Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 28 October 2005:
Vol. 310. no. 5748, p. 616
DOI: 10.1126/science.310.5748.616a
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Random Samples

Figure 1 This wooden female figure was carved by people in Papua New Guinea around the 16th century. Carbon-14 dating has revealed the vintages of this and other New Guinea carvings, surprising scientists who assumed that no wooden objects could survive that long in the tropical climate.

The sculptures are part of a large collection donated by New York entrepreneur John Friede to the de Young Museum in San Francisco, California. When Friede asked scientists to date 145 artifacts--most collected around the turn of the last century--"nobody expected these things to be older than a few generations," says Gregory W. L. Hodgins, an archaeologist and biochemist at the University of Arizona, Tucson. But dating at the National Science Foundation-Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometer Lab revealed 33 to have been created before 1670, and a mask was dated back to the 7th century C.E.

The Neolithic revolution--when farming took hold, enabling society to diversify--did not occur in New Guinea until the 16th century, says Hodgins. "That is such a huge event.… To have artifacts from before that is breathtaking."

CREDIT: THE FRIEDE COLLECTION




To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)