Komodo Dragon Fact

So I was just watching a documentary on Komodo Dragons and I found out that the females can actually have eggs and they can hatch with out the fertilizing of a male. This is crazy to me because everyone always says it takes two to keep going, but this is the total opposite of this theory.

"scientists have documented a virgin birth. Actually, what they describe is two such births by Komodo dragons (Varanus komodoensis) in captivity. The births occurred in zoos that lacked male Komodo dragons, the largest of the lizards." 

I think its crazy that this can happen, and if it starts happening in the wild (if it hasen't) we will soon have tons of Komodo Dragons!

Pet Grave Yards

Pet Grave Yards and memorials are becoming more and more popular these days, I find it to be a loving touch to have a memorial for your pet but maybe a little odd to actually bury them in a pet cemetery.

There are lots of stores and websites available now that customize memorials for your pet any way you want it.  An example of this is http://www.companionanimalmemorials.com/  They make and sell everything from carved rocks, granite slates, memory boxes, and pet urns.  I find it crazy that there are so many options for your pet now, but comforting if you are a pet lover as I am.

Pets like people are offered cremation or burials, in Victoria we do have pet cemetery's one of them being the Pet Memorial Center which has a website that can be found at http://www.petmemorialcenter.ca/memorial-center/burial.php.   They offer service for pets and owners in both cremation and burials of the beloved animals.

There are many different ways in which people deal with there animals once they pass away, including burials in a pet cemetery and cremations.  Some people see this as being odd but others understand because they as well would do the same for the pets they loved.  I would get my pet cremated I believe, I don't even want to think about one of them passing now!

Website Prompt

The website I found in relation to my group project was http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3409147,00.html which is called Jewish World and the article I read is called:

Mass Jewish grave from WWII found in Ukraine

Remains of thousands of Jews killed by the Nazis found near the site of what was once a concentration camp. ‘It underscores the enormous scope of the Nazis’ plans of annihilation,’ director of the Israel office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center says 

This website relates to my group project because we both look at mass graves from WWII and talk about excavations and monuments of the past and present.

This website and article compared to our rubric would get around 82%


Organization and presentation: 2

Layout is very confusing! i don't know how I would find the article again if I went somewhere else on the page.

Sources: 6

Sources are perfect because they are direct quotes from people!

Research Question: 6

Great question to look at the excavations and whether we should know the names of the dead or not, looked at very well and relates to this class for sure.

Written Communication: 6

The writing is great, it is a professional article!

Content and Data: 8

content and data are obviously great as well as it is a published article and therefore is all proper.


Method and Approach: 9

Archaeology is clearly understood in this article, and the methods they conduct about the excavations and monuments are clear and proper.

37/45
 

Children and death

When you think about children and how they deal with death you pretty much think about the deaths of their family or maybe close friends, but I also think about the deaths of their beloved animals.  I think its weird that when a child loses a grandparent or someone like that we take them to the funeral and we hope they cope well which they usually do since they are so young.  But when a pet starts to get ill we don't take the child to the vet with us when the animal is put down or anything like that, and we expect them to morn more over the animal.

I think this is odd because yes I understand that kids greatly morn over their animals loss but shouldn't they morn a lot over loss of their family members as well?  I think the question will always stand as to why kids morn greater over their animals then people, and I don't really know the answer either.

Stonehenge

I have always been interested in Stonehenge, how it got there? who did it? did people make it? I find it crazy that these huge rocks got there and were put in this form, it makes you think how it was even possible back when it was built.  First of I'll talk about Stonehenge and give some background information.

Stonehenge is estimated to have been created around 3100BC it is found in Wiltshire, UK.  basically it is a circular setting of large stones placed in certain forms.  It is said that Stonehenge was under construction for over 1500 yrs, evidence of this construction is found on and around the monument. 

Stonehenge is said to have been produced by a culture that left no written record, so we will truly never know what this monument was made for and why it was even made.  There is also still no critical evidence showing the construction techniques that were used to create Stonehenge as well as how the stones got there.  There have been suggestions that Stonehenge was a place of warship or that it was a multi usage are, but truly we will not know what it was made for.

Stonehenge is and always has been a great mystery to everyone who has not only studied it but even heard about it.  I find it a great interest and would love to go visit it sometime and see what it is like up close, it is just hard to image people moving these stones and setting them like this before machinery was invented!

Gay Caveman?

A skeleton was found in Czech Republic and dated back between 2900 and 2500 BC, this turned out to be one of the most interesting and most looked at skeletons to date.  Not because of the grave goods, or where he was found, no it was because he was discovered to be "gay" by the way he was buried.

The skeleton was found pointing to the east with many domestic jugs, such burial practices were only found to be related to females before this man was found which made everyone jump to the conclusion that he must be gay (looking at gender and sex)

Sex is looked at biologically but gender is looked at culturally, this is how they assume that he is male based on the skeleton but his gender would be feminine because of the way he was buried. Men in this period were generally buried on their right side with head to the west, women were on their left with heads to the east which is how this man was found. Rather than being buried with weapons like other men, he was buried with jugs which also relates to females. 

I'm not sure if i would jump to the assumption that he was gay, maybe he wasn't even a he.  Many skeletons found have to have a slight guess as to which gender they are so maybe this skeleton was a girl, or maybe he was gay.  I guess we will never really know what this skeleton was, everyone will just assume what they want to.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1374060/Gay-caveman-5-000-year-old-male-skeleton-outed-way-buried.html

More information on the gay caveman can be found at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8433527/First-homosexual-caveman-found.html

Ross Bay Cemetery

My group decided to research some monuments (early victorian) at the Ross Bay Cemetery.  We collected many pictures and descriptions of some of the early monuments in the cemetery.  We decided to choose these monuments largely because they were close in proximity but also because they gave us some interesting information about the patterns of variation in death ages and other variations of the grave.  Because of this my research question is:

For monument 1, the dates of the deaths of younger (under 20 years old) family members are close together (1884-5). Could something specific have happened to these individuals that could have caused their deaths to occur so close together?

The bruials in monument one are Bernice, E who died Jan 16 1884 as well as Edwin and Ernest Leigh who died April 19 and 22 1884.  All 3 of these children were just babies when they died, E bernice only being 16 months of age at death.  There is the question as to why these children died at such a young age and why so close together? With further research  should be able to find whether there was a sickness or something like that, but without being there in the past we are unable to answer this question.  Yes there could have been a sickness going around, or the babies could have died of freak accident maybe a house fire for the two siblings or something like that. It is sad to know that these families lost loved ones so young, and its hard to understand because we do not and never will know why they passed. In the sources below we see that there was illness going around at this time a lot of it being in chinese immigrants so maybe this was caught by these children.


link to map: http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?vps=2&hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=214005049597555568959.0004b8900ded7fa7ea4ad

sources:
http://web.uvic.ca/vv/student/chinatown/Tongs/CCBA.html