Ginika Ramsawak

MSc Archaeology | Wits University 🇿🇦
she/her
Cradle of Humankind

[Heidi Giokos @HeidiGiokos]

BREAKING: SABC understands that a high profile Police general has been has been arrested.
The chargers on which he has been arrested for are still unclear at this stage.
@SABCNews

[Palaeontological Society of Southern Africa @PalPSSA]

Still thinking about applying? 👀
Whether you're working with schools, communities, or new audiences, this is your chance to turn ideas into impact 🦴🌍
Full details at the grant link in our Bio. Don’t wait - start your application today.
#PSSA #ScienceOutreach #Palaeoscience

[Archaeo - Histories @archeohistories]

A small human image, skillfully formed in clay, was found in 1889 at Nampa, Idaho 🇺🇸. The figurine was found at over 300-foot level of a well boring which would appear to place its age far before the expected arrival of man in this part of the world.

Other than Homo sapiens, no hominid is known to have fashioned works of art like the Nampa figurine. The evidence therefore suggests that humans of the modern type were living in America around 2 million years ago, at the Plio-Pleistocene boundary.

In 1887 James A. Pinney, Nathan Falk, Joseph Perrault, John Bernard, and M. A. Kurtz formed a company to locate artesian water at the new frontier town of Nampa, Idaho.

By July of 1889, one of the owners of the drilling company, Mark A. Kurtz, was checking the material brought up by a sand pump from a layer of clay over 300 feet down in the well boring. A strange object came into his hands. On washing it, he found it was a small human figurine.

Kurtz later showed the figurine to Charles F. Adams, president of the Union Pacific Railroad, who happened to be passing through Idaho. Adams, who had recently read a book by G. F. Wright, wrote to Wright about the discovery.

Wright, from the East Coast of the United States, wrote to Kurtz, requesting a photograph of the arti­fact. Kurtz replied that there was no way for him to make a photograph, so he sent Wright the figurine. Wright noted: “The object is about an inch and a half long, and remarkable for the perfection with which it repre­sents the human form.”

He added, “It was a female figure, and had the lifelike lineaments in the parts which were finished that would do credit to the classic centers of art.” Wright also examined the borehole to see if the figurine could have slipped down from a higher level. He stated: “To answer objections it will be well to give the facts more fully.

“The well was six inches in diameter and was tubed with heavy iron tubing, which was driven down, from the top, and screwed together, section by section, as progress was made. Thus it was impossible for anything to work in from the sides. The drill was not used after penetrating the lava deposit near the surface, but the tube was driven down, and the included material brought out from time to time by use of a sand pump.”

The object was not of recent manufacture. It was deeply colored with the iron oxides characteristic of the de­posits from the 300-foot level. Wright showed the object to archaeologist F. W. Putnam of Harvard University. “Upon showing the object to Professor F. W. Putnam,” wrote Wright, “he at once directed attention to the character of the incrustations of iron upon the surface as indicative of a relic of considerable antiquity.

“There were patches of anhydrous red oxide of iron in protected places upon it, such as could not have been formed upon any fraudulent object. In visiting the locality in 1890, while on the ground, to compare the discoloration of the oxide upon the image with that upon the clay balls still found among the debris which has come from the well, and ascertained it to be as nearly identical as it is possible to be.

“These confirmatory evidences, in connection with the very satisfactory character of the evidence furnished by the parties who made the discovery, and confirmed by Mr. G. M. Cumming, of Boston (at that time superintendent of that division of the Oregon Short Line Railroad, and who knew all the parties, and was upon the ground a day or two after the discovery) placed the genuineness of the discovery beyond reasonable doubt.

“To this evidence is to be added, also, the general conformity of the object to other relics of man which have been found beneath the lava deposits on the Pacific coast. The Nampa image is also similar to the famous Willendorf Venus, thought to be about 30,000 years old.”

© anomalien

#archaeohistories

[аlina🥂 @mercedarri]

it’s race week!

[Lee R Berger @LeeRberger]

I am proud to know you and been part of experiencing a small part of your journey. Welcome to the yellow border, welcome to the family and sharing many great explorations, discoveries, scientific endeavours and moments of fun long into the future. Well done! Never Stop Exploring https://t.co/JRoB7fArm6

[Ginika Ramsawak @Ginika_R]

@LeeRberger @WitsUniversity Grateful to be a part of the sediba story!

[Lee R Berger @LeeRberger]

@Ginika_R Ginika Ramsawak is a South African PhD student registered @WitsUniversity you are going to hear a lot about in the near future. While her day job is working as a field site coordinator for our teams at sites like #Malapa, she is also pivotal to the new reconstruction of the MH-1 Holotype skeleton of #Australopithecus #sediba. Her dissertation will focus on reinterpreting the form and function of the skeleton based around the results of research on the new remains by herself and a large collaborating team of regional and international experts.

We will learn from this work which original hypotheses we have to restate, and what predictions about sediba we have to re-evaluate. The new work will be based on the study of dozens of actual #fossils. It will be a brand-new look at the Type specimen of a species that is based on significant numbers of additional remains discovered since the original descriptions, all assigned to MH-1, not just conjecture. This is a rare opportunity indeed, perhaps unique in the history of #paleoanthropology at this scale, so watch this space!

[The Nobel Prize @NobelPrize]

The first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize, the first individual to be awarded two Nobel Prizes and still today the only individual with two Nobel Prizes in two different scientific categories: Marie Skłodowska Curie.

Skłodowska Curie developed the term radioactivity, discovered the chemical elements polonium and radium and contributed to develop new cancer treatments. For her scientific dedication and remarkable breakthroughs, she was awarded the 1903 physics prize and the 1911 chemistry prize.

Learn more: https://t.co/leyjSAzeD8

#InternationalWomensDay

[brakeboosted @brakeboosted]

Our first in depth look at the #SF25 ahead of its shakedown test at Fiorano. 👀

Pretty much everything has been revised. Lots of interesting details, all will be posted in this thread.

Hopefully compression is on our side this time, please ignore spelling errors.

[Formula Data Analysis @FDataAnalysis]

💡Ferrari boldy developed an almost WCC-winning car for the last year of regulations:

-Front suspension: switch to Pull-Rod, different wishbone attachments
-Sidepods: larger undercut, complex design
-Shrunk engine cover, sharkfin almost removed, new central outlets
-Completely new rear wing: different V-shape and tips

And these are only the most evident changes!
Will this big bet pay off?👀
@ScuderiaFerrari @Charles_Leclerc @LewisHamilton @F1

[Jens Svenning @JCSvenning]

The evidence for Homo sapiens playing the dominant role in the global #megafauna #extinctions constitutes one of the clearest, well-supported patterns in #ecology -see our 2024 review https://t.co/eruXrjtIVx🦣🏹🐘🥩🐎🌿#mammals #paleobiology #archeology #ecosystem #defaunation

[Chris Stringer @ChrisStringer65]

Why did Neanderthals and humans bury their dead? Scientists have a new theory. https://t.co/3leWIvRY4K

[John Hawks @johnhawks]

A provocative commentary on the diversity of hominin fossils of eastern Eurasia, attributing material now called Denisovans to Homo juluensis.

https://t.co/IryhDfDDKC

[Bones💀 @Keneiloe]

I’ve been gone for a while, but now…I’m coming back! Thank you Annlin Matabane for the article shoutout and @kevinleosmith for adopting this paddawan. Literally back in the flames, but with a little more energy reserves this time.

[Physics In History @PhysInHistory]

20 Fundamental Equations in Classical Mechanics ✍️

[Epic Maps 🗺️ @theepicmap]

A breathtaking visaluisation of Africa’s rivers!

[Archaeo - Histories @archeohistories]

For millennia, Yucatán Peninsula in southeastern Mexico has been home to Maya, indigenous people whose magnificent civilization thrived centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards.

Cancún, the center point of what we know as Riviera Maya, is main tourism draw. But interior of peninsula offers plentiful opportunities to go deeper, and experience vibrant life, ancient and modern of Maya, who still live in Yucatán, speak language of their ancestors and maintain many of old ways. Mayan culture is known for its great contributions, for its comprehensive worldview of life. But beyond that, deep knowledge about man’s spirituality with cosmos cannot be ignored through great variety of rituals and sacred ceremonies that took place in cenotes, pyramids or in middle of jungle.

The present-day Mayan peoples can be divided on linguistic and geographic grounds into following groups: Yucatec Maya, inhabiting Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula and extending into northern Belize and northeastern Guatemala; Lacandón, very few in number, occupying a territory in southern Mexico between Usumacinta River and Guatemalan border, with small numbers in Guatemala and Belize; K’ichean-speaking peoples of eastern and central highlands of Guatemala; Mamean peoples of western Guatemalan highlands; Q’anjobalan peoples of Huehuetenango and adjacent partof Mexico, Tzotzil and Tzeltal peoples of Chiapas in southern Mexico; Cholan peoples, including Chontal and Chol speakers in northern Chiapas and Tabasco and linguistically related Chortí of extreme eastern part of Guatemala and Huastec of northern Veracruz and adjoining San Luís Potosí in east-central Mexico. The chief division in Mayan cultural types is between highland and lowland cultures. Yucatec, Lacandón, and Chontal-Chol are lowland groups. Huastec, a linguistically and geographically separated group living in Veracruz and San Luis Potosí, who never were Mayan culturally and other Mayan peoples live in highlands across Guatemala.

Mayan symbols are a rich source of material culture for Central American civilization and are among the most important archeological finds that have helped piece together their economics, farming methods, politics and social practices. Symbols carry the heart of every culture and every culture’s symbols represent its inner reality to people of that culture. Symbols can be anything, a gesture, a song, a phrase or an image. They often carry many layers of meaning that everyone in culture understands intuitively. Hundreds of Mayan symbols can be found carved on stone, which allows archeologists and other researchers to gain an understanding of their culture. In fact, Mayan writing consists of symbols called glyphs. Of hundreds of Mayan symbols, some appear more often on the carved stelae and temple walls in Mayan cities, revealing their importance to the culture. Glyphs of animals were powerful symbols to Mayans, especially the jaguar and the eagle. The following shortlist describes a few important Mayan symbols.

#archaeohistories

[Vintage Maps @vintagemapstore]

Map of 14th century European powers.

[Cyril Ramaphosa 🇿🇦 @CyrilRamaphosa]

Congratulations, Dricus Du Plessis, on retaining your UFC middleweight world championship with a submission in #UFC305.

As a bonus, you kept our Flag flying hours after the Springboks scored an historic a 2-0 series win in Perth as well. We couldn’t wish for a better day in the office.

[Historic Vids @historyinmemes]

Watching Ayrton Senna lap Monaco is like watching Da Vinci paint the Mona Lisa.