For archaeologists and historians interested in the ancient politics, religion and language of the Indian subcontinent, two UCLA professors and their student researchers have creatively pinpointed sites that are likely to yield valuable transcriptions of the proclamations of Ashoka, the Buddhist king of northern India's Mauryan Dynasty who ruled from 304 B.C. to 232 B.C.
In a study published this week in Current Science, archaeologist Monica Smith and geographer Thomas Gillespie identified 121 possible locations of what are known as Ashoka's "edicts."
First they isolated shared features of 29 known locations of Ashokan edicts, which were found carved into natural rock formations in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. They then harnessed species-distribution modeling tactics—which includes examining sophisticated geographic information systems datasets along with Google Earth images—to overlay those unique characteristics against a geological and population map of ancient India. They believe they have identified locations that hold the same characteristics as proven sites and are significantly accurate markers for future discovery.
Sounds like data-driven archaeology is the wave of the future.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @08:36AM
OK Google we know you're spying on the Earth constantly all the time now, but at least some of that spying is for a good cause, or is it? Let's see.
Narcissistic professors pad their CVs? Nope, that's not helpful.
Sycophantic students pad their CVs? Nope, that's not helpful either.
Science rag journalists pad their CVs? Nope!
Sorry, all we have here is a circle-jerk of worthless egotists fellating each other for no genuine public benefit.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @08:42AM
So, you have no idea who King Ashoka was, what he did, and why these edicts are important to the future of the world? You could have just said so, rather than getting out the old thesaurus and going to town with the big-word insult routine crossed with crude sexual comments.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @08:47AM
Oh yes! Oh yes! Reply to my crap! Fill my ignorant sack with "edumacated" tales of King Ashole!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @09:13AM
How come you never log in anymore, Eth? Did your sabbatical cause you to forget your password?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @09:21AM
Presumptuous fool, why ass-ume I am Etha-hole?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @07:42PM
How come you never log in anymore, Eth?
Ever since he got bit by that python [soylentnews.org] his dick can't reach the keyboard so he can't log in.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @07:38PM
So, you have no idea who King Ashoka was, what he did ... You could have just said so ...
The Millenial Generation blames everything they don't know on someone or something else. Nothing matters unless someone else was persistent enough in disrupting the narcissistic behaviors of Mr Millennial long enough to force feed him some knowledge. Someone should have tried harder to educate him about King Ashoka if it was all that important.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @11:23PM
You forgot the most important part of all of it. They project their own narcissism and egoism on to anyone (or anything) else that knows, understands, or cares about anything that they do not. (Witness the first post in this thread)
it would be hilarious if it weren't so sad. These fucking pantywaists will be running everything in 10 to 20 years. Terrifying.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Bot on Saturday May 28 2016, @09:58AM
and man used google
and discovered many edicts of King Ashoka
and King Ashoka became known to all mankind
and it was good
until the edict about jus primae noctis
which was less good
the end
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @10:44AM
Where's that helpful troll to tell us about the good old tradition of raping young girls into submission?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @02:51PM
ISIS may destroy them
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @11:12PM
Well, the one story I heard about Ashoka, was that after waging and extremely bloody war he converted to Buddhism, and realized violence was wrong. Didn't give the kingdom back, though. But he did plant mango trees on the sides of royal highways rather than banyans, so that travelers would have fruit to eat as well as shade. And he put up all these rock edicts to educate his people. Rock edicts were kind of like the internets of the day.
The main point of the FA seems to be that archaeologists can actually use data and inference to locate sites, instead of using the ol' Indiana Jones methods. Smells like, science?