In the cave Areni-1 overlooking southeastern Armenia's Arpa River, just across the border from Iran, scientists have uncovered what may be the oldest preserved human brain (right photo) from an ancient society. The cave also offers surprising new insights into the origins of modern civilizations, such as evidence of a winemaking enterprise and an array of culturally diverse pottery. The skull (left photo) was found during an excavation, with several other skulls of 13-14-year-old girls were found there too. ...HISTORY ALTERNING NEWS.... LOCATION MAP SHOWING ARMENIA .....ARMENIAN-AMERICAN-IRISH ARCHEOLOGICAL EXPEDITION FINDS A CAVE IN ARMENIA (EUROPE) (in the Vayotz Dzor region of Armenia, near the settlement of Areni which is known for its wine industry)  WITH HUMAN USE ARTICFACTS 6000 YEARS OLD AND HUMAN SKULL EVEN OLDER.....  Discoveries within the cave move early bronze-age cultural activity in Armenia back by about 800 years. ....ARMENIAN (EUROPE) CAVE MAY BE  THE LINK BETWEEN CURRENT HUMANITY WITH THE MANKIND OF mHaaBHaart WAR ERA IN CIRCA 3100 BC.... .....The 18-day mHaaBHaart War killed 1.7 billion peoples of various nations fighting for either kaurvo or paaNdvo... ....the linchpin of this war was SHRii kRUSH`AN who was the ordained 8th avtaar of SHRii viSH`ANu for rescuing DHARm which was faltering just prior to the start of current vEDik era called kli-yug.... ....mHaaBHaart war also gave humanity the reminder of the teachings of aD`DH`yaatmik (spiritual) knowledge through 700 slok of BHgvat giitaa which is the teachings imparted to aARjun by SHRii kRUSH`AN  as to why aARjun had to fight and win in the mHaaBHaart war to preserve humanity operating on DHARm - meaning kill all those who were choosing lifestyle of not upholding DHARm in their daily lives.... and also die for empowering the rest of humanity to ability to choose to uphold DHARm in their daily lifestyle choices....   REUTERS/ALEXI SMITH/UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT/HANDOUT University College Cork archeologist Ron Pinhasi photographs an area of a dig in the Armenian cave where what is believed to be the world’s oldest shoe, a preserved 5,500-year-old cowhide piece of footwear (at top), was found.   The entrance to the Armenian cave, marked with blue plastic, is seen where what is thought to be the world's oldest shoe was found. It appears the cave was used to store harvest and ritual objects belonging to the Chalcolithic community around 3600 BC.   PVAF is publishing today's news because PVAF is continually in quest of knowledge about current humanity through the study of human history the currently known history of humans and also in the puraaAN texts of the entire corpus of extent vED = SCIENCES OF LIFE AND CREATION.....This quest in various forms such as today's news is contributed by history and anthropology students at PVAF....and ....the purpose of this quest is if we know our genesis to the present times then we would be able to live tomorrow happier than today simply because we know the TRUTH of our existence.....who and how we are, why we are and where we are....    Please click on the next line to read today's news story and also to learn about Armenia's history and present......

.....TODAY'S NEWS STORY....   The Kingdom of Armenia at its greatest extent under Tigranes the Great, who reigned between 95 and 66 BC Areni village as seen from Areni Church in the Vayots Dzor region of Armenia,  which is known for its wine industry. Sole survivor discovered in Armenian cave World’s oldest leather shoe found among treasure trove of artifacts that offer a rare glimpse into the people of the Copper Age 6000 years ago... (From: Edmonton Journal/span>,, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: June 20, 2010: Pam Belluck, New York Times) Think of it as a kind of prehistoric Prada: Archeologists have discovered what they say is the world’s oldest known leather shoe. Perfectly preserved under layers of sheep dung (who needs cedar closets?), the shoe, made of cowhide and tanned with oil from a plant or vegetable, is about 5,500 years old, older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids, scientists say. Leather laces criss-cross through numerous leather eyelets, and it was worn on the right foot; there is no word on the left shoe. While the shoe more closely resembles an L.L. Bean-type soft-soled walking shoe than anything by Jimmy Choo, “these were probably quite expensive shoes, made of leather, very high quality,” said one of the lead scientists, Gregory Areshian, of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles. It could have fit a small man or a teenager, but it was most likely worn by a woman with roughly size 7 feet. (According to the website www.celebrityshoesize.com, that would be slightly roomy for Sarah Jessica Parker, whose Manolo Blahniks are size 6-1/2, and a tad tight for Sarah Palin, who, during the 2008 campaign, wore red Double Dare pumps by Naughty Monkey, size 7-1/2.) The shoe was discovered by scientists excavating in a huge cave in Armenia, part of a treasure trove of artifacts they found that experts say provide unprecedented information about an important and sparsely documented era: the Chalcolithic period or Copper Age, when humans are believed to have invented the wheel, domesticated horses and produced other innovations. Along with the shoe, the cave — designated Areni-1 — has yielded evidence of an ancient winemaking operation and caches of what may be the oldest known intentionally dried fruits: apricots, grapes, prunes. The scientists, financed by the National Geographic Society and other institutions, also found skulls of three adolescents (“subadults,” in archeology-speak) in ceramic vessels, suggesting ritualistic or religious practice; one skull, Areshian said, even contained desiccated brain tissue older than the shoe, about 6,000 years old. “It’s sort of a Pompeii moment, except without the burning,” said Mitchell Rothman, an anthropologist and alcolithic expert at Widener University who is not involved in the expedition. “The shoe is really cool, and it’s certainly something that highlights the unbelievable kinds of discoveries at this site. The larger importance, though, is where the site itself becomes significant. You have the transition, really, into the modern world, the precursor to the kings and queens and bureaucrats and pretty much the whole nine yards.” /> Previously, the oldest known leather shoe in Europe belonged to Oetzi the Iceman, a mummy found 19 years ago in the Alps near the Italian-Austrian border. Currently, the oldest known footwear are sandals made from sagebrush bark, found in Fort Rock Cave, Oregon in the United States. These shoes were discovered in 1938, and have been dated to about 10,000 years before present.   His shoes, about 300 years younger than the Armenian shoe, had bearskin soles, deerskin panels, tree-bark netting and grass socks. Footwear even older than the leather shoe includes examples found in Missouri and Oregon, made mostly from plant fibres. The Armenian shoe discovery, published earlier this month in PLoS One, an online journal, was made beneath one of several cave chambers, when an Armenian doctoral student, Diana Zardaryan , noticed a small pit of weeds. Reaching down, she touched two sheep horns, then an upside-down broken bowl. Under that was what felt like “an ear of a cow,” she said. “But when I took it out, I thought, ‘Oh my God, it’s a shoe.’ To find a shoe has always been my dream.” “We have collected all sorts of grapes in Areni settlement to find out whether there any of them is identical to the grapes seed we found in the cave,” Director of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography Pavel Avetisyan said. “The excavations are slow, as we are fearing to destroy the archeological layers,” he added. Because the cave was also used by later civilizations, most recently by 14th-century Mongols, “my assumption was the shoe would be 600 to 700 years old,” Areshian said, adding that “a Mongol shoe would have been really great.” When separate laboratories dated the leather to 3653 to 3627 BC, he said, “we just couldn’t believe that a shoe could be so ancient.” The shoe was not tossed devil-may-care but was, for unclear reasons, placed deliberately in the pit, which was carefully lined with yellow clay. Although scientists say the shoe was stuffed with grass, acting like a shoe tree to hold its shape, it had been worn. “You can see the imprints of the big toe,” said another team leader, Ron Pinhasi, an archeologist at University College Cork in Ireland, who said the shoe resembled old Irish pampooties, rawhide slippers. “As the person was wearing and lacing it, some of the eyelets had been torn and repaired.” Pinhasi said the cave, discovered in 1997, appeared to be mainly used by “high-status people, people who had power,” for storing the Chalcolithic community’s harvest and ritual objects. But some people lived up front, probably caretakers providing, Areshian said, the Chalcolithic equivalent of valet parking. Many tools found were of obsidian, whose closest source was a 100-kilometre trek away (perhaps why they needed shoes, Areshian suggested). “It’s an embarrassment of riches because the preservation is so remarkable,” said Adam T. Smith, an anthropologist at the University of Chicago who has done separate research in the cave. “The shoe,” he said, “is in a sense just the tip of the iceberg.” (He probably meant to say wingtip.)   ......KNOW THE HISTORY OF ARMENTIA IN RELATION TODAY'S NEWS.... by clicking here

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