The Norte Chico civilization was a complex
Pre-Columbian society that included as many as 30 major population centers in what is now the
Norte Chico region of north-central coastal
Peru. It is the oldest known civilization in the Americas and one of the
six sites where civilization separately originated in the ancient world. It flourished between the 30th century BC and the 18th century BC. Complex society in Norte Chico arose a millennium after
Sumer in
Mesopotamia, was contemporaneous with the
Egyptian pyramids, and predated the
MesoamericanOlmec by nearly two millennia. In
archaeological nomenclature, Norte Chico is a Preceramic culture of the pre-Columbian
Late Archaic; it completely lacked
ceramics and apparently had almost no art. The most impressive achievement of the civilization was its monumental architecture, including large
earthworkplatform mounds and sunken circular
plazas. Sophisticated government is assumed to have been required to manage the ancient Norte Chico. Archaeologists have been aware of ancient sites in the area since at least the 1940s; early work occurred at
Aspero on the coast, a site identified as early as 1905, and later at Caral further inland. (
more...)
... that Mexican-American singer-songwriter
Selena was murdered by
an employee who (falsely) claimed she was raped and needed the singer's help?
... that one of the first European books to contain Chinese characters was written by an officer of the Spanish Inquisition, and translated into English by an
escaped former prisoner of the Inquisition?
1983 – Pioneer 10(artist's depiction pictured) became the first man-made object to leave the central
Solar System, when it passed
Neptune, the furthest planet from the
Sun at the time.
1997 – In one of the worst fire tragedies in recent
Indian history, 59 people died and 103 others were seriously injured during a premiere screening of the film Border at the Uphaar Cinema in
Green Park,
South Delhi.
Common signs and symptoms of diving disorders can be observed either during a dive, on surfacing, or up to several hours after.
Diving disorders are caused by breathing gas at the high pressures encountered at depth: when diving, the gas breathed must be at the same pressure as the ambient pressure, which can be much greater than on the surface, increasing by one standard atmosphere (100 kPa) for every 10 metres (33 ft) of depth. The principal conditions encountered are decompression illness (which covers
decompression sickness and
arterial gas embolism);
nitrogen narcosis;
high-pressure nervous syndrome;
oxygen toxicity; and
pulmonary barotrauma (burst lung). Although some of these may occur in other settings, they are of particular concern for divers. (more...)
A long-exposureseascape photograph of rocks at
Clifton Beach,
Tasmania. In
photography, exposure is the total amount of
light allowed to fall on the photographic medium (
film or
sensor): the longer the
shutter speed, the more light is let in. This can be done for technical reasons, such as in low-light conditions, or to create an artistic effect as shown here, when the
ocean waves appear to be
fog.
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