Finding Niku artifacts - from the Face Book site

[Chris Johnson]

http://news.discovery.com/history/clues-point-to-amelia-earhart-as-castaway-slide-show.html

very thought provocing.  The cloth find was news to me

[Ric Gillespie]

Upon closer inspection, it's not a "bow" but rather a "loop" of cloth.  It's almost inconceivable that cotton could survive for 73 years in the Nikumaroro environment.  If it's a modern synthetic fabric it's obviously not related to the castaway and is probably something dropped by one of our people on an earlier expedition (we try not to do that). If, by any chance, it is linen we have a whole new ball game.  Linen is incredibly durable.

The artifact was collected using DNA-preservation procedures and is now at the lab for testing.

[Kevin Weeks]

very nice audio clip and slideshow Ric!


hmm, loop of cloth?? could have been for anything depending on the size of the loop. arm sling perhaps??

[Ric Gillespie]

hmm, loop of cloth?? could have been for anything depending on the size of the loop. arm sling perhaps??

Too small.  Also too small for a sweat-band.  More like a hand-wrap.

[Michael Vincent Maina]

hmm, loop of cloth?? could have been for anything depending on the size of the loop. arm sling perhaps??

Too small.  Also too small for a sweat-band.  More like a hand-wrap.

Could it perhaps have been used as an "ankle wrap" by AE?

[Thom Boughton]

Too small.  Also too small for a sweat-band.  More like a hand-wrap.

Not jumping to any conclusions here.....merely pie-in-the-sky dreaming....wouldn't it be nice if it WERE a wrap from an injury.  Imagine the DNA possibilities.


All of that aside.....possibly used to tie back hair?  If they did make it for a few months, either of them might have grown hair long enough to need tied back.


Just an idle thought.



....tb

[Alan Williams]

Ric, excellent audio track and slideshow. Good job, thoroughly enjoyed it...

[Monty Fowler]

I also enjoyed the audio track ... and had no idea until I saw that one photo how big the coconut crabs were ... sheesh! I can only imagine trying to get some sleep in a tree or someplace high every night with a whole herd of those guys up, down and all around you. I would probably die of sheer exhaustion before anything else.

My only hope is that we're not overreaching with what this expedition did bring back - yes, the bits are very, very tantalizing, and yes, how the heck else would they have gotten there except by the TIGHAR-suggested scenario? Still, we've been down this PR road before (I still have my copy of the infamous LIFE magazine somewhere) and like any good researcher, I hope we don't read too much into the results too soon.

If we get a positive DNA hit, though - I don't think front page of the New York Times is asking too much, do you?

[Mark Petersen]

very nice audio clip and slideshow Ric!

Yup, +2!