basin as we know it, a geological phenomenon that was surely itself the cause of the chimp-bonobo divergence. In my own words back then:

That the chimpanzee-bonobo split should be move backwards in time to at least 1.29 million years ago. And, that if the human-chimp divergence age is actually older (8 million years instead of 7), then this event would be coincident with the formation of the Congo river (1.5-2 Myrs BP), that many people belive is at the origin of bonobo speciation.

So I think we can confirm that the Pan paniscus speciation event happened most likely some 2 million years ago, when some undifferentiated Pan became isolated from the rest in the SW Congo basin on purely geological reasons.

It is also said that:

The maximal nucleotide difference between bonobo groups is, however, 1.5 times higher than in humans, and thus somewhat closer to the distance between modern humans and the extinct Neandertal.

While this affirmation is unspecific on the details, it seems to weight against the shortest claimed divergence ages for the two big-headed human species.

Bonobo reference sequence is a mix

The authors find that the bonobo reference sequence (GeneBank) seems to be not a genuine one but a mix of two rather unrelated ones. Hence they propose deprecating the extant reference and use the closest one of theirs, PP23, as new reference.

Purifying selection

The authors find strong support for purifying selection in both bonobos and humans. However some of this funtional constraint seems to have been lifted for some groups when humans spread around the world, specially to colder locations. Therefore they suspect it related to the metabolic determinants of high tropical temperatures. However some of this constraint may have been already lifted still in Africa as the branch leading to humans evolved hairlessness and sweat.

For ATPase, the nonsynonymous/synonymous (dN/ds) ratio is lowest among the Khoisan (haplogroups L0 and L1 essentially) and highest in haplogroup A. However other Siberian/Native American haplogroups (C and D) do not show anything so extreme, so rather than thinking in terms of positive selection, the authors argue that it is loss of evolutionary constraint what we see here:

Therefore, we conclude, in agreement with others [16], that the observed increase of dN/dS values for the mitochondrial ATPase genes in humans cannot be interpreted in favor of positive selection at colder climate conditions, but rather is the result of the release of strong evolutionary constraints during population expansion and migration of modern humans.

Another interesting finding is surely that one of the three bonobo haplogroups displays a mutation at locus 8344A>G, which is strongly implicated in MERRF syndrome (a mildly incapacitating degenerative disease) in humans. However they suspect that a nearby bonobo-specific mutation, present in all bonobo mtDNA, may be acting to prevent this effect in bonobos.

Ekain: rib made into a bird... and other findings at Ekain

2010-09-03T13:26:00.005+02:00

So good for Yaveh and Adam and all that junk of the Hebrew/Sumerian mythology, here is what you can really do with a rib, after eating the succulent meat around:

This is the most recent noticeable finding at the cave of Ekain (Gipuzkoa, Basque Country), which is World Heritage (per UNESCO) since 2008. It is worked on a bovid's rib and dated to c. 13,900 years ago (Magdalenian period).

The bird has appeared within a thin Middle Magdalenian layer that complements the much thicker Early and Late Magdalenian ones, already known from previous digs. Altuna explains that this layer is specially relevant because in this period the relations with Aquitaine were very intense, unlike in the other Magdalenian stages.

This piece indicates an important communication, not merely technological as with the use of flint but also cultural with artworks.

Crystals

Another notable finding of this year's excavation campaigns has been a large number of rock crystals in a small space (30 cm around), maybe once being part of a collar or, as the researchers suggest, being kept at a bag (for magical reasons?) What is clear in this case is that the people living at Ekain collected and brought together these natural beauties for aesthetic and maybe other related reasons.

Neolithic burial

Importantly, this campaign has also produced a Neolithic burial: a young child 6-7 years old with pottery fragments that have been dated to c. 5000 years ago. We can say we have seen the weeping at Ekain's entrance, declared Altuna on this finding. No Neolithic was known in this cave before.

Ekain

Ekain, looking to the Urola valley, was first excavated in 1969 by the now quasi-mythical archaeologist J. M. Barandiaran, the father of Basque Prehistory, and current lead researcher Jesús Altuna, producing a rich record of Magdalenian period specially, including some of the most beautiful mural galleries of the Pleistocene.

The name Ekain now means only June (the month) but shares the possible root *eka- with words like ekaitz (storm), ekandu (habit, custom, to get used, to become integrated) and ekarri (to bring). Another (or an extended variant) possible root *ek- is found in words like eki (the East, the Sun), ekin (to do persistently, to insist) and ekoitz (to produce). However it's likely that the phonetic distinction between /k/ and /g/ was still non-existent, so if we'd want to be comprehensive we should also consider words like egin (to do), egi (edge, limit, truth), egun (day) or egon (to be - in/at/on somewhere).

While Ekain is closed to the public, you can visit the high fidelity neocave Ekainberri (New Ekain), possibly the most complete one of its kind.

Sources: Diario Vasco, Pileta de Prehistoria (both in Spanish).

See also: Ekain at Leherensuge.

Mapuche prisoners: 52 days in hunger strike

2010-09-02T13:53:00.005+02:00

The hunger strike of Mapuche prisoners in Chile reaches today the 52nd day. In practical terms this means that they are beginning to notice the hard effects of the fast, losing muscle tissue and beginning to affect major organs as the liver, kidneys and heart. Their life is at risk.

The strikers demand the abolition of the anti-terrorist law by which they are being judged, under accusations of attacks and road blockades demanding that their ancestral lands be returned to the Mapuche communities.

The government is showing signs of weakness in this nonviolent struggle, and is asking, since tuesday, that the prisoners stop their hunger strike on promises of law reform. This announcement was welcomed by Mapuche organizations that demand hurrying up the procedure.

The strike began on July 12 in the prisons of Concepción and Temuco and has been joined by other prisoners gradually. The anti-terrorist law is a fascist law passed by Pinochet dictatorship and allows the imprisonment of suspects without charges for unlimited periods. If found guilty, the penalty is multiplied by three automatically.

The law is seldom applied to white Chileans but is systematically used against Mapuches, who are fighting for the return of their communal lands and their right to self-rule. The independent Mapuche polity was invaded by Chile in the 19th century and has no recognized autonomy.

The Appeal Court authorized prison guards to use forced feeding on striking prisoners.

Source: Gara.

This fight has, as so many other important news, got no room in mainstream media, either in Spanish or English. Many wonder if this happened in Cuba or Venezuela, what kind of media reaction would it trigger. This in turn causes deep concern for the situation of freedom of speech and journalism in general in the so called Western World. And this is not the only case: what do you know of the real situation Louisiana oil spill and its real effects on the people living at the Gulf of Mexico? If you are only following mainstream media: nothing at all! A very bad situation for information freedom the one we have.

'Clovis impact' theory rejected

2010-08-31T14:57:00.002+02:00

No nanodiamonds are found.

I reported last year on the novel theory that a meteorite may have caused megafauna extinction in North America (specially) at the end of Pleistocene. This theory relied heavily on alleged evidence of nanodiamonds (carbon spherules containing lonsdaleite, a carbon crystal likened to diamonds and found only in meteorites).

This evidence seems now to be nowhere. That is at least what Tyrone Daulton of Washington University claims: that it is nothing but graphene (graphite) what has been mistaken for lonsdaleite, an error that had happened before.

Source: Science Daily (no paper linked and too lazy to search it myself).

Dog remains from Epipaleolithic Portugal

2010-08-31T14:42:00.003+02:00

As suspected, the dog was already domestic before the Neolithic and that was certainly the case in Europe. This seems confirmed by new findings of dog remains in the shell middens of the Muge area, the main clutural group of pre-Neolithic Portugal.

Cleia Detry and Joao Luis Cardoso, On some remains of dog (Canis familiaris) from the Mesolithic shell-middens of Muge, Portugal. Journal of Archaeological Science, 2010. Pay per view.

Just for the record. Notice that the oldest known dog skeleton is from Aurignacian Belgium although its mtDNA line is now extinct.

Latin American Left demands freedom for Arnaldo Otegi

2010-08-29T15:10:00.002+02:00

The Sao Paulo Forum, which gathers the Latin American left-wing parties, accepted to deal with the case of political repression against Basque nationalist leader Arnaldo Otegi, who is in prison for his ideas and proud rejection to bow to Spanish arbitrary impositions.

All parties present, as well as important personalities such as Nobel Peace Prize Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and Nora Cortiñas from the Madres de Plaza de Mayo human rights organization, signed the letter. This includes such important organizations as Brazilian Workers' Party (PT), Venezuelan Socialist Unified Party (PSUV), Mexico's Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD), Uruguay's Broad Front (Frente Amplio), Cuba's Communist Party and Nicaraguan Sandinist Front of National Liberation (FSLN), as well as the Revolutionary Left Movement of Chile, the Communist parties of Venezuela and Brazil, etc.

The initiative, exposed by Doris Benegas, was promoted by Castilian Left (Izquierda Castellana, a small but veteran and very active Castilian nationalist party, solidarious with other stateless nations under the Spanish boot), which is observer at the Sao Paulo Forum.

A formal request by the Forum to ask the Spanish government for the release of Otegi was however shelved as the ruling parties of Brazil and Venezuela considered they would have to consult with their chancellors and there was no time for that.

Source: Gara[es]

Basque author on trial in Chile for supporting Mapuche struggle

2010-08-29T14:36:00.002+02:00

Basque writer Asel Luzarraga was arrested in December 31 2009 while making a graffiti in solidarity with the Mapuche struggle for land and self-rule. He was accused of "terrorism", specifically of planting two bombs in Temuko in December 2009, one of them when he was not in Chile and the other (not exploded) the very same day of his arrest.

In spite of the severity of the accusations he has been under home arrest (while simultaneously an order of expulsion has been issued as well).

There seems to no grounds whatsoever for the accusation other than being anarchist, solidarious with the Mapuche cause and possibly being Basque. There was a newspaper cartoon the other day that read: "everybody is innocent until proven Basque", funny maybe but way too real.

However the trial begins today.

Meanwhile the Mapuche struggle continues. Prisoners have been in hunger strike for many weeks already and are being force-fed by the authorities. Some may die soon. Mostly this struggle has gone unnoticed in the media, even in Chile itself. And that may be because, as Atilio Boron said, the Mapuches are not Cubans. Can you imagine anything like this happening in Cuba and not being first page in all the international media?

Well, if it happens in Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Morocco or Spain... it seems it is not news-worthy.

Canarians get involved in West Sahara while the Moroccan tyrant choses repression again

2010-08-29T13:02:00.003+02:00

Tenerife con el Sahara reports[es] that a number of Canarian citizens have taken part in a protest for the rights of the Arab Democratic Sahrawi Republic at El Aaiun. The reaction of the Moroccan autocracy has been brutal, as usual.

Carmen Roger one of the Canarian victims

After being beaten by the Moroccan occupation forces, the Canarians have been arrested at the "House of Spain". Two international observers, Mexican Antonio Velázquez Díaz and Catalan Isabel Terraza, are being besieged by the occupation forces at the homes of their Sahrawi host family. Tenerife con el Sahara claims that they are at serious risk, as well as the Sahrawi families besieged at their homes by the invader troops.

The international protests are organized by Saharaacciones which is promoting nonviolent protest in order to make the occupation and repression of the West Sahara more visible and hopefully push towards a democratic solution through the right of self-determination of the Sahrawi people:

We are demonstrating to make visible a vetoed territory, where we are unwelcome by the occupation forces, following the example set by the admirable peaceful resistance that the Sahrawi people are doing once and again since the beginning of the Intifada in May 2005.

Morocco may be pushing for greater involvement of Spain

This is what Pedro Canales argues at El Imparcial newspaper (found at Sahara Libre). According to him, Morocco wants Spain to take a more clear pro-Moroccan stand in regards to the West Sahara, a former Spanish province. As Spain cannot really control the high level of popular support for the Sahrawi cause, which is generally perceived as a treason to the formerly "Spanish" people of the Sahara by Madrid, nor can reign on the local and regional administrations in this matter, Morocco seems to have opted to do the same: leave the Moroccan popular discontent with Spain on matters such as the colonial outposts of Ceuta and Melilla or the treatment of immigrants, break loose.

However Canales seems to be writing for the Moroccan viewpoint and seems to think that greater Spanish involvement alone could change things. This is not possible because Spain already has a very shameful role by mere inhibition and cannot really take any stronger political stand against the Arab Democratic Sahrawi Republic. So if Spain would get involved, it could only do with a stand at least moderately opposed to Morocco's aspirations, so really Morocco is doing it wrong if Canales is right. After all some border riots at the Melilla fence won't get anyone worried this side of the Strait.

On the other hand, I guess it is always positive when the people, in this case the Moroccan people can express their discontent. It is a positive development that may be in the future will turn against the autocrat of Rabat. If the people can really express their anger and gets organized maybe in the near future we can hope to see a simultaneous solution to both colonial problems: Moroccan occupation of the Sahara and Spanish control of Ceuta and Melilla.

In any case, I don't think that Morocco really wants to press Spain to get itself "more involved" in the conflict of West Sahara because it can only backfire. For Moroccan imperialist interests the best situation is the status quo, with Spain inhibiting itself, what is as pro-Moroccan as it can get.

But that the people organizes itself and gets to speak out loud in any conflict is as such a good development. In an ideal democracy situation all these conflicts would not exist because it'd be up to each local people to self-determine their status and their future.

More evidence for arrows 60,000 years ago

2010-08-28T11:33:00.002+02:00

New findings at Sibudu cave (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa), add evidence in favor of a very ancient use of bow and arrow by Homo sapiens. These findings are small stone points which keep traces of blood and bone from the impacts and also of the resin used to glue them to the shafts.

Forensic analysis of this evidence seems to discard that they were used as hand-held spear points but must have been shot with much greater energy. However I cannot find any reasoning that excludes their possible shooting with atlats.

The BBC article that is the source of this information claims that this finding pushes the use of bow and arrow back some 20,000 years, however bone points found at the same site two years ago, and also dated to c. 60 Ka, already suggested this.

UN whitewashes the ecocide and genocide of Shell in Niger Delta

2010-08-28T10:07:00.003+02:00

If BP is insulting and harming the US people and clearly manipulating the US government, go figure what can happen in a much poorer country like Nigeria!

But what about the United Nations? It seems that Royal Dutch Shell, the second largest company of the world and one with a very murky past (specially remembered for its support of the Apartheid regime in South Africa), is also perfectly able to buy its favors.

This is what Black Agenda Report denounced a few days ago: that the study by the UN Environmental Program, paid by Shell, blames locals and the guerrilla for 90% of polution and spills in the Delta Region, once known as Biafra. However it seems that it has backtracked and claims now that no official report is due until next year.

Whatever the case the situation in the Niger Delta, denounced by AI, may be even worse than that of the Gulf of Mexico, at least in many aspects.

The true scope of Niger River Delta pollution is catastrophic, with the equivalent of 9 to 13 million barrels of oil fouling the waterways, farmlands and mangrove forests of Africa's largest wetland. That's at least twice as much oil as escaped in the recent Gulf of Mexico disaster, thus ranking Nigeria and Shell as the number one oil polluters in the world (Glenn Ford at Black Agenda Report).

Thousands demonstrate in Bilbao 'for the rights of the Basque Country'

2010-08-28T09:46:00.002+02:00

Plaza Zabalburu in Bilbao became yesterday the scenario of another demonstration for the rights of the Basque Country.

This was in fact their motto: Euskal Herriaren eskubideen alde - for the rights of the Basque Country.

Leaders of the 'illegal' Nationalist Left, Kiko Moreno, Miren Legorburu, Tasio Erkizia and Jone Goirizelaia, spoke to the crowd in the current line of trying to build a scenario of democratic solution to the Basque-Spanish conflict.

The official acknowledgement or the legality of Kosovar independence was also cheered in the demo, as it clears the way, in the international legal frame, for Basque self-determination as well.

The demonstration as such was initially banned by the current undemocratic 'Basque government' but was eventually authorized as mere meeting by the judiciary. Still the people were forbidden from demonstrating through the streets of the city and closely watched by the police.

Sources: Boltxe (photos) and Gara [both in Spanish].

R1b1b2a1 is almost unique of West Europe

2010-08-26T18:29:00.017+02:00

[Typo: in the maps M529, also known as L21, is wrongly written as M259. My apologies]

This is one of the virtues of Myres' paper (that I mentioned yesterday): that a somewhat more clear phylogenetic subdivision is made, emphasizing the difference between West European R1b1b2a and other R1b or R1b1b2, often blurred in previous papers, causing great confusion even to researchers themselves.

A defect is that instead of using a standard name for the defining SNP (L51/S167 per ISOGG) they chose to name it M412. However Argiedude says it is the same marker and I imagine it is. [Update: confirmed: the rs number indicates it is the same SNP].

Another virtue is that some of the substructure of R1b1b2a1 is also mapped, what really covers pretty well the Northern and Italian area of spread of this lineage and even some relatively unmapped areas of SW Europe, specially France.

In any case the apparent structure is curious, so I got the supplementary table S4 (supp. material is freely accessible) and made this map:

Click to enlarge

Notice that, following Argiedude, M412 stands for L51 and M529 stands for L21, what, if confirmed would make the following equivalences:

R1b1b2a-M412 = R1b1b2a1 (L51)
R1b1b2a1a2-M529 = R1b1b2a1a2f (L21)

Even if not confirmed, the equivalence should be approximate anyhow.

I'm sorry for the horrible color palette but it's my first attempt to make pie charts with Open Office spreadsheet gadget. Next time I'll do better I hope.

Notice also that I did not use all the samples, in the cases of small countries or less relevant regions I arbitrarily chose and discarded some.

Finally notice that pie charts represent only apportions of R1b1b2 and say nothing of the frequency of the lineage overall, which in most of East Europe and West Asia (excepting Turkey and a few neighbors) is extremely low.

The apparent structure of R1b1b2a1

The most apparent structure is, as we already knew the rather different R1b1b2a1a1 and R1b1b2a1a2 distribution. The first one (color coded brown and light blue) is dominant in the North and rather rare in the South - hence: 'North clade' for short hereafter. The second one (dark green, light green, purple and light orange) is by comparison not just more frequent in the South but also probably more diverse as well - hence: 'South clade'. However it is also found in the North.

Then there are some transitional "remnants": R1b1b2a1a* (L11) and R1b1b2a1* (M412). These should be informative (meaning some extra diversity at their structural levels) in order to infer the history of the haplogroup.

Per the hierarchical distribution seen here and diversity data from older works, the most likely origin of R1b1b2 as a whole is Anatolia.

Then R1b1b2a1* (M412) (yellow) is suggestive of a Mid-Danubian (or Italian or Iberian) coalescence.

R1b1b2a1a* (L11) (middle green) is suggestive of a West-Central European (or SW European) coalescence. More data on the Pyrenean region would clarify this maybe.

And, after this layer, comes the division into the widespread Southern and Northern clades mentioned before.

A reasonable interpretation is that the lineage traveled relatively fast upstream of the Danube (and/or via North Italy onto the SW), branching out then into the two major North/South clades. These two lower level lineages are in fact the two main stars of this demographic expansion.

My bet is that this represents a wave of colonization of Europe (when?) with secondary expansions from SW Europe (Franco-Cantabrian region possibly) and Central Europe (Rhine-Danube region I presume). There are several scenarios that can account for this, essentially Paleolithic (or pushing into the Epipaleolithic).

I don't see clearly how this structure could account for a Neolithic spread, really: no Mediterranean Neolithic pattern is apparent at all and Danubian limited expansion cannot account for any spread to SW Europe, certainly not South of the Loire and certainly not at the frequencies it is found there (nor in Britain/Ireland either). Claiming a Neolithic spread of R1b1b2 with this structure can only be done from a very shallow understanding of Neolithic archaeology and prehistory overall.

The main known demographic expansion we know of in the European Upper Paleolithic is the one after the Last Glacial Maximum, when Magdalenian culture expanded from the Franco-Cantabrian region, both northwards to Central Europe and, later, southwards into Iberia. This led to cultural divergence into the Epipaleolithic, with the important expansion into the newly available areas of the Far North, earlier covered in ice. Within the Epipaleolithic some further cultural flows are detected: from the Franco-Cantabrian region into Iberia (Azilian) and from somewhere in Mid-West Europe into the Southwest (Sauveterre-Tardenoisian).

Also, back to the LGM, Magdalenian techno-culture may have got a NW European ultimate inspirational origin but anyhow mediated by the warmer and richer Franco-Cantabrian region, where the culture flourished properly.

It's difficult to reconstruct in detail but, as far as I can tell, the two main North/South clades must have expanded in the Magdalenian period (one from the Franco-Cantabrian region, the other from Central-NW Europe itself) and also in the ulterior Epipaleolithic. Neolithic does not seem able to account for much but may have helped to shake the board a bit, specially in East-to-West direction.

Frequency maps

Selected frequency maps from the paper
Click to enlarge

Notice that the expansion of the South clade to the Atlantic islands does not invalidate its southern character and probably represents an Epipaleolithic-to-Neolithic spread.

Notice also the large amount of unclassified Southern clade in Iberia. The area around the Pyrenees was not really sampled in this study and therefore it is distorted by neighbors ("South France", looking more like SE France, Valencia and Cantabria).

In order to appreciate better the real thing in this aspect it's probably good to take a look at Cruciani 2010, who did bother to sample near the Pyrenees and gets maybe better (or at least complementary) maps illustrating the same problem.

Update: I superimposed (with complementary colors) the South (red) and North (blue) clades from the frequency maps above. However in order to account for the differences of frequency, I had to lighten the blue shade (North clade) because the scales are different. Take it as an "artist's impression" anyhow:

Update (Aug 27):

Here there is a hopefully better version of the map at the beginning of this post:

Click to enlarge

I put special care in giving each distinct clade an specific color range for easier visualization. All R1b1b2a1 (M412/L51/S167) seems to have coalesced in the Central-to-Western European area but the real expansion seems to have happened after this haplogroup split in two, which I dubbed the North and South clades.

And this is my reconstruction of the haplogroup expansion:

Click to enlarge
Color coded as above

Update (Aug 28):

Take a peek at the comment section, where I briefly discuss molecular clock difficulties and also the only possible Neolithic scenario for R1b1b2a1a2 (South clade): a massive demographic expansion in the context of Megalithism.

Rejecting or confirming this would require greater research in the structure hidden "under the asterisk" in SW Europe. At the moment only two minimally-sized sub-haplogroups are known: Basque/Gascon-specific R1b1b2a1a2b and sub-Pyrenean R1b1b2a1a2c (Gascon, Catalan, etc.). This alone gives highest structural diversity to the Pyrenean region, however most of the South clade remains unresolved (hidden under the asterisk), both in the Pyrenean area as in Iberia proper. And the key issue to solve would be if R1b1b2a1a2 is most diverse at the Pyrenees, what favors a Paleolithic spread scenario, or in West Iberia (and Brittany/West France), what would favor a Neolithic-Megalithic spread scenario instead.

Also it's maybe important to remind here the excellent STR work of Laura Morelli earlier this year, which was discussed in this article.

Importantly, this graph (annotated by me):

The graph is suggestive of the existence of another "West Asian" distinct haplogroup "under the asterisk" (that I labeled "R1b1b2a2?") and a possible Balcanic, rather than Anatolian origin for the R1b1b2 clade.

If so, this would correlate with the high diversity of the (much smaller) brother haplogroup R1b1a in the Italy-West Asia arch (as well as in Central Africa) and would suggest a slightly different origin and scatter for R1b as a whole (ref 1, ref 2).

Boycott day at Bilbao Fiestas

2010-08-26T18:15:00.002+02:00

As mentioned yesterday, wednesday was a journey of protest for freedom of speech and the participative popular model of fiestas, against the persecution of ideas and konpartsak by the authorities, be them remotely located at Madrid or nearby at the local Town Hall.

The konpartsak made a massive concentration at the Town Hall:

They also parodied the mayor, who has not only be as weak and treacherous as to accept the imposition of the Spanish flag but who is also actively cooperating with the repressive policies designed by the Spaniards:

Source: Gara (link 1, link 2)

A couple of new genetic papers I'd love to read

2010-08-25T16:28:00.002+02:00

But by the moment just mentioning them briefly.

Both are published by the European Journal of Human Genetics (Nature) and both are mentioned by Diekenes today (link 1, link 2).

African genetic structure shows novel elements

There has been some negligence in mapping the genetic structure of African populations, with most papers taken a West African proxy (typically Nigerians), sometimes enriched with some of the last hunter-gatherers of the continent, to represent the whole complexity of the ancestral continent.

This paper seems to address this lack.

Martin Sikora et al., A genomic analysis identifies a novel component in the genetic structure of sub-Saharan African populations. EJHG 2010. Pay per view.

Abstract

Studies of large sets of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data have proven to be a powerful tool in the analysis of the genetic structure of human populations. In this work, we analyze genotyping data for 2841 SNPs in 12 sub-Saharan African populations, including a previously unsampled region of southeastern Africa (Mozambique). We show that robust results in a world-wide perspective can be obtained when analyzing only 1000 SNPs. Our main results both confirm the results of previous studies, and show new and interesting features in sub-Saharan African genetic complexity. There is a strong differentiation of Nilo-Saharans, much beyond what would be expected by geography. Hunter-gatherer populations (Khoisan and Pygmies) show a clear distinctiveness with very intrinsic Pygmy (and not only Khoisan) genetic features. Populations of the West Africa present an unexpected similarity among them, possibly the result of a population expansion. Finally, we find a strong differentiation of the southeastern Bantu population from Mozambique, which suggests an assimilation of a pre-Bantu substrate by Bantu speakers in the region.

This Mozambican specificity was already spotted accidentally in Patin's paper on Pygmy Genetics last year but himself downplayed its importance because of his focus on Pygmy structure specifically.

West European R1b is distinct

Nothing really new for those who have kept a keen eye on the research of this Y-DNA haplogroup, the most characteristic of West Europe. But I'd still like to know more about the details. I doubt I could concur with the suggested timeline in any case.

Natalie M. Myres et al., A major Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b Holocene era founder effect in Central and Western Europe. EJHG 2010. Pay per view.

Abstract

The phylogenetic relationships of numerous branches within the core Y-chromosome haplogroup R-M207 support a West Asian origin of haplogroup R1b, its initial differentiation there followed by a rapid spread of one of its sub-clades carrying the M269 mutation to Europe. Here, we present phylogeographically resolved data for 2043 M269-derived Y-chromosomes from 118 West Asian and European populations assessed for the M412 SNP that largely separates the majority of Central and West European R1b lineages from those observed in Eastern Europe, the Circum-Uralic region, the Near East, the Caucasus and Pakistan. Within the M412 dichotomy, the major S116 sub-clade shows a frequency peak in the upper Danube basin and Paris area with declining frequency toward Italy, Iberia, Southern France and British Isles. Although this frequency pattern closely approximates the spread of the Linearbandkeramik (LBK), Neolithic culture, an advent leading to a number of pre-historic cultural developments during the past ≤10 thousand years, more complex pre-Neolithic scenarios remain possible for the L23(xM412) components in Southeast Europe and elsewhere.

M412 seems to be a novel SNP not yet reported at ISOGG. S116 (defined as its major subclade) used to describe R1b1b2a2, most diverse around the Pyrenees (unless this paper says the opposite). So I doubt the LBK hypothesis can hold, regardless of frequency.

Bilbao Fiestas on strike

2010-08-25T14:27:00.005+02:00

Today at 10 am, the official inauguration of the festive journey, the kompartsak (popular festive teams which are the heart of the fiestas since 1978) went on strike for the whole journey. If you happen to visit today the festive area you will find nearly everything closed.

Additionally this year, all the stands are decorated on black background as sign of protest, a pretty unusual sight.

Why? Because the Town Hall decided to ban three kompartsak (Kaskagorri, Txori Barrote and Komantxe) because they included photos of Basque prisoners in their stands. Such photos have been part of the Basque landscape since I have memory but, as of late, the undemocratic imposed government of Patxi López, has been working to get them out of the streets and taverns on the pretext that they are offensive for "the victims of terrorism".

There is no clear legal frame for such an actuation but, of course, judges are siding with the Spaniards and their local lackeys in this matter as well.

As the photos have been anyhow present in the fiestas, with them hanged from every tree and lamp, yesterday Spanish Neoinquisition judge Velasco ordered for second time their removal and now also investigation on who may be placing them (what a silly question: everybody!, these doctors seem to ignore the best of Spanish literature).

But they also seem to ignore history: the Basque flag was illegal until a campaign of flag-bombs forced its recognition. Such a scenario may happen again indeed with the photos of prisoners or whatever other expression that is formally banned by some distant judge in his crystal palace of Madrid. It happened again indeed with the prohibition of banners of Basque Nationalist content, causing some policemen to be injured in Navarre a few years ago.

Whatever the case, these are the strangest fiestas I have ever witnessed.

Judge Velasko has also ordered police to intervene against the homage to repressed members of Kaskagorri konpartsa (Nationalist Left youth) and even a toast (brindis) to women prisoners in Barcelona, which in his opinion is an act of welcome of recently freed anarchist prisoner Laura Riera, as well as homage to other two Catalan political prisoners: Dolores López Resina and Marina Bernadó.

Image of the police aggression yesterday on orders of the Spanish Inquisition (Audiencia Nacional).
More photos at Boltxe.

Video: police repression in Barcelona (text and most dialogue in Catalan)
People chant: you fascists are the terrorists, Audiencia Nacional dissolution and Laura Riera welcome home

The konpartsak however made exception to their strike for the visit to children in hospital, being present there with all the festive paraphernalia: Mari Jaia, pregonero, txupinera, circus clowns and even the mayor, who avoided any declarations.

Source: Gara[es] (link 1, link 2)

Cave bears extinct on human and climate pressure

2010-08-25T14:17:00.002+02:00

That seems to be the conclusion of a mostly European research:

Mathias Stiller et al. Withering Away—25,000 Years of Genetic Decline Preceded Cave Bear Extinction. Molecular Biology and Evolution 2010. Pay per view.

Abstract

The causes of the late Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions are still enigmatic. Although the fossil record can provide approximations for when a species went extinct, the timing of its disappearance alone cannot resolve the causes and mode of the decline preceding its extinction. However, ancient DNA analyses can reveal population size changes over time and narrow down potential causes of extinction. Here, we present an ancient DNA study comparing late Pleistocene population dynamics of two closely related species, cave and brown bears. We found that the decline of cave bears started approximately 25,000 years before their extinction, whereas brown bear population size remained constant. We conclude that neither the effects of climate change nor human hunting alone can be responsible for the decline of the cave bear and suggest that a complex of factors including human competition for cave sites lead to the cave bear's extinction.

Cave bears went extinct roughly at the time of the Last Glacial Maximum, 25-18,000 years ago.

See also:
· Article at Science Daily
· Leherensuge: Mammoths died because of forest expansion.

Stellar system somewhat like ours found

2010-08-24T22:46:00.002+02:00

The European Southern Observatory (ESO), which owns some of the most sophisticated Earth-based telescopes (all them located in Chile's Atacama Desert), has detected at least five Neptune-sized planets orbiting star HD 10180 in the constellation of Hydrus. Other two smaller planets have been detected as well but with some uncertainty, one of them orbiting very close to the parent star and measuring 1.4 times the mass of Earth.

Artist's impression of a detail of the new system

The finding represents the first time a planetary system so similar to ours, with planets organized following the Titus-Bode law (each planet is roughly twice the distance of the one immediately closer to the Sun) and with almost circular orbits. It is also sign of a new phase in the exploration of extrasolar planets, not anymore searching for individual planets as much as for whole planetary systems.

This has been possible thanks to the HARPS or High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher, a highly sophisticated spectrograph. Other 75 exoplanets have been discovered with this instrument.

The details are explained at ESO's site. BBC also has an article on this discovery.