The Greek legend of Jason and his Argonauts may have a grain of truth to it, as well as more than a few grains of gold.
According to story on 1ClickNews, Scientists from Ilia State University, Georgia, claim that villagers in the Svaneti region of modern Georgia used fleece to help them extract gold and some still do it today.
Ancient villagers used sheepskins to line stream beds in the Svaneti region of the Southern Caucasus in northwest Georgia. Gold flakes washing from mountain streams became ingrained on the fleeces, which scientists believe led to the rise of the myth surrounding the Golden Fleece.
The technique is not dissimilar to small scale placer miners where the sluice box is lined with burlap to entrap the fine flake gold in the gravel.
Geological surveys by Dr Okrostsvaridze and his team reveal that gold deposits in many areas that were historically mined have been replenished as streams have continued to wash them down the mountainsides, and some locals still use traditional techniques to obtain gold from the rivers in the area.
They claim that villagers that were part of the wealthy Kingdom of Colchis, which existed from the sixth to the first centuries BC, used sheepskin to capture gold from mountain streams in the area.
The fleece was used to line the bottom of the sandy stream beds, trapping any tiny grains of gold that built up there. The technique is a variation on panning used elsewhere in the world.
This, they say, would have lead to sheepskins that were imprinted with flakes of gold and could have given rise to stories of a golden fleece.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by zocalo on Sunday November 30 2014, @11:36AM
Alternatively, while I was looking the original articles via Google I found an essentially word for word copy [dailymail.co.uk] of the linked story over at the Daily Mail. If that was the original version and it was reposted by 1ClickNews, then given the Mail's reputation for not letting fact checking and background research get in the way of a good story then that might explain it too.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday November 30 2014, @01:39PM
It also came up in an old episode of QI (series J, they're now on series L) which I coincidentally happened to watch last night.
When the question was first asked - why would a sheep be useful to a gold miner? - the answer from Richard Coles (a Reverend, no less) was that it could get lonely on them prairies.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 1) by DNied on Sunday November 30 2014, @07:06PM
OK, now it's getting a bit spooky. As I wrote in my message below, I too happened to watch a TV program relating this very stuff yesterday night. Mine was a documentary on Italian state TV, though.
Either yesterday was international golden fleece day or we are seeing some pretty unlikely coincidence here.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday November 30 2014, @09:20PM
Or it is possible that the issue has been finally studied by an accredited university and all of the media outlets are trotting out their catalog of poorly researched speculation programs that have been languishing on the shelves for years. I see this a LOT on american TV. Up coming issues or events are preceded by a crescendo of reruns of old movies or "conspiracy documentaries".
The study in the TFS was actually published some months ago in a paywalled journal, (which I couldn't be bothered to link to). It took it 6 months to find its way into a link-able source.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Sunday November 30 2014, @11:57PM
There's actually nothing new at all in this latest research that I can see, so it looks more like just another case of researchers not realising that someone else had already done the work (from the same small country, no less!) and people who were also unaware erroneously believing that it's a new discovery. Not the first time that's happened, and certainly not going to be the last...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 1) by DNied on Sunday November 30 2014, @06:58PM
In fact, I've heard this very hypotesis recounted yesterday night on TV. It was a documentary about ancient Greece, and the segment on the golden fleece's origin was actually taken from an older documentary, as I had already seen it months (or maybe years) ago.
Old news, but incredible coincidence.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday November 30 2014, @03:00PM
Sounds similar to an explanation of the legends of pulling the sword from the stone. The idea is that drawing a sword from stone is actually a reference to smelting. I gather that iron smelting was an art that was briefly lost when Rome fell.
(Score: 1) by Mad_Chef_Red on Sunday November 30 2014, @07:38PM
I read about this in an Osbourne primer on mining in the late 80/early 90s. And later in high school my former mining geologist science teacher confirmed the theory and made the mandatory joke about lonely miners and sheep.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 30 2014, @11:10PM
publish on the internet or it didn't happen
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 01 2014, @07:07PM
The modern equivalent is known as "Miner's Moss"
http://www.blackcatmining.com/mining-equipment/miners-moss.cfm [blackcatmining.com]
"Miner's Moss, has endless loops of rubber filaments perfect for catching and holding fine gold and heavy black sands. It loads up with fine heavies like a sponge and cleans up with a bit of vigorous stretching in a clean up tub full of water."
I am not affiliated with the company linked, nor do I play a miner on television.