I'm not so sure its a very good idea to desecrate a burial site such as this one in particular...mark my words,no good will come to those who have done such...

when shashawomen were bold and they lay her down with her feather of eagle gold. I wonder why the oldest burial site was found in Israel? You would imagine they could have found it in some other place not associated with rational religion so totally. but then all those biblical sites were build over irrational ones.

Yeah its better to leave those irrational people with their leopard pelvis alone.Maybe we will see more sightings of Elvis.El vis a vis El.

Natufian...translates..."not foo fooin you around people"

oh, and just goes to show that slow movin creatures with the meaning of the universe on their hard shell backs, are

comin back!

I don't understand how people can jump to conclusions except as it answers to our tendancy to want some 'title' or easy kind of 'pigeon-holing' of things strange.

Alternative: this woman might have been deemed 'strange' and the artifacts found with her were put in as 'talismans' of protection against her ever rising again. A former powerful individual who served the community 'more', maybe, they took a part of him to countervene her 'malevolent' influences.

Maybe.

Maybe she like certain foods, including some big man's foot meat, and 'wing-tips' as BBQ'd or whatever.

Why such large extrapolations as to what the site means?

Why is 'magic' always being interjected into such artifacts?

What if the 'burial' process represents some lazy men or women who didn't get on the job quickly enough and people might have deemed it a 'garbage pit'?

And so, after people tossed their 'leavings' from dinner last night, these lazy 'burial' guys finally finished their assigned tasks?

See what I mean? These 'experts' are no 'Sherlock Holmes'. They have a 'title' to preserve, and they are expected to 'speculate' intelligently. And even when they speculate reclessly, their idiotic conclusions are re-writ by even less intelligent news-copy title-writers and this goes on further and further into yet greater and greater idiotic speculation or conclusion or conclusions.

Why is it so hard to simply say: I don't know what the hell this might mean?

I don't know. But the injection of 'shaman' into this finding seems, to me, to be an appeal to popularity of that term rather more than anything else. Don't think that 'scientists' aren't subject to popular subjects. Maybe this in and of itself is just an appeal or effort of one to have some 'name and fame' right away.

And why would that be any potential? Because of a need for money to continue perhaps deeper enquiry.

That is pathetic, but not necessarily unwise for an academician. Getting money is never easy. So we have to take all 'titleization' of 'findings' with a grain of salt.

It doesn't mean that the primary researcher is a 'fraud'. But if your research can only get funding by appealing to popular demand and thus politically wedge those who have power to give or withhold, a saavy researcher might access such low methods rather than --- holding to principle and self-honesty --- allow their work to wither and die.

Sad. One might wonder how much truth has fallen by the way-side because their primal investigators abhored such prostitution or 'cleverness'?

======================
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance -- that principle is contempt prior to investigation."

Researchers say they have located the world's oldest stash of marijuana, in a tomb in a remote part of China.

The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly "cultivated for psychoactive purposes," rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany.

The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China.

The extremely dry conditions and alkaline soil acted as preservatives, allowing a team of scientists to carefully analyze the stash, which still looked green though it had lost its distinctive odour.

"To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent," says the newly published paper, whose lead author was American neurologist Dr. Ethan B. Russo.

Remnants of cannabis have been found in ancient Egypt and other sites, and the substance has been referred to by authors such as the Greek historian Herodotus. But the tomb stash is the oldest so far that could be thoroughly tested for its properties.

The 18 researchers, most of them based in China, subjected the cannabis to a battery of tests, including carbon dating and genetic analysis. Scientists also tried to germinate 100 of the seeds found in the cache, without success.

The marijuana was found to have a relatively high content of THC, the main active ingredient in cannabis, but the sample was too old to determine a precise percentage.

 Researchers also could not determine whether the cannabis was smoked or ingested, as there were no pipes or other clues in the tomb of the shaman, who was about 45 years old.

The large cache was contained in a leather basket and in a wooden bowl, and was likely meant to be used by the shaman in the afterlife.

 "This materially is unequivocally cannabis, and no material has previously had this degree of analysis possible," Russo said in an interview from Missoula, Mont.

"It was common practice in burials to provide materials needed for the afterlife. No hemp or seeds were provided for fabric or food. Rather, cannabis as medicine or for visionary purposes was supplied."

The tomb also contained bridles, archery equipment and a harp, confirming the man's high social standing.

Russo is a full-time consultant with GW Pharmaceuticals, which makes Sativex, a cannabis-based medicine approved in Canada for pain linked to multiple sclerosis and cancer.

The company operates a cannabis-testing laboratory at a secret location in southern England to monitor crop quality for producing Sativex, and allowed Russo use of the facility for tests on 11 grams of the tomb cannabis.

 Researchers needed about 10 months to cut red tape barring the transfer of the cannabis to England from China, Russo said.

The inter-disciplinary study was published this week by the British-based botany journal, which uses independent reviewers to ensure the accuracy and objectivity of all submitted papers.

The substance has been found in two of the 500 Gushi tombs excavated so far in northwestern China, indicating that cannabis was either restricted for use by a few individuals or was administered as a medicine to others through shamans, Russo said.

"It certainly does indicate that cannabis has been used by man for a variety of purposes for thousands of years."

Russo, who had a neurology practice for 20 years, has previously published studies examining the history of cannabis.

"I hope we can avoid some of the political liabilities of the issue," he said, referring to his latest paper.

The region of China where the tomb is located, Xinjiang, is considered an original source of many cannabis strains worldwide.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gel13YFq2Bd...

sitting on nearly 2 pounds of weed even after your dead, now that should be a crime...maybe the other Gushi were just kind enough to leave instructions to bust it up in the event of their death?

That is one amazing story and absolutely interesting. Before and today are kinda similar when it comes on business deals which makes Gold inevitable element. gold buyer