Trudy Myers's Blog
November 27, 2025
Mile High Roman Military Camp
The army of ancientRome was afraid of nothing. They definitely had no fear of heights, because a2,000-year-old Roman military camp has been discovered in the Swiss Alps, 7,000feet above sea level.
Archaeologists continueto explore the history of the Roman army. They have unearthed a military camp—previouslyunknown—strategically positioned to have tactical views of the surroundingvalleys and mountain passes.
They didn’t just findthe ditches and a wall of the camp; they also found lead sling bullets that borethe stamp of the Roman 3rd Legion.
Since 2021, a team hasbeen researching the landscape between Cunter and Tiefencastel. Their focus wason a Roman battlefield in the Oberhalbstein Alps, in eastern Switzerland. Butin the fall of 2023, they discovered a striking terrain structure in the Colmla Runga corridor, which is about 3,000 feet above the battlefield.
They investigated thesite using a high-resolution digital terrain model and LIDAR data. A LADARlaser scans the ground and reveals even slight height differences in theterrain as a grayscale image. In this location, it revealed the profile of anartificial fortification.
Undisturbed for twomillennia, 7,000 feet high in the Alps, this Roman military camp was fortifiedby three ditches and a wall with ramparts (protective barrier). It offers aview of four key valleys and a heavily traveled mountain passageway. It gaveRoman soldiers a perfect view to spot any incoming enemies.
Researchers have foundweapons and equipment belonging to Roman soldiers, including lead sling bulletsand boot nails. Since the bullets bear the stamp of the 3rd Legion,they give an obvious tie between the ancient battlefield and the camp above.Both the battlefield and the camp date to about 2,000 years ago.
The discovery helpstrack the advancement of Roman forces from Bergell over the Septimer Pass tothe Tiefencastel area and then toward Chur and the Alpine Rhine Valley.
November 20, 2025
What Holds Up the Himalayas?
Scientists havediscovered that a 100-year-old theory about Earth’s highest mountain range iswrong.
The Himalayas wereformed when the Asian and Indian continents collided around 50 million yearsago. Tibet was squeezed so hard it crumpled and shrank. Eventually, Indiaslipped under the Eurasian tectonic plate, which doubled the thickness of Earth’scrust beneath the Himalayas and Tibet.
Until now, the theoryhas been that this extra-thick crust carries the weight of the Tibetan Plateauand the Himalayas. In 1924, geologist Emile Argand published research showingthe 2 crusts stacked on top of each other, stretching 45-50 miles (70-80 km)deep under Earth’s surface.
But researchers now saythat rocks in the crust turn molten about 25 miles (40 km) down because ofextreme temperatures. The lowermost layers become like yogurt, which won’tsupport a mountain.
New research says thereis a piece of mantle sandwiched between the 2 crusts. The mantle is a layerthat usually sits directly beneath the crust. Being denser than the crust, itdoesn’t liquify at the same temperatures. The crust is buoyant, similar to aniceberg. It lifts higher the thicker it gets.
A computer simulationof the collision between the Asian and Indian continents showed that as theIndian crust began to liquify, blobs of it rose and attached to the base of therigid outer layer. This means there is a rigid layer of mantle between thestacked crusts, which solidifies the structure beneath the Himalayas. While the2 crusts give buoyancy to the region lifted, the mantle material providesmechanical strength.
Then the researcherscompared their simulation with seismic data and information obtained fromrocks. They found that the mantle sandwich matched previous evidence thatArnand’s theory couldn’t explain. Enigmatic observations are more easilyexplained with this model. This study presents strong evidence, but it iscontroversial because Arnaud’s theory has been widely adopted.
These results explain anumber of geological oddities in the region. The scientists ran lots ofsimulations using different thicknesses for the layers, and they always got abit of mantle sandwiched between the 2 crusts.
November 14, 2025
A Map to the Ark
A 3,000-year-old maphas finally told scientists where to locate Noah’s Ark.
After years of study,the world’s oldest map has been deciphered, and scientists believe it revealsthe final resting place of Noah’s Ark.
The Imago Mundi is aBabylonian clay tablet featuring a writing system using wedge-shaped symbols(cuneiform) to describe how the world was created, according to the Christians.Researchers have done a deeper analysis to decipher the map and discover biblicalreferences.
The back of the tabletdescribes what a traveler will see on the journey to a ‘parsiktu vessel’.‘Parsiktu’ is a word that explains the size of a boat that would be needed tosurvive the Great Flood. Following the instructions, researchers found a path to‘Urartu’ where an ancient Mesopotamian poem says a man and his family landed anark. ‘Urartu’ is the Assyrian equivalent of ‘Ararat’, which is the Hebrew wordfor the mountain where Noah’s ark crashed.
It seems that from theBabylonian point of view, the story of the ark was a matter-of-fact thing, andif you went on this journey, you would find the remnants of this historic boat.
The Imago Mundi wasfound in what is now Iraq in 1882. Its cuneiform text was only used by theBabylonians. They also etched a map of what seems to show the entire knownworld at the time the tablet was made. On the map, Mesopotamia sits at thebottom center, enclosed by a circle that represents a ‘bitter river’ that wasbelieved to surround the entire world.
The tablet has beendamaged, but at one time, it featured 8 triangles that signified mountainsdescribed on the back.
The ‘parsiktu’measurement is only known from one other cuneiform tablet. It basicallydescribes the Ark that was built, theoretically, by the Babylonian version ofNoah. While the Imago Mundi is dated to 3,000-years-ago, the biblical greatflood supposedly happened about 5,000-years-ago.
In the Bible, the arksettled on the ‘mountains of Ararat’ in Turkey following a 150-day flood. Theark measured ‘300 cubits, 50 cubits, by 30 cubits’, which translates to 515feet long, 86 feet wide, and 52 feet high.
A team has beenexcavating the mountain in question for years. In 2023, they found clay, marinematerials, and seafood, which placed humans at the scene between 3,000 and5,000 years ago.
November 6, 2025
10,500-Year-Old Face
Scientists have reconstructed the face of a 10,500-year-old woman using DNA. The woman livedin what is now Belgium.
The woman had blueeyes, and her skin was slightly lighter than most other Mesolithic-periodpeople living in Western Europe when compared to the analyses made to date.According to archaeologists, the woman came from the same population group asthe Cheddar Man, who lived in what is now the United Kingdom at around the sametime. The Cheddar Man had even lighter skin than the woman.
These findingschallenge previous assumptions that European hunter-gatherers shared the samegenetic makeup. It also demonstrates that even that long ago, there wasconsiderable variation in skin color.
The skull indicated thewoman was between 35 and 60 years old. Her nose had a high nasal bridge,similar to Cheddar Man. And she had strong brow ridges despite being female.
The woman’s remainswere found in an archaeological dig in 1988-1989 in the Margaux cave in Dinant.The bodies of 8 other women were also found there. This was deemed unusual asmost Mesolithic burial sites contain a mixture of men, women, and children.Many of the skeletons were sprinkled with ochre, a pigment made of iron oxide,clay, and silica. Most of the bodies were carefully covered with stonefragments, but one individual had cut marks on her skull that were made afterher death.
This burial cave wasused over a period of several hundred years, which indicates that it was aplace of memory that people would go back to despite their mobile lifestyle.Such findings point to complex burial customs and raise questions about thesocial structure and cultural practices of this early community.
One archaeologist foundthe ancient woman’s skin color a bit surprising but indicated there is alimited pool of Mesolithic people to make comparisons. Apparently, all WesternEurope individuals who have had their DNA analyzed belong to the same genetic group.
When these remains werefirst recovered, there was no way to conduct research into ancient DNA. Buttechniques have been developed since then. The DNA was taken from the womanskull, which allowed a very detailed reconstruction.
The woman’s coloring isbased on DNA, while such things as jewelry and tattoos are based on data fromother excavations in the River Meuse basin. This data also helped build apicture of her daily life.
At a former campsite onthe banks of the river, scientists found stone tools, fish remains, and bonesfrom wild game, which proved these people were nomadic. They were forced tomove through the landscape because they were dependent on natural resourcessuch as plants, fish, and wild game.
There are still a lotof questions about these Mesolithic communities, which were the lasthunter-gatherers in Western Europe.
October 31, 2025
Giant Meteorite Struck Earth
Once upon a time—over 3billion years ago—a giant meteorite that was 4 times bigger than today’s MountEverest struck Earth. This meteorite was 200 times larger than the one thatwiped out the dinosaurs. But when it struck, it may have given ancientmicroscopic life forms a boost.
This impact happenedwhen Earth was very different than the planet we know today. At that time, lifeon Earth consisted only of simple bacteria and similar single-celled organisms.
It is postulated thatback then, shorelines were shelves of shallow water, which would have been alow-energy environment without strong currents. After the impact, giant tsunamiswould have swept the planet, ripping up the sea floor. The ocean’s surfaceboiled and so much dust was thrown up that it blocked out the sun.
Life, however, provedresilient. Ancient rocks from South Africa show that bacteria not onlysurvived, it thrived in the aftermath. The impact stirred up iron from theocean depths and delivered phosphorus (both from the meteorite and by increasederosion on land). This meant that certain bacteria that feed on these elementscould flourish.
The site in SouthAfrica where this evidence was found indicates there were at least 8 differentmajor meteorite impacts from Earth’s early history.
October 23, 2025
Earth’s Temporary Moon
Earth has acquired atemporary moon. It has been tagging along with us for about 60 years and willcontinue to tag along until 2083. It is a small asteroid going by the name 2025PN7.
Officially discoveredby the University of Hawaii and confirmed this past week, it is what’s known asa “quasi-moon”—a rare celestial companion that travels almost exactly in syncwith Earth. It’s not a true moon because it doesn’t orbit around the Earth.Right now, it is orbiting the sun, keeping pace with us so that it appears toshadow our planet.
2025 PN7 is estimatedto be 18 to 36 meters wide, about the height of a small building, which is tinyby cosmic standards. That may be why it took so long to notice it.
Our real moon is heldtight by gravity, but this asteroid isn’t bound to us. Think of it as afriendly jogger matching our stride on the same track—close enough to noticebut never touching.
After 2083—if itscurrent orbit holds that long—it will drift away into open space. At itsclosest approach to us, it gets within 4 million kilometers, which is roughlyten times the distance between Earth and the moon. At its most distant, it canswing out to 17 million kilometers. That changing distance is because of thecompeting gravity of the sun and various planets.
So far, astronomershave confirmed only eight quasi-moons. Each of them is a small but valuableclue in understanding how asteroids move and how Earth’s gravity shapes thespace around us. These objects are more than curiosities. They help refineorbital models, improve predictions for near-Earth asteroids, and could serveas testing grounds for future missions. After all, they’re close, relativelystable, and reachable without traveling too far from home.
2025 PN7 will neveroutshine our real moon. But it’s there and worth knowing about.
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October 16, 2025
Oldest Gun Ever Found in America
From 1540 to 1542, FranciscoVázquez de Coronado led a Spanish expedition out of Mexico to as far north asKansas in a search for the mythical Seven Cities of Gold. The golden citieswere never found but during a stop at the former settlement of San Geronimo III(in what is now Nogales AZ) the expedition left some items behind. One of thoseitems is now a major archaeological find and an indication of weapon history inthe United States.
In 2020, Researchers uncovereda bronze cannon—also known as a “wall gun”—at a Spanish stone-and-adobe structure.Radiocarbon dating and other dating techniques say the device is 480-years-old,which puts it in the same time period as Coronado’s expedition. This cannon isthe oldest firearm ever discovered within the continental United States, andperhaps is the oldest cannon known at this time on the continent.
However, it is not asmall pistol. Being 42 inches in length and weighing 40 pounds, it would havetaken two people to operate. The team also uncovered plenty of broken swordsand daggers, fishhooks, pottery, and other items, but not any bullets. And thelack of residue in the barrel indicated it was never fired.
A wall gun isconsidered a beefed-up musket. It got its name because it was often used at a building’swall or a ship’s railing. Although not what is usually visualized as a cannon,it is also referred to one because of the smoothbore barrel. This particulargun was likely built in the early 1500s in either Mexico or the Caribbean andbrought on the expedition before it was eventually abandoned, possibly becausethey ran out of ammunition for it.
These Spanish explorerswere the first Europeans to see the Grand Canyon.
Since the first gun’sdiscovery in 2020, the team has uncovered a second, very similar cannon.
October 9, 2025
7,000-Year-Old Mummies
TheSahara is a vast expanse of sand where the fight for survival can be brutal.But there was a time in the distant past when it was green and flourishing.
Backbetween 14,000 and 5,500 years ago, during the African Humid Period, the Saharahad enough water to support a way of life, rather than being one of the driestplaces on Earth. At that time, it was a savannah where early humans settled forthe favorable farming conditions. Among those people was a mysterious sub-groupwho lived in what is now southwestern Libya. Genetically, they should have beenSub-Saharan. But modern analysis shows that their genes don’t reflect that.
A teamof researchers found two 7,000-year-old naturally preserved mummies ofNeolithic female herders at the Takarkori rock shelter. Usually, geneticmaterial does not preserve well in arid conditions, but in this case, there wasenough fragmented DNA to give some insights into their past and clear up someof the mystery of human populations in the Sahara.
The Takarkori individualsdon’t share DNA with modern humans. The majority of their ancestry stems from apreviously unknown North African genetic lineage that diverged from sub-SaharanAfrican lineages about the same time as modern humans roamed outside of Africa.But the Takarkori people appear to have remained isolated throughout most of theirexistence.
These Takarkori individualswere close relatives of 15,000-year-old foragers from the Taforalt Cave inMorocco. Both the Takarkori and the Taforalt people have about the same geneticdistance from Sub-Saharan groups that existed at that time. This suggests therewas not much gene flow between Sub-Saharan and Northern Africa at the time.Also, the Taforalts have half the Neanderthal genes of non-Africans. TheTakarkori have ten times less. But, both of them still have more NeanderthalDNA than other Sub-Saharan peoples who were around at the time. Although theTarkarkori apparently had less contact with Neanderthals than their morewestern brethren, they must have had more contact than other groups in theirregion. There are also traces of evidence of the Tarkarkori mixing with farmersfrom the Levant (the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea). But otherwise, thegenes of the Takarkori reveal they were mostly isolated. Although geneticallyclose to Northwestern African foragers like the Taforalt, they were distinctfrom Sub-Saharan populations.
It appears there wasnot much genetic exchange in the Green Sahara during the African Humid Period.It was thought that farming spread through the region by migrations, but this researchsuggests another explanation. Perhaps pastoralism spread through culturaldiffusion into a deeply divergent, isolated North African lineage that was widespreadin Northern Africa during the late Pleistocene epoch. In other words, farmingspread through the exchange of practices between cultures rather than themixture of people from migrations.
The Takarkori may haveinherited their genes from a hunter-gatherer group from before animals weredomesticated and farming began. Despite being hunter-gatherers, their ancestorsmade advances in making pottery, baskets, and tools made of wood and bone. Theyalso seemed to stay in one place for longer periods of time.
Possibly the Takarkoristayed isolated because of the diversity of environments in the Green Sahara.These ranged from lakes and wetlands to woodlands, grasslands, savannas andeven mountains. Such differences were probably barriers to interactions betweenhuman groups.
Elsewhere in theSahara, there might be additional mummies or artifacts that could tell us moreabout life in the desert before it dried out.
October 2, 2025
Circling Cyclones
Since we’re currently in hurricane season, it seems a goodtime to talk about hurricanes and cyclones. These types of weather systemsdon’t often find themselves in a traffic jam in Earth’s vast oceans, but whenthey do, there are consequences.
When two storms move too close together, they start toinfluence one another’s strength and track. This tropical tango is known as theFujiwhara effect. That scenario played out this week when Hurricanes Imelda andHumberto danced together off the southeastern US coast.
After devastating the coast of North Carolina, Humbertomoved out to sea, but as it did so, it tugged Imelda to go with it.
On Tuesday (9/30), they were both Category 1 hurricanes andthey were within 467 miles of each other, which is the closest that twoAtlantic hurricanes have come to each other in at least the past 60 years. Twohurricanes churning side-by-side is more common in the Pacific Ocean but rarelyhappens in the Atlantic.
The interactions during these events can vary greatly,which can make forecasting the tracks and intensity a challenge. Imelda’s trackforecast changed dramatically after she was pulled away from the US and towardBermuda.
Both hurricanes struggled in the face of the other’s windshear, with Humberto weakening and finally dissipating Wednesday morning. Afterthat, forecasters expect Imelda to hit Bermuda on Thursday as a Category 2.
In 1921, Japanese meteorologist Sakuhei Fujiwhara publisheda paper that said two storms spinning near each other could start rotatingtogether around a common center point. He was right.
How close the storms need to be to trigger the Fujiwharaeffect is dependent on the size of each storm. If two large storms—those thatspan hundreds of miles—get within about 850 miles of each other, they start todance. The distance shrinks to 350 miles for smaller storms.
Closely matched storms will orbit around a common point butthen go their separate ways. The circling tugs each storm off the path theywould have taken. In 2017, Hilary and Irwin had this experience in the eastPacific. They were well matched. Both systems interacted for so long, theyeventually dissipated around the same time.
But if one storm is much stronger than the other, thestronger one could consume the weaker one. In the west Pacific in 2022, thepowerful typhoon Hinnamnor was headed for Taiwan before it met a tropicaldepression that was trying to grow. Hinnamnor and the depression rotated untilthe typhoon devoured the depression. Hinnamnor slowed and weakened for a bit,but when it restrengthened, it took a nearly 90-degree turn from its originaltrack.
In a rare Fujiwhara scenario, two weak storms spinningtogether could merge and create a larger storm,
All of these potential interactions and outcomes pose anincredible forecasting challenge, even for computers. Any small changes in thestrength or size of each storm, or slight deviation from the anticipated trackthrows a model’s complex calculations into chaos.
September 25, 2025
Ancient Note Pad
These days, most people do a lot of their shopping byclicking a few buttons. That might be convenient, but it can make it difficultto keep track of when your new armoire or bookshelf will actually show up. Inancient Turkey, somebody kept such details written down on a palm-sized pieceof clay.
The Accana Mound is the site of the ancient Anatolian cityof Alalah, which served as the capital of the Mukis Kingdom. The ruins foundthere date as far back as 4,000 years ago. At an excavation at the AccanaMound, researchers recently unearthed a small clay tablet inscribed withcuneiform writing. A study of the tablet has narrowed its origin to some timein the 15th century BC, during the Late Bronze Age.
Initial readings of the tablet’s Akkadian cuneiformrevealed details of a major furniture purchase, including an ample number ofwooden tables, chairs, and stools. The experts are still working through the writingand are slowly gathering information about the buyers and sellers involved.Therefore, this small tablet offers a window into the city’s economicprocesses. Alalah was located along a trade route at the time, so it would havebeen a center of commerce in addition to being a capital.
The small piece of clay measures only 4.2 centimeters by3.5 centimeters and is just 1.6 centimeters thick. It weighs 28 grams. Butdespite its small size, the tablet will help paint a much larger picture ofBronze Age Turkey.
There have been other similar discoveries in the region,including in 2023 when another cuneiform tablet was discovered that details thepurchase of an entire city and, one presumes, the furniture in it.
The area was first excavated in the late 1930s. But, afterfinding this clay list of furniture, it seems there’s still plenty of things todiscover.
And who knows? Perhaps the tablet’s details will providesome home-décor inspiration.
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