Runes found in Canadian wilderness baffle archaeologists



Extraits de cet article:

Archaeologists remain baffled by a surprising, seemingly ahistorical find located deep in the Canadian wilderness. But after years of research, analysis, and historical corroboration, an interdisciplinary team has finally made their findings available to the public. Tucked away in a forest approximately 465 miles northwest of Ottawa, a massive slab of bedrock features a hand-etched rendition of the full Lord’s Prayer. But the religious text isn’t inscribed in French or English—it’s composed of over 250 symbols from the oldest known runic alphabet.

The perplexing discovery happened completely by chance, according to the CBC. Hidden for centuries, the stone became exposed only after a tree fell near the town of Wawa, not far from Lake Superior. Closer inspection showed that someone had etched 255 runes into a roughly 4 by 5 foot section of the slab. Additionally, they took time to add a detailed illustration of a boat, an additional 16 runic signs, and 14 X markings.

Photos of the site soon wound up in front of Ryan Primrose, president of the Ontario Center for Archaeological Education, who was immediately stunned by the images.

“It’s certainly among the least expected discoveries of my career. It’s absolutely fascinating,” he told CBC.

Futhark runes

However, Primrose didn’t want anyone jumping to conclusions about the inscription. While it’s true that Vikings explored portions of present-day Canada thousands of years ago, he doubted they were responsible for the mystery message.

“We didn’t want to release anything publicly until we had done as much analysis as possible,” said Primrose.

He soon contacted Uppsala University emeritus professor of runology Henrik Williams, and helped the renowned expert arrange a visit to the site the following October.

“I was under a tarpaulin for three hours with a flashlight, looking at the runes and the others were sitting outside freezing,” recalled Williams.

The group’s patience and endurance paid off. Williams eventually determined that the message was written with Futhark alphabetic runes. First developed and used by Germanic peoples between the 2nd and 8th centuries CE, Futhark eventually evolved into a simplified version adopted by Scandinavians. Both the Anglo-Saxons and Frisiacs also expanded it into their own variants, but the knowledge of how to read its original iteration died out by the High Middle Ages (around 1000-1300 CE). It wouldn’t be until 1865 that Norwegian scholar Sophus Bugge finally succeeded in deciphering the long-lost language.

People across Europe remained fascinated with runes in the interim, however. During the early 1600s, Swedish polymath (and occultist) Johannes Bureus adopted the symbols into a system that roughly corresponded to his home country’s language. This culminated in the publication of a Swedish language Lord’s Prayer written with the Futhark runes in 1611. But don’t think the Canadian oddity’s story ended there.

A more recent inscription

“This must have been a Swede,” Primrose said of the etcher. “Were there any Swedes at all here?”

Not during  the 17th century, according to his research. That said, historical documents confirm that Hudson’s Bay Company stationed Swedish workers at trading posts across Canada beginning in the 1800s. And it just so happens that Bureus’ runic Lord’s Prayer was republished during the 19th century.

Taken altogether, Primrose and colleagues now theorize that a Hudson’s Bay Company employee—or employees—are responsible for the labor-intensive project that likely took days, if not weeks to complete.

The conservationists are now working with the local landowners on a leasehold to turn their archaeological discovery into a public heritage site that includes a protective structure to guard it against the elements.

Primrose confessed to being “a little disappointed” that the artifact is likely only a couple centuries old, but plenty of questions still surround the find. Was the site a place for religious gatherings, or the devotional effort of one person? Prior to its exposure, the bedrock also lay under multiple inches of soil. With no other artifacts found nearby, was the prayer intentionally buried?

“The mystery doesn’t fade just because it’s younger than we hoped. Why was it carved here? Why this text? There are no answers,” he said. “And mysteries always draw people in.”



Météorite de Saint-Robert (1994)

Aucune nouvelle météorite n’avait été identifiée au Canada depuis plus d’une décennie, mais cette situation allait radicalement changer le 14 juin 1994. À environ 20 h HNE, une boule de feu visible dans le ciel du Québec, de l’Ontario et des régions adjacentes des États-Unis a été suivie d’un bang sonique. Cela signalait l’explosion d’un météore et la chute subséquente de fragments de météorite au nord-est de Montréal.

Quelques minutes après l’impact, Stéphane Forcier a trouvé le premier fragment sur sa ferme familiale à Saint-Robert. Il avait remarqué que ses vaches étaient disposées en cercle et fixaient un petit trou dans le sol. Il a examiné le trou de plus près et en a retiré ce qu’il croyait être une roche de 2,3 kilogrammes. Le lendemain, le curateur de la Collection nationale de météorites de la Commission géologique du Canada, Richard Herd, a confirmé qu’il s’agissait d’une météorite pierreuse et l’a acquise pour la collection. Au cours des mois suivants, environ 25 kilogrammes de fragments de météorite ont été récupérés, le plus gros pesant 6,5 kilogrammes.

La météorite de Saint-Robert, seulement la 12e chute enregistrée au Canada depuis 1877, présentait un intérêt scientifique exceptionnel en raison du fait que les fragments ont été récupérés très rapidement après l’impact. Cela a permis à la Commission de procéder immédiatement à des mesures des isotopes de vie courte, qui peuvent révéler des renseignements sur la source et l’histoire de la météorite.


Plus d'infos ici.


Patriofelis




Patriofelis ("father of cats") is an extinct genus of carnivorous placental mammals from the extinct subfamily Oxyaeninae within the extinct family Oxyaenidae. Meaning despite being a large cat-like predator, this was not a cat at all or even a direct ancestor of felids. It lived in North America during the early-middle Eocene, 50.3-46.2 Ma. Fossils have been found in Wyoming, Colorado, and Oregon.

Patriofelis is separated into two species.The type species Patriofelis ulta is most common in the lower Bridger Formation in the Bridger Basin of southwestern Wyoming. It has also been found in the Huerfano Formation of Colorado. Patriofelis ulta was a smaller species, weighing about 30 kilograms (66 lb) and reaching around 1.2 to 1.8 metres (3.9 to 5.9 ft) long, not including the tail.

A second species, Patriofelis ferox, was originally known as Limnofelis. It was much larger than Patriofelis ulta, up to 100 kilograms (220 lb), close to the size of a large jaguar. It is most common in the Bridger Basin as well, both the lower Bridger and lower Washakie formations. Fossils of this species also occur in the Clarno Formation at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Oregon.

Patriofelis had a broad short-snouted skull, short legs with broad plantigrade feet, and a relatively long tail. The teeth were very thick relative to other oxyaenids, similar to hyenas in some regards.



Codex Eurypterida

Extraits de cette étude:

Codex Eurypterida: A Revised Taxonomy Based on Concordant Parsimony and Bayesian Phylogenetic Analyses

Abstract

Eurypterids, also known as sea scorpions, were aquatic chelicerate arthropods that were important components of Paleozoic marine and freshwater ecosystems from the Ordovician to the Permian. The group represents an excellent subject for studies into evolution due to their exceptionally preserved fossils which frequently reveal almost complete details of the exoskeleton, including the appendages, which allows for interpretation of their roles in ancient ecosystems. This contribution presents an overview of the 200-year history of eurypterid research and their occurrence in popular media before presenting an updated classification for Eurypterida based on concordant parsimony and Bayesian phylogenetic analyses of 238 morphological characters coded for 152 species. This represents the first comprehensive treatment of eurypterid systematics in 35 years and includes evaluation of every known described species of eurypterid. In the process several species names occurring in the Russian literature are shown to be invalid. The appropriate taxonomic authorities for Eurypterida, Stylonurina, and Eurypterina are revised and a revision conducted of all known species. Eighteen new taxa are proposed; the superfamily Waeringopteroidea, the families Brachyopteridae, Stylonurellidae, Strobilopteridae, Waeringopteridae, Nanahughmilleriidae, Parahughmilleriidae, Pittsfordipteridae, Ciurcopteridae, Herefordopteridae, and Hunanopteridae, and the genera Athenepterus, Waterstonopterus, Barusopterus, Cruinnopterus, Selkiepterella, and Hunanopterus. The species name Strobilopterus proteus is also formally made available for the first time. Eurypterid anatomical terminology is updated and standardized. Reviewing previous analyses of macroevolutionary and macroecological trends within eurypterids in light of the revised relationships suggested here indicates that their conclusions are still generally supported, although the history of eurypterid geographic occurrence and dispersal is more complicated than previously considered. Recent discoveries of eurypterids from the paleocontinent of Gondwana represent some of the more exciting new developments in eurypterid research and it is likely that more eurypterids will be found in these regions in the future. Ongoing research into eurypterid ontogeny and macroevolution is detailed and understudied aspects of eurypterid paleobiology, including their ichnological record, role in paleocommunities, and taphonomy are explored. Suggestions are made for inroads into these relatively neglected research programs. Common misconceptions about eurypterids are also addressed; no eurypterid is known to possess a venomous sting in its tail, and while eurypterids likely congregated to shed their exoskeletons there is no compelling evidence that they mated en masse.





 

Maya, Aztec, Inca and Lost Civilizations of South America (Ed Barnhart)




 

Rare Fossil Discovery Sheds Light on Ancient Life in New York



Extrait de l'article:

A newly published scientific paper is highlighting a remarkable discovery from the New York State Museum’s paleontology collection: a 420-million-year-old fossil from the Silurian Period, identified as Naraoia bertiensis. This incredibly rare specimen is one of only two known fossils of its kind ever found from this era, offering groundbreaking insights into the evolution and distribution of early marine life. 

Naraoia were soft-bodied arthropods that once roamed the sea floor. During the Silurian Period, the region we now call New York was located south of the equator and submerged under a shallow tropical sea—ideal conditions for ancient marine ecosystems. However, due to their delicate, flexible exoskeletons, Naraoia fossils could only form under exceptional conditions, making discoveries like this exceedingly uncommon. 

The fossil was found on private property near Herkimer, New York, though the exact date of its discovery is unknown. Its presence in the Museum’s collection has now provided scientists with critical new data on the species’ geographic range and survival into the Silurian, long after its peak in the Cambrian Period. 

The study, titled Novel evidence for the youngest Naraoia and a reassessment of naraoiid paleobiogeography, was co-authored by Dr. Lisa Amati, New York State Paleontologist, along with researchers from the American Museum of Natural History and the Czech Republic. Their work highlights how even a single fossil can offer key insights into the history of life on Earth. 

This discovery also underscores the importance of museum collections in supporting cutting-edge research. Behind the scenes, Museum scientists continue to reveal hidden stories from New York’s deep past—stories that help us better understand the ancient world and the ever-evolving history of life on our planet.


 

The Ancient Egyptian Creation Of The World (Peter Pringle)




 

Scientists Are Pretty Close to Replicating the First Thing That Ever Lived



Extraits de l'article:

Where did we all come from? It’s a question that has lit fires of curiosity in philosophers, theologians, and more recently (at least, historically speaking) scientists for millennia. While the the older guard of high thought used stories or metaphors to derive life’s origin story, scientists instead learn about the inner workings of life’s smallest building blocks in an attempt to understand how they first formed life billions of years ago.

This long scientific exploration has led most evolutionary biologists to the conclusion that, for at least 400 million years, Earth was an “RNA World.” The hypothesis suggests that life first took form due to self-replicating RNA, before the evolutionary arrival of DNA or even proteins.

But there’s a couple problems.

First, there’s no trace of this “first replicator” in known biology. And second, scientists have failed to convincingly replicate RNA in an environment similar to early Earth. While scientists are very much still on the hunt for evidence that validates the first of these two issues, a team from University College of London (UCL) is closing in on solving the second problem.

Published in the journal Nature Chemistry, a team of UCL scientists (along with experts from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge) used three-letter “triplet” RNA building blocks subjected to acid and heat in water. This separated the RNA double-helix—the structure that makes replication so difficult—and scientists froze the solution.

What occurred next is possibly an intimate glimpse of how life first formed on Earth—between the liquid gaps of the ice crystals, these building blocks coated the RNA strands and prevented them from zipping back together. After the scientists thawed the solution and and made adjustments to pH and temperature, the RNA replicated again and again. Eventually, the strand was so long that these structures could perform biological functions.

“The triplet or three-letter building blocks of RNA we used, called trinucleotides, do not occur in biology today, but they allow for much easier replication. The earliest forms of life are likely to have been quite different from any life that we know about,” James Attwater, lead author of the study from UCL, said in a press statement. “The changing conditions we engineered can occur naturally, for instance with night and day cycles of temperature, or in geothermal environments where hot rocks meet a cold atmosphere.”

UCL has long been involved in constructing the play-by-play of life’s origins on Earth. In 2017, for example, a study analyzed the chemistry that provided Earth with the very nucleotides necessary to construct the first RNA structures. This new study now attempts to understand, in a lab setting, how those ancient RNA first began replication, a process that’s essential to understanding the foundation of life.

“Life is separated from pure chemistry by information, a molecular memory encoded in the genetic material that is transmitted from one generation to the next,” Philipp Holliger, the senior author of the study from MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, said in a press statement. “For this process to occur, the information must be copied, i.e. replicated, to be passed on.”

Currently, the researchers have only been able to replicate roughly 17 percent of the RNA strand (roughly 30 out of 180 letters), but the team says there’s no reason they won’t achieve complete replication with improved enzyme efficiency. The researchers also note that this reaction can’t occur in saltwater (the salt disrupts the freezing process), but geothermal freshwater lakes or ponds would be the perfect chemical setting for RNA replication to take hold.

Although many questions remain, Earth’s ancient RNA World could have actually had the capacity for self-replication. It’s an intriguing step forward, but the scientific journey continues.



Giant ground sloths evolved three different times for the same reason



Extraits de l'article:

A cooling, drying climate turned sloths into giants – before humans potentially drove the huge animals to extinction.

Today’s sloths are small, famously sluggish herbivores that move through the tropical canopies of rainforests. But for tens of millions of years, South America was home to a dizzying diversity of sloths. Many were ground-dwelling giants, with some behemoths approaching 5 tonnes in weight.

That staggering size range is of particular interest to Alberto Boscaini at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina and his colleagues.

“Body size correlates with everything in the biological traits of an animal,” says Boscaini. “This was a promising way of studying [sloth] evolution.”

Boscaini and his colleagues compiled data on the physical features, DNA and proteins of 67 extinct and living sloth genera – groups of closely related species – to develop a family tree showing their evolutionary relationships.

The researchers then took this evolutionary history, which covered a span of 35 million years, and added information about each sloth’s habitat, diet and lifestyle. They also studied trends in body-size evolution, making body mass estimates of 49 of the ancient and modern sloth groups.

The results suggest sloth body-size evolution was heavily influenced by climatic and habitat changes. For instance, some sloth genera began living in trees – similar to today’s sloths – and shrank in body size as they did so.

Meanwhile, three different lineages of sloths independently evolved elephantine proportions – and it seems they did this within the last several million years, as the planet cooled and the growth of the Andes mountains made South America more arid.

“Gigantism is more closely associated with cold and dry climates,” says team member Daniel Casali at the University of São Paulo, Brazil.

Many of these diverse sloths disappeared during two stages: one around 12,000 years ago and the other around 6000 years ago, says Boscaini.

“This matches with the expansion of Homo sapiens, first over the entire American supercontinent, and later in the Caribbean,” he says — which is where some giant sloths lived. Notably, the only surviving sloth species live in trees so are much harder for humans to hunt than massive ground sloths.

The idea that humans were the death blow for ancient megafauna is well-supported, says Thaís Rabito Pansani at the University of New Mexico, who wasn’t involved in the study.

“However, in science, we need several lines of evidence to reinforce our hypotheses, especially in unresolved and highly debated issues such as the extinction of megafauna,” she says. The new evidence shores up this story.

“Sloths were thriving for most of their history,” says Casali. “[The findings] teach us how a very successful [group] can become so vulnerable very quickly.”




How the Black Death Saved the English Language (LetThemTalkTV)




 

Le site Cliche-Rancourt en vedette à Télé-Québec (L'Écho de Frontenac)



Extrait de l'article:

Le site archéologique Cliche-Rancourt sera en vedette le 16 mai à Télé-Québec, dans le cadre de l’émission La préhistoire du Québec animée par Patrick Couture. «De tous les endroits visités, celui-là a été un de mes préférés. Je me sentais dans une cathédrale, c’était presque une expérience spirituelle d’être là, d’imaginer ces premiers humains qui mettent le pied en sol québécois et de marcher au même endroit où ils se trouvaient», relate l’enseignant et auteur de plusieurs ouvrages sur la préhistoire.

Intitulé Les premiers Québecois, ce segment qui sera présenté à 19h met notamment en vedette l’archéologue renommé et professeur émérite Claude Chapdelaine, en plus d’offrir une visite du site qui accueillait ses premiers humains voilà plus de 12 000 ans. L’émotion vécue par l’animateur en présence d’objets ayant servi à cette époque lointaine est palpable à l’écran.

Auteur du livre La préhistoire du Québec, l’enseignant au primaire et papa a consacré durant plusieurs années une partie de son temps libre à une vaste recherche après avoir constaté qu’aucun ouvrage traitant exclusivement de la préhistoire du Québec n’était disponible. C’est après la publication de son livre que l’offre du documentaire télé lui a été proposé. «C’est extraordinaire parce cette opportunité m’a donné la possibilité de sortir des livres et des sites web pour me rendre sur les lieux que je ne connaissais que par mes études.»

L’authenticité et la passion évidente de Patrick Couture pour l’archéologie risquent fort de semer la contagion chez les télespectateurs. «Un de mes objectifs est d’alimenter un certain émerveillement pour notre territoire, notre Québec. Souvent, on a tendance à pendre pour acquis l’endroit où on vit, où on a grandi, et on ne voit plus les merveilles qu’il recèle. Il s’est passé tellement de choses à travers les milliards d’années qui sont renversantes! Quand on réalise ça, on ne regarde plus les paysages de la même façon.»

Tous les segments de l’émission La préhistoire du Québec sont accessibles en ligne via l’appli de Télé-Québec et ici.
 



Mathieu Tremblay (Le naturaliste du Lac)















La dent du géant : un trésor paléontologique québécois

En 1978, sur les rives du lac Saint-Jean, un jeune garçon du nom de Christian Hudon fit une découverte extraordinaire dans l’eau peu profonde à proximité de Chambord : une imposante molaire fossilisée, mystérieusement bien conservée. Cette dent allait rapidement soulever l’intérêt du milieu scientifique québécois, devenant au fil du temps une pièce maîtresse du patrimoine paléontologique de la province.

Une découverte qui défie les attentes

L’identification fut confirmée par plusieurs experts de l’époque, dont la professeure d’anthropologie Eve Tremblay du Collège d’Alma. Il s’agissait d’une molaire de mastodonte — un Proboscidien apparenté aux éléphants actuels, mais qui s’est éteint à la fin du Pléistocène. C’est potentiellement la seule preuve concrète de la présence de mégafaune terrestre glaciaire de ce type au Québec, ce qui soulève beaucoup de questions pour une région où les conditions de fossilisation sont rarement favorables à la conservation d’ossements aussi anciens.

Est-ce que la molaire aurait pu être préservée aussi bien naturellement, ou bien aurait-elle pu être entretenue par l’Homme?

La dent la plus vieille du Québec

En 2003, le paléontologue renommé Dick Harington, alors conservateur émérite du Musée canadien de la nature, confirma que l’échantillon prélevé sur la racine de cette dent avait plus de 49 980 ans — une datation au-delà des limites de la méthode par radiocarbone. Cela en fait le plus ancien fossile vertébré daté scientifiquement jamais trouvé au Québec. Harington soupçonne même qu’elle pourrait remonter à l’interglaciaire Sangamonien, soit environ 100 000 ans avant notre ère, une époque chaude précédant le dernier maximum glaciaire.

Un mastodonte au Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean?

La découverte soulève de nombreuses hypothèses sur l’occupation du territoire québécois par la mégafaune. Alors que la majorité des restes de mastodontes au Canada proviennent de l’Ontario, du Nouveau-Brunswick ou de la Nouvelle-Écosse, la dent de Chambord démontre que ces animaux ont aussi parcouru les terres du Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean avant les grandes glaciations. Cela renverse les anciennes conceptions selon lesquelles cette région aurait été totalement inhabitée par la faune terrestre avant la dernière déglaciation.

Une dent, des décennies plus tard

Conservée depuis au Musée ilnu de Mashteuiatsh, la dent a été remise en lumière en 2025 grâce aux efforts du naturaliste Mathieu Tremblay, de son acolyte Joël Privé, et du chercheur postdoctoral Alexandre Demers-Potvin de l’Université McGill. Ensemble, ils ont présenté ce spécimen à la conférence annuelle de la Société canadienne de paléontologie des vertébrés, tenue à Montréal du 5 au 7 mai 2025. Cet événement fut l’occasion de replacer la dent de Chambord dans le discours paléontologique contemporain, en soulignant sa rareté et sa valeur scientifique.
Technologie et transmission

À cette occasion, la dent a été scannée à l’aide d’un scanneur de surface 3D de haute précision, utilisant de la lumière blanche pour générer une image tridimensionnelle fidèle de la pièce. Grâce à ces efforts, coordonnés notamment par Louis-Philippe Bateman et l’équipe du laboratoire de recherche de McGill, la dent pourra être reproduite en impression 3D. Des copies seront remises à quelques personnes, permettant au grand public d’admirer cette découverte sans manipuler l’original. Ces technologies offrent aussi de nouvelles avenues d’étude et de conservation.

Vers de nouveaux horizons 

Des discussions sont actuellement en cours pour envisager l’utilisation des technologies modernes de datation sur la molaire. Ces nouvelles méthodes pourraient permettre de confirmer des hypothèses formulées il y a plusieurs décennies, mais qui restaient impossibles à vérifier à l’époque en raison des limitations technologiques. En appliquant ces techniques avancées, les chercheurs espèrent fournir une nouvelle lumière sur l’âge précis de la dent et son contexte paléontologique, ouvrant ainsi la porte  à une meilleure compréhension de la présence et de la chronologie de la mégafaune au Québec. Cette nouvelle étape pourrait marquer un tournant dans l’étude paléontologique de la région.

Christian Hudon était-il vraiment le premier découvreur ?

Bien que Christian Hudon ait eu la chance de faire cette découverte fortuite à un très jeune âge cela ne permet d’affirmer avec certitude que le mastodonte ait vécu sur le territoire Québécois.   

 En effet, une dent de requin des Caraïbes a été retrouvée sur un site archéologique dans la région, ce qui prouve qu’il y avait échanges sur de grandes distances? Cette hypothèse ouvre de nouvelles perspectives sur les réseaux d’échange et les interactions entre les peuples préhistoriques.

La dent de mastodonte aurait-elle pu être un objet sacré transporté depuis le Sud par des peuples autochtones?

Mise en valeur et diffusion

La dent sera exposée à la bibliothèque municipale d’Alma pendant toute l’année 2025, afin que le public puisse venir l’admirer de près et en apprendre davantage sur ce témoin du passé glaciaire du Québec. De plus, avec la permission du Musée ilnu de Mashteuiatsh, ce précieux fossile pourra être exceptionnellement présenté lors de certains événements scientifiques, culturels ou éducatifs à travers la province, dans un souci de partage et de sensibilisation à notre patrimoine naturel.

Remerciements

Nous tenons à remercier chaleureusement tous les collaborateurs ayant contribué à la valorisation de ce fossile exceptionnel : Alexandre Demers-Potvin, Hans Larsson, Louis-Philippe Bateman, Hélèna Delauniere, Patrick Couture,Francois Privé, Jean-Marc Ethier, Mario Cournoyer, Audrey-anne Boivin, Elise Prescott, Christian Hudon,Julie Hudon, Gilles Tremblay, le département de biologie de l’Université McGill, le Musée ilnu de Mashteuiatsh, le Musée canadien de la nature, la bibliothèque municipale d’Alma, vitrerie Boily, industries soudex ainsi que tous les passionnés de paléontologie qui permettent à notre patrimoine de continuer de rayonner.

Trouvé ici.


Le pin de Wollemi



The Wollemi pine, also known as the "dinosaur tree," was rediscovered in Australia in the 1990s after being thought extinct for millions of years.

This ancient conifer, a living fossil, is one of the world's oldest trees, with only 46 adults and 43 juveniles remaining in the wild.

Facing threats from wildfires and climate change, conservationists have bred genetically diverse Wollemi pines to ensure their survival. The first bred Wollemi pines have been distributed to botanical gardens worldwide, and one in England recently bore fruit, offering hope for the next generation.

Plus d'infos ici.


Petit traité de paléontologie urbaine (Robert Ledoux)




Trouvé ici.