#riotinto — Public Fediverse posts

Why Is Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) Reporting Simandou Ramp-Up?

Highlights Rio Tinto is in focus after its latest market disclosure clarified current operating priorities. The news is…
#EuropeSays #Britain #Europe #EU #RioTinto #Rio‌Tinto #RioTintoresultsreleaseandMetalandMiningcontext
https://www.europesays.com/britain/119047/

Rio Tinto snaps up Aurukun bauxite project

Rio Tinto has agreed to acquire the Aurukun bauxite project on Cape York from Glencore and joint venture partner Mitsubishi…
#EuropeSays #Britain #Europe #EU #RioTinto #Rio‌Tinto
https://www.europesays.com/britain/118965/

Why Is Diversified mining major Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) in Focus?

Highlights The miner advanced alongside the materials complex while rate-sensitive sectors of the local board slipped A widening…
#EuropeSays #Britain #Europe #EU #RioTinto #Rio‌Tinto #RioTintoTurnstoItsGrowthPipelineasBondYieldsClimb
https://www.europesays.com/britain/118909/

What Does Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO)’s Pilbara Iron Ore Partnership Mean for Market participants?

Highlights Rio Tinto signed a non-binding agreement to jointly develop neighbouring Pilbara iron ore deposits with a fellow…
#EuropeSays #Britain #Europe #EU #RioTinto #Rio‌Tinto #RioTintoStrikesPilbaraIronOreTie-UpWithRivalMiner
https://www.europesays.com/britain/118899/

Rio Tinto stock strengthens after higher first half earnings

Rio Tinto stock (ISIN GB0007188757) is trading with support from improved profitability after the group reported its highest…
#EuropeSays #Britain #Europe #EU #RioTinto
https://www.europesays.com/britain/118664/

Has Rio Tinto Been Carried Higher By A Copper Price That Keeps Rewriting Its Own Ceiling?

Highlights Diversified miners finished the week just ended as the clearest engine behind the blue-chip index. Copper’s earlier…
#EuropeSays #Britain #Europe #EU #RioTinto #Rio‌Tinto
https://www.europesays.com/britain/118553/

What Is Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) Signalling?

Highlights Sector rotation is sharpening attention on business quality across the local market Rio Tinto provides a useful…
#EuropeSays #Britain #Europe #EU #RioTinto #Rio‌Tinto #RioTintoandMetal&MiningStocks:sectorrotationontheASX
https://www.europesays.com/britain/118533/

Why Is Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) in Focus?

Highlights Reporting season is sharpening attention on business quality across the local market Rio Tinto provides a useful…
#EuropeSays #Britain #Europe #EU #RioTinto #Rio‌Tinto #RioTintoandMetal&MiningStocks:reportingseasonontheASX
https://www.europesays.com/britain/118523/

Could Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) Reset Attention?

Highlights Earnings focus is sharpening attention on business quality across the local market Rio Tinto provides a useful…
#EuropeSays #Britain #Europe #EU #RioTinto #Rio‌Tinto #RioTintoandMetal&MiningStocks:earningsfocusontheASX
https://www.europesays.com/britain/117938/

Up 57%! Should I still buy Rio Tinto shares today?

Rio Tinto Ltd (ASX: RIO) shares have been on fire over the past year. Recently trading for $173.18,…
#EuropeSays #Britain #Europe #EU #RioTinto #Rio‌Tinto
https://www.europesays.com/britain/117926/

The collapse of Bell Bay Aluminium smelter could destroy George Town’s local economy

George Town was meant to be reliant on manganese and aluminium smelting jobs for decades to come. Houses…
#EuropeSays #Britain #Europe #EU #RioTinto #bellbayaluminium #hydrotasmania #michaelcavanagh #Rio‌Tinto #tasmaniangovernment
https://www.europesays.com/britain/117909/

Rio Tinto stock holds firm as copper and aluminium drive earnings

Rio Tinto Group (ISIN GB0007188757) stock is trading close to recent highs, supported by a stronger earnings mix…
#EuropeSays #Britain #Europe #EU #RioTinto #GB0007188757 #Rio‌Tinto
https://www.europesays.com/britain/117856/

Eldorado Gold eyes mill expansion at McIlvenna Bay, Talamore Mining advances Northern Access Route and Rio Tinto chair lands a new Canadian role

This week, Talamore Mining secured a permit that will allow it to finalize the Northern Access Route that…
#EuropeSays #Britain #Europe #EU #RioTinto #Agnico #alloy #Chile #CIM #copper #Eagle #expansion #gap #Labour #Mining #morel #News #partnership #quebec #recap #Rio‌Tinto #Roads #Stake #talent #U.S. #weekly
https://www.europesays.com/britain/117790/

Dead men’s shoes don’t walk, but they do talk…

This image of a pair of espadrilles by Aholas Spa is used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Sometimes the mutest of things can be the most vocal witnesses to times long gone*. Take, for example, shoes [Ed. – yes, I do realise some wag may take issue with that statement because shoes aren’t necessarily mute since some of them have a tongue (Oliver Sweeney)…]. An excellent example of this is the work of Macarena Bustamante-Álvarez et al. (2026).

Working in the remains of the Iron Age (Julian Richards) mining site known in ancient times as Urium** in modern-day Spain’s RioTinto region, Bustamante-Álvarez et al. (2026) report on their examination of “eight soles of plant-based footwear”.

So much – but little more – one can glean from the report’s abstract. For more information, since the full paper is in Spanish*** and my knowledge of that language is inadequate to the task of reading the original, my post relies almost solely on the English language interpretation of that work produced by Guillermo Carvajal in his scicomm article about the study.

In essence, what Bustamante-Álvarez et al. (2026) found is ancient sandals, the oldest examples of which were radiocarbon-dated to between 2,000 and 2,400 years old****. These sandals are made of esparto grass (identified in the paper as Stipa tenacissima (Jose Fajardo et al., 2015)), “a fiber of notable resistance and flexibility that grows abundantly in the southwestern peninsula” (Guillermo Carvajal).

Because other examples of the footwear at the same site were dated to the 1st century AD, it is inferred that the sandals’ utility was such that the same design was used essentially unchanged for over 400 years. Which is a remarkable testament to the craftmanship of those ancient shoe-makers. Further examination of the items revealed that their production “followed precise planning: the thicker and more homogeneous ropes were used in the areas of the sole that bore the greatest stress during walking, while the finer fibers were reserved for the straps and binding elements. This differential distribution of thicknesses is not accidental but indicates skilled artisanal production and advanced knowledge of esparto’s behavior under friction and weight, systematically applied by the makers to extend the useful life of the footwear in an environment as harsh as a mine” (Guillermo Carvajal).

All of this analysis was only possible because of the peculiarities of the site-specific physical conditions of preservation of the plant-based artefacts. Normally such organic material does not last long in the archaeological record (Shelby Brown), but burial beneath a pile of ash in this instance permitted their survival. These particular dead men’s shoes [Ed. – and here I’m assuming they belonged to men rather than women because of the working environment from which they were excavated] speak eloquently of many things and “highlights the importance that the exploitation of plant fibers and their transformation into everyday products had within ancient craftsmanship, a field of the domestic economy that written sources usually address tangentially and that the archaeological record, due to the fragility of its materials, rarely manages to document with such clarity” (Guillermo Carvajal).

For more on this story, see Gary Manners, Ella Spitz, Andrew Paul, here, here, Kambiz Kamrani, and – most certainly! – Guillermo Carvajal (the scicomm item that initiated my interest in this story).

[Ed. – by way of bringing this millennia-old ethnobotanical story up to-date in the 21st century, and whilst it’s good to know that esparto is still used in crafting artefacts in Spain (e.g., Jose Fajardo et al., 2015; José Antonio González & Francisco Amich, 2015), Stipa tenacissima is also being investigated as a “promising source of bioactive compounds with antioxidant and anticancer potentials” (Mehdi El Bouchti et al., 2021).]

* For those who appreciate a bit of myth-busting, this use of human-associated objects to discern information about past lives, etc. helps to give the lie to those who promote the proverb (Kassiani Nikolopoulou) that “dead men tell no tales”. The patent falsehood of which statement is convincingly – and regularly and repeatedly – demonstrated by any ‘police procedural’ programme featuring forensic science and/or post mortem examinations. Dead bodies – and their associated artefacts – tell us lots about the person, their life and times (provided they are appropriately preserved).

** For a bit of etymological diversion, the mining connection of the ancient Latin name of the excavation site, Urium (Bustamante-Álvarez et al., 2026), is honoured in mineralogy, where ‘urium’ is the name given to “The earth that envelops the ore” (quoted from here). Historically, the word is specifically referenced in an English translation of the works of Pliny the Elder (Kenneth F Kitchell Jr, 2024) in his account of gold-mining in Hispania: “earthy sediment of this kind is called urium” (Ioan-Lucian Bolunduț, 2024). [Ed. – which surely begs the question, which was named first? The place or the earthy sediment..?]

Urium is the specific epithet for an acidophilic green alga (Stephen S Daggett, 2019), Chlamydomonas urium, isolated from the Río Tinto – ‘red river’ – in the region (María Esther Pérez-Pérez et al., 2024), “since urium was the original name of Río Tinto coined by the Romans”. [Ed. – the origins of Rio Tinto, a global metals and mining business, “lie in our namesake, the Rio Tinto or red river mines in Huelva, a region in southern Spain”].

And, “Urium in the Assamese language is the name of a plant identified with Bischofia javanica Blume”. In English, Bischofia javanica, “A Potent Medicinal Plant” (Minakshee Sarmah, 2023), is known as bishop wood.

Nowadays – certainly amongst those discerning individuals in the know [Ed. – or ‘nose’..?] – the name is most notably associated with Spain’s sherry-producing winery of Bodegas Urium (Ruben Luyten).

*** This is an interesting case where a scientific discovery is primarily published in a non-English language. [Ed. – ‘Interesting’ to Englishman Mr Cuttings perhaps, but I’m sure there will be hundreds – if not thousands – of other examples of non-English language publications throughout the world. To express surprise at this shows a very English-centric – and frankly rather arrogant, entitled, and privileged – view of the world, Mr Cuttings] For decades now it appears – and has been assumed – that English (“the most successful lingua franca the world has ever seen”) is the lingua franca (Richard Nordquist, 2020; Gordon Allen-Young, 2022; Alexandra Aikhenvald, 2026) of science (Raoul Kamadjeu, 2019; Robert Sanders, 2020; Briony Fane & Juergen Wastl). [Ed. – whether that should be the case, and whether it is good for humanity and science, is a moot point (Christine Tardy, 2004; Rogerio Meneghini & Abel L Packer, 2007; Robert Sanders, 2020; Briony Fane & Juergen Wastl)…].

Back in the day (from Ancient times until the 19th century (Alexandra Aikhenvald, 2026), it would have been Latin, the literary and spoken language of the learned (Barry Wood, 2019). A reminder of that linguistic heritage is seen today in the Latinisation of scientific binomial names of species (Ronald Coleman) (such as Chlamydomonas urium**), and the plethora of scientific and medical terms that have been derived from Latin (e.g., here, here, Andrew Dunning, Rebecca Ramdeholl; Yuliia Lysanets & Olena Bieliaieva, 2018).

**** Even with an approximate age of up to 2,400 years, these miners’ sandals are not the oldest items of footwear found in Europe. The record – to date – goes to “22 pairs of woven grass sandals discovered in the cave [Spain’s Cueva de los Murciélagos (“cave of bats”)] are some 6,200 years old — and thus the oldest shoes ever found in Europe” (Kaleena Fraga). Interestingly, these artefacts  were also fashioned from esparto grass (Stipa tenacissima) (Francisco Martínez-Sevilla et al., 2023). It is therefore likely that use of this material for footwear is an unbroken practice from 21st century espadrilles (Heidi) to the 5th millennium BCE’s ‘bat cave sandals’.

With that long background and tradition, it’s little surprise to learn that the country’s ‘culture of esparto’ is one of the elements designated as a “Representative Manifestation of Intangible Cultural Heritage” (MRPCI) by Spain’s Ministry of Culture (which manages that nation’s “General Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage”) (more here, here, and here).

And, demonstrating some of the utility of esparto***** – i.e., it’s not used solely in footwear, there is evidence of its participation in the production of textiles. This evidence comes from presence of ropes made from esparto that were part of a wooden loom (Jason Crawford) for weaving cloth preserved by fire 3,500 years ago. No space for more on that story here, but see the interpretative article by Guillermo Carvajal, and the original scientific paper by Ricardo Basso et al. (2026).

***** Extending the utility of esparto, some of the other articles made from it include: “cord, for tying things and for weaving different types of basket, aguaderas or aguandangas (a vessel for supporting cántaros, i.e. 16-L round bottomed vessels), protection for jugs, demijhons [sic.] and bottles, and moulds for making cheese” (González & Amich, 2015); basket, beehive, belt, cheese mould, contraceptive (for sheep!), ferret basket, fishing net, hat, long rug, saddle, shepherd’s spoon, snail basket, stool, and muzzle (for mules) (Fajardo et al., 2015)…

REFERENCES

Ricardo E Basso et al., 2026. Evidence of a warp-weighted loom in the Bronze Age settlement of Cabezo Redondo (south-east Spain). Antiquity 100(411): 636-653; doi:10.15184/aqy.2026.10312

Ioan-Lucian Bolunduț, 2024. History of gold in antiquity. Mining Revue 30(1): 48-57; https://doi.org/10.2478/minrv-2024-0005

Mehdi El Bouchti et al., 2021. Stipa tenacissima L.: A new promising source of bioactive compounds with antioxidant and anticancer potentials. Life 11: 757; https://doi.org/10.3390/life11080757

Macarena Bustamante-Álvarez et al., 2026. Nuevos ejemplares de calzado en esparto en contexto minero. Excavaciones del sector “Nuevo Filón Norte 1” en Urium (Riotinto, Huelva). Pyrenae 57(2): 79-112; doi: 10.1344/Pyrenae2026.vol57num2.4

Jose Fajardo et al., 2015. Traditional craft techniques of esparto grass (Stipa tenacissima L.) in Spain. Econ Bot 69: 370–376; https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-015-9323-x

José Antonio González & Francisco Amich, 2015. Plants traditionally used for industrial and artisanal purposes in the Arribes Del Duero (Spain). Anales Del Jardin Botanico De Madrid 72(2): e025–e025; doi:10.3989/AJBM.2335

Raoul Kamadjeu, 2019. English: the lingua franca of scientific research. The Lancet Global Health, 7e1174; https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(19)30258-X

Yuliia V Lysanets & Olena M Bieliaieva, 2018. The use of Latin terminology in medical case reports: quantitative, structural, and thematic analysis. J Med Case Rep. 12(1): 45; doi: 10.1186/s13256-018-1562-x

Francisco Martínez-Sevilla et al., 2023. The earliest basketry in southern Europe: Hunter-gatherer and farmer plant-based technology in Cueva de los Murciélagos (Albuñol). Science Advances 9(39): eadi3055(2023); doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adi3055

Rogerio Meneghini & Abel L Packer, 2007. Is there science beyond English? Initiatives to increase the quality and visibility of non-English publications might help to break down language barriers in scientific communication. EMBO Rep. 8(2): 112-116; doi: 10.1038/sj.embor.7400906

María Esther Pérez-Pérez et al., 2024. Lipid turnover through lipophagy in the newly identified extremophilic green microalga Chlamydomonas urium. New Phytologist 243(1): 284-298; https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.19811

Minakshee Sarmah, 2023. Bischofia Javanica [sic.]: A potent medicinal plant. International Journal of Biomed Research 2(5): doi: 10.31579/2834-5029/030

Christine Tardy, 2004. The role of English in scientific communication: lingua franca or Tyrannosaurus rex? Journal of English for Academic Purposes 3(3): 247-269; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2003.10.001

Barry Wood, 2019. Latinus Scientificus: The history and culture of scientific Latin. Journal of Big History 3(2): 33-46; http://dx.doi.org/10.22339/jbh.v3i2.3230

Dead men’s shoes don’t walk, but they do talk…

This image of a pair of espadrilles by Aholas Spa is used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Sometimes the mutest of things can be the most vocal witnesses to times long gone*. Take, for example, shoes [Ed. – yes, I do realise some wag may take issue with that statement because shoes aren’t necessarily mute since some of them have a tongue (Oliver Sweeney)…]. An excellent example of this is the work of Macarena Bustamante-Álvarez et al. (2026).

Working in the remains of the Iron Age (Julian Richards) mining site known in ancient times as Urium** in modern-day Spain’s RioTinto region, Bustamante-Álvarez et al. (2026) report on their examination of “eight soles of plant-based footwear”.

So much – but little more – one can glean from the report’s abstract. For more information, since the full paper is in Spanish*** and my knowledge of that language is inadequate to the task of reading the original, my post relies almost solely on the English language interpretation of that work produced by Guillermo Carvajal in his scicomm article about the study.

In essence, what Bustamante-Álvarez et al. (2026) found is ancient sandals, the oldest examples of which were radiocarbon-dated to between 2,000 and 2,400 years old****. These sandals are made of esparto grass (identified in the paper as Stipa tenacissima (Jose Fajardo et al., 2015)), “a fiber of notable resistance and flexibility that grows abundantly in the southwestern peninsula” (Guillermo Carvajal).

Because other examples of the footwear at the same site were dated to the 1st century AD, it is inferred that the sandals’ utility was such that the same design was used essentially unchanged for over 400 years. Which is a remarkable testament to the craftmanship of those ancient shoe-makers. Further examination of the items revealed that their production “followed precise planning: the thicker and more homogeneous ropes were used in the areas of the sole that bore the greatest stress during walking, while the finer fibers were reserved for the straps and binding elements. This differential distribution of thicknesses is not accidental but indicates skilled artisanal production and advanced knowledge of esparto’s behavior under friction and weight, systematically applied by the makers to extend the useful life of the footwear in an environment as harsh as a mine” (Guillermo Carvajal).

All of this analysis was only possible because of the peculiarities of the site-specific physical conditions of preservation of the plant-based artefacts. Normally such organic material does not last long in the archaeological record (Shelby Brown), but burial beneath a pile of ash in this instance permitted their survival. These particular dead men’s shoes [Ed. – and here I’m assuming they belonged to men rather than women because of the working environment from which they were excavated] speak eloquently of many things and “highlights the importance that the exploitation of plant fibers and their transformation into everyday products had within ancient craftsmanship, a field of the domestic economy that written sources usually address tangentially and that the archaeological record, due to the fragility of its materials, rarely manages to document with such clarity” (Guillermo Carvajal).

For more on this story, see Gary Manners, Ella Spitz, Andrew Paul, here, here, Kambiz Kamrani, and – most certainly! – Guillermo Carvajal (the scicomm item that initiated my interest in this story).

[Ed. – by way of bringing this millennia-old ethnobotanical story up to-date in the 21st century, and whilst it’s good to know that esparto is still used in crafting artefacts in Spain (e.g., Jose Fajardo et al., 2015; José Antonio González & Francisco Amich, 2015), Stipa tenacissima is also being investigated as a “promising source of bioactive compounds with antioxidant and anticancer potentials” (Mehdi El Bouchti et al., 2021).]

* For those who appreciate a bit of myth-busting, this use of human-associated objects to discern information about past lives, etc. helps to give the lie to those who promote the proverb (Kassiani Nikolopoulou) that “dead men tell no tales”. The patent falsehood of which statement is convincingly – and regularly and repeatedly – demonstrated by any ‘police procedural’ programme featuring forensic science and/or post mortem examinations. Dead bodies – and their associated artefacts – tell us lots about the person, their life and times (provided they are appropriately preserved).

** For a bit of etymological diversion, the mining connection of the ancient Latin name of the excavation site, Urium (Bustamante-Álvarez et al., 2026), is honoured in mineralogy, where ‘urium’ is the name given to “The earth that envelops the ore” (quoted from here). Historically, the word is specifically referenced in an English translation of the works of Pliny the Elder (Kenneth F Kitchell Jr, 2024) in his account of gold-mining in Hispania: “earthy sediment of this kind is called urium” (Ioan-Lucian Bolunduț, 2024). [Ed. – which surely begs the question, which was named first? The place or the earthy sediment..?]

Urium is the specific epithet for an acidophilic green alga (Stephen S Daggett, 2019), Chlamydomonas urium, isolated from the Río Tinto – ‘red river’ – in the region (María Esther Pérez-Pérez et al., 2024), “since urium was the original name of Río Tinto coined by the Romans”. [Ed. – the origins of Rio Tinto, a global metals and mining business, “lie in our namesake, the Rio Tinto or red river mines in Huelva, a region in southern Spain”].

And, “Urium in the Assamese language is the name of a plant identified with Bischofia javanica Blume”. In English, Bischofia javanica, “A Potent Medicinal Plant” (Minakshee Sarmah, 2023), is known as bishop wood.

Nowadays – certainly amongst those discerning individuals in the know [Ed. – or ‘nose’..?] – the name is most notably associated with Spain’s sherry-producing winery of Bodegas Urium (Ruben Luyten).

*** This is an interesting case where a scientific discovery is primarily published in a non-English language. [Ed. – ‘Interesting’ to Englishman Mr Cuttings perhaps, but I’m sure there will be hundreds – if not thousands – of other examples of non-English language publications throughout the world. To express surprise at this shows a very English-centric – and frankly rather arrogant, entitled, and privileged – view of the world, Mr Cuttings] For decades now it appears – and has been assumed – that English (“the most successful lingua franca the world has ever seen”) is the lingua franca (Richard Nordquist, 2020; Gordon Allen-Young, 2022; Alexandra Aikhenvald, 2026) of science (Raoul Kamadjeu, 2019; Robert Sanders, 2020; Briony Fane & Juergen Wastl). [Ed. – whether that should be the case, and whether it is good for humanity and science, is a moot point (Christine Tardy, 2004; Rogerio Meneghini & Abel L Packer, 2007; Robert Sanders, 2020; Briony Fane & Juergen Wastl)…].

Back in the day (from Ancient times until the 19th century (Alexandra Aikhenvald, 2026), it would have been Latin, the literary and spoken language of the learned (Barry Wood, 2019). A reminder of that linguistic heritage is seen today in the Latinisation of scientific binomial names of species (Ronald Coleman) (such as Chlamydomonas urium**), and the plethora of scientific and medical terms that have been derived from Latin (e.g., here, here, Andrew Dunning, Rebecca Ramdeholl; Yuliia Lysanets & Olena Bieliaieva, 2018).

**** Even with an approximate age of up to 2,400 years, these miners’ sandals are not the oldest items of footwear found in Europe. The record – to date – goes to “22 pairs of woven grass sandals discovered in the cave [Spain’s Cueva de los Murciélagos (“cave of bats”)] are some 6,200 years old — and thus the oldest shoes ever found in Europe” (Kaleena Fraga). Interestingly, these artefacts  were also fashioned from esparto grass (Stipa tenacissima) (Francisco Martínez-Sevilla et al., 2023). It is therefore likely that use of this material for footwear is an unbroken practice from 21st century espadrilles (Heidi) to the 5th millennium BCE’s ‘bat cave sandals’.

With that long background and tradition, it’s little surprise to learn that the country’s ‘culture of esparto’ is one of the elements designated as a “Representative Manifestation of Intangible Cultural Heritage” (MRPCI) by Spain’s Ministry of Culture (which manages that nation’s “General Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage”) (more here, here, and here).

And, demonstrating some of the utility of esparto***** – i.e., it’s not used solely in footwear, there is evidence of its participation in the production of textiles. This evidence comes from presence of ropes made from esparto that were part of a wooden loom (Jason Crawford) for weaving cloth preserved by fire 3,500 years ago. No space for more on that story here, but see the interpretative article by Guillermo Carvajal, and the original scientific paper by Ricardo Basso et al. (2026).

***** Extending the utility of esparto, some of the other articles made from it include: “cord, for tying things and for weaving different types of basket, aguaderas or aguandangas (a vessel for supporting cántaros, i.e. 16-L round bottomed vessels), protection for jugs, demijhons [sic.] and bottles, and moulds for making cheese” (González & Amich, 2015); basket, beehive, belt, cheese mould, contraceptive (for sheep!), ferret basket, fishing net, hat, long rug, saddle, shepherd’s spoon, snail basket, stool, and muzzle (for mules) (Fajardo et al., 2015)…

REFERENCES

Ricardo E Basso et al., 2026. Evidence of a warp-weighted loom in the Bronze Age settlement of Cabezo Redondo (south-east Spain). Antiquity 100(411): 636-653; doi:10.15184/aqy.2026.10312

Ioan-Lucian Bolunduț, 2024. History of gold in antiquity. Mining Revue 30(1): 48-57; https://doi.org/10.2478/minrv-2024-0005

Mehdi El Bouchti et al., 2021. Stipa tenacissima L.: A new promising source of bioactive compounds with antioxidant and anticancer potentials. Life 11: 757; https://doi.org/10.3390/life11080757

Macarena Bustamante-Álvarez et al., 2026. Nuevos ejemplares de calzado en esparto en contexto minero. Excavaciones del sector “Nuevo Filón Norte 1” en Urium (Riotinto, Huelva). Pyrenae 57(2): 79-112; doi: 10.1344/Pyrenae2026.vol57num2.4

Jose Fajardo et al., 2015. Traditional craft techniques of esparto grass (Stipa tenacissima L.) in Spain. Econ Bot 69: 370–376; https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-015-9323-x

José Antonio González & Francisco Amich, 2015. Plants traditionally used for industrial and artisanal purposes in the Arribes Del Duero (Spain). Anales Del Jardin Botanico De Madrid 72(2): e025–e025; doi:10.3989/AJBM.2335

Raoul Kamadjeu, 2019. English: the lingua franca of scientific research. The Lancet Global Health, 7e1174; https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(19)30258-X

Yuliia V Lysanets & Olena M Bieliaieva, 2018. The use of Latin terminology in medical case reports: quantitative, structural, and thematic analysis. J Med Case Rep. 12(1): 45; doi: 10.1186/s13256-018-1562-x

Francisco Martínez-Sevilla et al., 2023. The earliest basketry in southern Europe: Hunter-gatherer and farmer plant-based technology in Cueva de los Murciélagos (Albuñol). Science Advances 9(39): eadi3055(2023); doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adi3055

Rogerio Meneghini & Abel L Packer, 2007. Is there science beyond English? Initiatives to increase the quality and visibility of non-English publications might help to break down language barriers in scientific communication. EMBO Rep. 8(2): 112-116; doi: 10.1038/sj.embor.7400906

María Esther Pérez-Pérez et al., 2024. Lipid turnover through lipophagy in the newly identified extremophilic green microalga Chlamydomonas urium. New Phytologist 243(1): 284-298; https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.19811

Minakshee Sarmah, 2023. Bischofia Javanica [sic.]: A potent medicinal plant. International Journal of Biomed Research 2(5): doi: 10.31579/2834-5029/030

Christine Tardy, 2004. The role of English in scientific communication: lingua franca or Tyrannosaurus rex? Journal of English for Academic Purposes 3(3): 247-269; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2003.10.001

Barry Wood, 2019. Latinus Scientificus: The history and culture of scientific Latin. Journal of Big History 3(2): 33-46; http://dx.doi.org/10.22339/jbh.v3i2.3230

Dead men’s shoes don’t walk, but they do talk…

This image of a pair of espadrilles by Aholas Spa is used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Sometimes the mutest of things can be the most vocal witnesses to times long gone*. Take, for example, shoes [Ed. – yes, I do realise some wag may take issue with that statement because shoes aren’t necessarily mute since some of them have a tongue (Oliver Sweeney)…]. An excellent example of this is the work of Macarena Bustamante-Álvarez et al. (2026).

Working in the remains of the Iron Age (Julian Richards) mining site known in ancient times as Urium** in modern-day Spain’s RioTinto region, Bustamante-Álvarez et al. (2026) report on their examination of “eight soles of plant-based footwear”.

So much – but little more – one can glean from the report’s abstract. For more information, since the full paper is in Spanish*** and my knowledge of that language is inadequate to the task of reading the original, my post relies almost solely on the English language interpretation of that work produced by Guillermo Carvajal in his scicomm article about the study.

In essence, what Bustamante-Álvarez et al. (2026) found is ancient sandals, the oldest examples of which were radiocarbon-dated to between 2,000 and 2,400 years old****. These sandals are made of esparto grass (identified in the paper as Stipa tenacissima (Jose Fajardo et al., 2015)), “a fiber of notable resistance and flexibility that grows abundantly in the southwestern peninsula” (Guillermo Carvajal).

Because other examples of the footwear at the same site were dated to the 1st century AD, it is inferred that the sandals’ utility was such that the same design was used essentially unchanged for over 400 years. Which is a remarkable testament to the craftmanship of those ancient shoe-makers. Further examination of the items revealed that their production “followed precise planning: the thicker and more homogeneous ropes were used in the areas of the sole that bore the greatest stress during walking, while the finer fibers were reserved for the straps and binding elements. This differential distribution of thicknesses is not accidental but indicates skilled artisanal production and advanced knowledge of esparto’s behavior under friction and weight, systematically applied by the makers to extend the useful life of the footwear in an environment as harsh as a mine” (Guillermo Carvajal).

All of this analysis was only possible because of the peculiarities of the site-specific physical conditions of preservation of the plant-based artefacts. Normally such organic material does not last long in the archaeological record (Shelby Brown), but burial beneath a pile of ash in this instance permitted their survival. These particular dead men’s shoes [Ed. – and here I’m assuming they belonged to men rather than women because of the working environment from which they were excavated] speak eloquently of many things and “highlights the importance that the exploitation of plant fibers and their transformation into everyday products had within ancient craftsmanship, a field of the domestic economy that written sources usually address tangentially and that the archaeological record, due to the fragility of its materials, rarely manages to document with such clarity” (Guillermo Carvajal).

For more on this story, see Gary Manners, Ella Spitz, Andrew Paul, here, here, Kambiz Kamrani, and – most certainly! – Guillermo Carvajal (the scicomm item that initiated my interest in this story).

[Ed. – by way of bringing this millennia-old ethnobotanical story up to-date in the 21st century, and whilst it’s good to know that esparto is still used in crafting artefacts in Spain (e.g., Jose Fajardo et al., 2015; José Antonio González & Francisco Amich, 2015), Stipa tenacissima is also being investigated as a “promising source of bioactive compounds with antioxidant and anticancer potentials” (Mehdi El Bouchti et al., 2021).]

* For those who appreciate a bit of myth-busting, this use of human-associated objects to discern information about past lives, etc. helps to give the lie to those who promote the proverb (Kassiani Nikolopoulou) that “dead men tell no tales”. The patent falsehood of which statement is convincingly – and regularly and repeatedly – demonstrated by any ‘police procedural’ programme featuring forensic science and/or post mortem examinations. Dead bodies – and their associated artefacts – tell us lots about the person, their life and times (provided they are appropriately preserved).

** For a bit of etymological diversion, the mining connection of the ancient Latin name of the excavation site, Urium (Bustamante-Álvarez et al., 2026), is honoured in mineralogy, where ‘urium’ is the name given to “The earth that envelops the ore” (quoted from here). Historically, the word is specifically referenced in an English translation of the works of Pliny the Elder (Kenneth F Kitchell Jr, 2024) in his account of gold-mining in Hispania: “earthy sediment of this kind is called urium” (Ioan-Lucian Bolunduț, 2024). [Ed. – which surely begs the question, which was named first? The place or the earthy sediment..?]

Urium is the specific epithet for an acidophilic green alga (Stephen S Daggett, 2019), Chlamydomonas urium, isolated from the Río Tinto – ‘red river’ – in the region (María Esther Pérez-Pérez et al., 2024), “since urium was the original name of Río Tinto coined by the Romans”. [Ed. – the origins of Rio Tinto, a global metals and mining business, “lie in our namesake, the Rio Tinto or red river mines in Huelva, a region in southern Spain”].

And, “Urium in the Assamese language is the name of a plant identified with Bischofia javanica Blume”. In English, Bischofia javanica, “A Potent Medicinal Plant” (Minakshee Sarmah, 2023), is known as bishop wood.

Nowadays – certainly amongst those discerning individuals in the know [Ed. – or ‘nose’..?] – the name is most notably associated with Spain’s sherry-producing winery of Bodegas Urium (Ruben Luyten).

*** This is an interesting case where a scientific discovery is primarily published in a non-English language. [Ed. – ‘Interesting’ to Englishman Mr Cuttings perhaps, but I’m sure there will be hundreds – if not thousands – of other examples of non-English language publications throughout the world. To express surprise at this shows a very English-centric – and frankly rather arrogant, entitled, and privileged – view of the world, Mr Cuttings] For decades now it appears – and has been assumed – that English (“the most successful lingua franca the world has ever seen”) is the lingua franca (Richard Nordquist, 2020; Gordon Allen-Young, 2022; Alexandra Aikhenvald, 2026) of science (Raoul Kamadjeu, 2019; Robert Sanders, 2020; Briony Fane & Juergen Wastl). [Ed. – whether that should be the case, and whether it is good for humanity and science, is a moot point (Christine Tardy, 2004; Rogerio Meneghini & Abel L Packer, 2007; Robert Sanders, 2020; Briony Fane & Juergen Wastl)…].

Back in the day (from Ancient times until the 19th century (Alexandra Aikhenvald, 2026), it would have been Latin, the literary and spoken language of the learned (Barry Wood, 2019). A reminder of that linguistic heritage is seen today in the Latinisation of scientific binomial names of species (Ronald Coleman) (such as Chlamydomonas urium**), and the plethora of scientific and medical terms that have been derived from Latin (e.g., here, here, Andrew Dunning, Rebecca Ramdeholl; Yuliia Lysanets & Olena Bieliaieva, 2018).

**** Even with an approximate age of up to 2,400 years, these miners’ sandals are not the oldest items of footwear found in Europe. The record – to date – goes to “22 pairs of woven grass sandals discovered in the cave [Spain’s Cueva de los Murciélagos (“cave of bats”)] are some 6,200 years old — and thus the oldest shoes ever found in Europe” (Kaleena Fraga). Interestingly, these artefacts  were also fashioned from esparto grass (Stipa tenacissima) (Francisco Martínez-Sevilla et al., 2023). It is therefore likely that use of this material for footwear is an unbroken practice from 21st century espadrilles (Heidi) to the 5th millennium BCE’s ‘bat cave sandals’.

With that long background and tradition, it’s little surprise to learn that the country’s ‘culture of esparto’ is one of the elements designated as a “Representative Manifestation of Intangible Cultural Heritage” (MRPCI) by Spain’s Ministry of Culture (which manages that nation’s “General Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage”) (more here, here, and here).

And, demonstrating some of the utility of esparto***** – i.e., it’s not used solely in footwear, there is evidence of its participation in the production of textiles. This evidence comes from presence of ropes made from esparto that were part of a wooden loom (Jason Crawford) for weaving cloth preserved by fire 3,500 years ago. No space for more on that story here, but see the interpretative article by Guillermo Carvajal, and the original scientific paper by Ricardo Basso et al. (2026).

***** Extending the utility of esparto, some of the other articles made from it include: “cord, for tying things and for weaving different types of basket, aguaderas or aguandangas (a vessel for supporting cántaros, i.e. 16-L round bottomed vessels), protection for jugs, demijhons [sic.] and bottles, and moulds for making cheese” (González & Amich, 2015); basket, beehive, belt, cheese mould, contraceptive (for sheep!), ferret basket, fishing net, hat, long rug, saddle, shepherd’s spoon, snail basket, stool, and muzzle (for mules) (Fajardo et al., 2015)…

REFERENCES

Ricardo E Basso et al., 2026. Evidence of a warp-weighted loom in the Bronze Age settlement of Cabezo Redondo (south-east Spain). Antiquity 100(411): 636-653; doi:10.15184/aqy.2026.10312

Ioan-Lucian Bolunduț, 2024. History of gold in antiquity. Mining Revue 30(1): 48-57; https://doi.org/10.2478/minrv-2024-0005

Mehdi El Bouchti et al., 2021. Stipa tenacissima L.: A new promising source of bioactive compounds with antioxidant and anticancer potentials. Life 11: 757; https://doi.org/10.3390/life11080757

Macarena Bustamante-Álvarez et al., 2026. Nuevos ejemplares de calzado en esparto en contexto minero. Excavaciones del sector “Nuevo Filón Norte 1” en Urium (Riotinto, Huelva). Pyrenae 57(2): 79-112; doi: 10.1344/Pyrenae2026.vol57num2.4

Jose Fajardo et al., 2015. Traditional craft techniques of esparto grass (Stipa tenacissima L.) in Spain. Econ Bot 69: 370–376; https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-015-9323-x

José Antonio González & Francisco Amich, 2015. Plants traditionally used for industrial and artisanal purposes in the Arribes Del Duero (Spain). Anales Del Jardin Botanico De Madrid 72(2): e025–e025; doi:10.3989/AJBM.2335

Raoul Kamadjeu, 2019. English: the lingua franca of scientific research. The Lancet Global Health, 7e1174; https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(19)30258-X

Yuliia V Lysanets & Olena M Bieliaieva, 2018. The use of Latin terminology in medical case reports: quantitative, structural, and thematic analysis. J Med Case Rep. 12(1): 45; doi: 10.1186/s13256-018-1562-x

Francisco Martínez-Sevilla et al., 2023. The earliest basketry in southern Europe: Hunter-gatherer and farmer plant-based technology in Cueva de los Murciélagos (Albuñol). Science Advances 9(39): eadi3055(2023); doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adi3055

Rogerio Meneghini & Abel L Packer, 2007. Is there science beyond English? Initiatives to increase the quality and visibility of non-English publications might help to break down language barriers in scientific communication. EMBO Rep. 8(2): 112-116; doi: 10.1038/sj.embor.7400906

María Esther Pérez-Pérez et al., 2024. Lipid turnover through lipophagy in the newly identified extremophilic green microalga Chlamydomonas urium. New Phytologist 243(1): 284-298; https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.19811

Minakshee Sarmah, 2023. Bischofia Javanica [sic.]: A potent medicinal plant. International Journal of Biomed Research 2(5): doi: 10.31579/2834-5029/030

Christine Tardy, 2004. The role of English in scientific communication: lingua franca or Tyrannosaurus rex? Journal of English for Academic Purposes 3(3): 247-269; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2003.10.001

Barry Wood, 2019. Latinus Scientificus: The history and culture of scientific Latin. Journal of Big History 3(2): 33-46; http://dx.doi.org/10.22339/jbh.v3i2.3230

Dead men’s shoes don’t walk, but they do talk…

This image of a pair of espadrilles by Aholas Spa is used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Sometimes the mutest of things can be the most vocal witnesses to times long gone*. Take, for example, shoes [Ed. – yes, I do realise some wag may take issue with that statement because shoes aren’t necessarily mute since some of them have a tongue (Oliver Sweeney)…]. An excellent example of this is the work of Macarena Bustamante-Álvarez et al. (2026).

Working in the remains of the Iron Age (Julian Richards) mining site known in ancient times as Urium** in modern-day Spain’s RioTinto region, Bustamante-Álvarez et al. (2026) report on their examination of “eight soles of plant-based footwear”.

So much – but little more – one can glean from the report’s abstract. For more information, since the full paper is in Spanish*** and my knowledge of that language is inadequate to the task of reading the original, my post relies almost solely on the English language interpretation of that work produced by Guillermo Carvajal in his scicomm article about the study.

In essence, what Bustamante-Álvarez et al. (2026) found is ancient sandals, the oldest examples of which were radiocarbon-dated to between 2,000 and 2,400 years old****. These sandals are made of esparto grass (identified in the paper as Stipa tenacissima (Jose Fajardo et al., 2015)), “a fiber of notable resistance and flexibility that grows abundantly in the southwestern peninsula” (Guillermo Carvajal).

Because other examples of the footwear at the same site were dated to the 1st century AD, it is inferred that the sandals’ utility was such that the same design was used essentially unchanged for over 400 years. Which is a remarkable testament to the craftmanship of those ancient shoe-makers. Further examination of the items revealed that their production “followed precise planning: the thicker and more homogeneous ropes were used in the areas of the sole that bore the greatest stress during walking, while the finer fibers were reserved for the straps and binding elements. This differential distribution of thicknesses is not accidental but indicates skilled artisanal production and advanced knowledge of esparto’s behavior under friction and weight, systematically applied by the makers to extend the useful life of the footwear in an environment as harsh as a mine” (Guillermo Carvajal).

All of this analysis was only possible because of the peculiarities of the site-specific physical conditions of preservation of the plant-based artefacts. Normally such organic material does not last long in the archaeological record (Shelby Brown), but burial beneath a pile of ash in this instance permitted their survival. These particular dead men’s shoes [Ed. – and here I’m assuming they belonged to men rather than women because of the working environment from which they were excavated] speak eloquently of many things and “highlights the importance that the exploitation of plant fibers and their transformation into everyday products had within ancient craftsmanship, a field of the domestic economy that written sources usually address tangentially and that the archaeological record, due to the fragility of its materials, rarely manages to document with such clarity” (Guillermo Carvajal).

For more on this story, see Gary Manners, Ella Spitz, Andrew Paul, here, here, Kambiz Kamrani, and – most certainly! – Guillermo Carvajal (the scicomm item that initiated my interest in this story).

[Ed. – by way of bringing this millennia-old ethnobotanical story up to-date in the 21st century, and whilst it’s good to know that esparto is still used in crafting artefacts in Spain (e.g., Jose Fajardo et al., 2015; José Antonio González & Francisco Amich, 2015), Stipa tenacissima is also being investigated as a “promising source of bioactive compounds with antioxidant and anticancer potentials” (Mehdi El Bouchti et al., 2021).]

* For those who appreciate a bit of myth-busting, this use of human-associated objects to discern information about past lives, etc. helps to give the lie to those who promote the proverb (Kassiani Nikolopoulou) that “dead men tell no tales”. The patent falsehood of which statement is convincingly – and regularly and repeatedly – demonstrated by any ‘police procedural’ programme featuring forensic science and/or post mortem examinations. Dead bodies – and their associated artefacts – tell us lots about the person, their life and times (provided they are appropriately preserved).

** For a bit of etymological diversion, the mining connection of the ancient Latin name of the excavation site, Urium (Bustamante-Álvarez et al., 2026), is honoured in mineralogy, where ‘urium’ is the name given to “The earth that envelops the ore” (quoted from here). Historically, the word is specifically referenced in an English translation of the works of Pliny the Elder (Kenneth F Kitchell Jr, 2024) in his account of gold-mining in Hispania: “earthy sediment of this kind is called urium” (Ioan-Lucian Bolunduț, 2024). [Ed. – which surely begs the question, which was named first? The place or the earthy sediment..?]

Urium is the specific epithet for an acidophilic green alga (Stephen S Daggett, 2019), Chlamydomonas urium, isolated from the Río Tinto – ‘red river’ – in the region (María Esther Pérez-Pérez et al., 2024), “since urium was the original name of Río Tinto coined by the Romans”. [Ed. – the origins of Rio Tinto, a global metals and mining business, “lie in our namesake, the Rio Tinto or red river mines in Huelva, a region in southern Spain”].

And, “Urium in the Assamese language is the name of a plant identified with Bischofia javanica Blume”. In English, Bischofia javanica, “A Potent Medicinal Plant” (Minakshee Sarmah, 2023), is known as bishop wood.

Nowadays – certainly amongst those discerning individuals in the know [Ed. – or ‘nose’..?] – the name is most notably associated with Spain’s sherry-producing winery of Bodegas Urium (Ruben Luyten).

*** This is an interesting case where a scientific discovery is primarily published in a non-English language. [Ed. – ‘Interesting’ to Englishman Mr Cuttings perhaps, but I’m sure there will be hundreds – if not thousands – of other examples of non-English language publications throughout the world. To express surprise at this shows a very English-centric – and frankly rather arrogant, entitled, and privileged – view of the world, Mr Cuttings] For decades now it appears – and has been assumed – that English (“the most successful lingua franca the world has ever seen”) is the lingua franca (Richard Nordquist, 2020; Gordon Allen-Young, 2022; Alexandra Aikhenvald, 2026) of science (Raoul Kamadjeu, 2019; Robert Sanders, 2020; Briony Fane & Juergen Wastl). [Ed. – whether that should be the case, and whether it is good for humanity and science, is a moot point (Christine Tardy, 2004; Rogerio Meneghini & Abel L Packer, 2007; Robert Sanders, 2020; Briony Fane & Juergen Wastl)…].

Back in the day (from Ancient times until the 19th century (Alexandra Aikhenvald, 2026), it would have been Latin, the literary and spoken language of the learned (Barry Wood, 2019). A reminder of that linguistic heritage is seen today in the Latinisation of scientific binomial names of species (Ronald Coleman) (such as Chlamydomonas urium**), and the plethora of scientific and medical terms that have been derived from Latin (e.g., here, here, Andrew Dunning, Rebecca Ramdeholl; Yuliia Lysanets & Olena Bieliaieva, 2018).

**** Even with an approximate age of up to 2,400 years, these miners’ sandals are not the oldest items of footwear found in Europe. The record – to date – goes to “22 pairs of woven grass sandals discovered in the cave [Spain’s Cueva de los Murciélagos (“cave of bats”)] are some 6,200 years old — and thus the oldest shoes ever found in Europe” (Kaleena Fraga). Interestingly, these artefacts  were also fashioned from esparto grass (Stipa tenacissima) (Francisco Martínez-Sevilla et al., 2023). It is therefore likely that use of this material for footwear is an unbroken practice from 21st century espadrilles (Heidi) to the 5th millennium BCE’s ‘bat cave sandals’.

With that long background and tradition, it’s little surprise to learn that the country’s ‘culture of esparto’ is one of the elements designated as a “Representative Manifestation of Intangible Cultural Heritage” (MRPCI) by Spain’s Ministry of Culture (which manages that nation’s “General Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage”) (more here, here, and here).

And, demonstrating some of the utility of esparto***** – i.e., it’s not used solely in footwear, there is evidence of its participation in the production of textiles. This evidence comes from presence of ropes made from esparto that were part of a wooden loom (Jason Crawford) for weaving cloth preserved by fire 3,500 years ago. No space for more on that story here, but see the interpretative article by Guillermo Carvajal, and the original scientific paper by Ricardo Basso et al. (2026).

***** Extending the utility of esparto, some of the other articles made from it include: “cord, for tying things and for weaving different types of basket, aguaderas or aguandangas (a vessel for supporting cántaros, i.e. 16-L round bottomed vessels), protection for jugs, demijhons [sic.] and bottles, and moulds for making cheese” (González & Amich, 2015); basket, beehive, belt, cheese mould, contraceptive (for sheep!), ferret basket, fishing net, hat, long rug, saddle, shepherd’s spoon, snail basket, stool, and muzzle (for mules) (Fajardo et al., 2015)…

REFERENCES

Ricardo E Basso et al., 2026. Evidence of a warp-weighted loom in the Bronze Age settlement of Cabezo Redondo (south-east Spain). Antiquity 100(411): 636-653; doi:10.15184/aqy.2026.10312

Ioan-Lucian Bolunduț, 2024. History of gold in antiquity. Mining Revue 30(1): 48-57; https://doi.org/10.2478/minrv-2024-0005

Mehdi El Bouchti et al., 2021. Stipa tenacissima L.: A new promising source of bioactive compounds with antioxidant and anticancer potentials. Life 11: 757; https://doi.org/10.3390/life11080757

Macarena Bustamante-Álvarez et al., 2026. Nuevos ejemplares de calzado en esparto en contexto minero. Excavaciones del sector “Nuevo Filón Norte 1” en Urium (Riotinto, Huelva). Pyrenae 57(2): 79-112; doi: 10.1344/Pyrenae2026.vol57num2.4

Jose Fajardo et al., 2015. Traditional craft techniques of esparto grass (Stipa tenacissima L.) in Spain. Econ Bot 69: 370–376; https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-015-9323-x

José Antonio González & Francisco Amich, 2015. Plants traditionally used for industrial and artisanal purposes in the Arribes Del Duero (Spain). Anales Del Jardin Botanico De Madrid 72(2): e025–e025; doi:10.3989/AJBM.2335

Raoul Kamadjeu, 2019. English: the lingua franca of scientific research. The Lancet Global Health, 7e1174; https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(19)30258-X

Yuliia V Lysanets & Olena M Bieliaieva, 2018. The use of Latin terminology in medical case reports: quantitative, structural, and thematic analysis. J Med Case Rep. 12(1): 45; doi: 10.1186/s13256-018-1562-x

Francisco Martínez-Sevilla et al., 2023. The earliest basketry in southern Europe: Hunter-gatherer and farmer plant-based technology in Cueva de los Murciélagos (Albuñol). Science Advances 9(39): eadi3055(2023); doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adi3055

Rogerio Meneghini & Abel L Packer, 2007. Is there science beyond English? Initiatives to increase the quality and visibility of non-English publications might help to break down language barriers in scientific communication. EMBO Rep. 8(2): 112-116; doi: 10.1038/sj.embor.7400906

María Esther Pérez-Pérez et al., 2024. Lipid turnover through lipophagy in the newly identified extremophilic green microalga Chlamydomonas urium. New Phytologist 243(1): 284-298; https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.19811

Minakshee Sarmah, 2023. Bischofia Javanica [sic.]: A potent medicinal plant. International Journal of Biomed Research 2(5): doi: 10.31579/2834-5029/030

Christine Tardy, 2004. The role of English in scientific communication: lingua franca or Tyrannosaurus rex? Journal of English for Academic Purposes 3(3): 247-269; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2003.10.001

Barry Wood, 2019. Latinus Scientificus: The history and culture of scientific Latin. Journal of Big History 3(2): 33-46; http://dx.doi.org/10.22339/jbh.v3i2.3230

Dead men’s shoes don’t walk, but they do talk…

This image of a pair of espadrilles by Aholas Spa is used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Sometimes the mutest of things can be the most vocal witnesses to times long gone*. Take, for example, shoes [Ed. – yes, I do realise some wag may take issue with that statement because shoes aren’t necessarily mute since some of them have a tongue (Oliver Sweeney)…]. An excellent example of this is the work of Macarena Bustamante-Álvarez et al. (2026).

Working in the remains of the Iron Age (Julian Richards) mining site known in ancient times as Urium** in modern-day Spain’s RioTinto region, Bustamante-Álvarez et al. (2026) report on their examination of “eight soles of plant-based footwear”.

So much – but little more – one can glean from the report’s abstract. For more information, since the full paper is in Spanish*** and my knowledge of that language is inadequate to the task of reading the original, my post relies almost solely on the English language interpretation of that work produced by Guillermo Carvajal in his scicomm article about the study.

In essence, what Bustamante-Álvarez et al. (2026) found is ancient sandals, the oldest examples of which were radiocarbon-dated to between 2,000 and 2,400 years old****. These sandals are made of esparto grass (identified in the paper as Stipa tenacissima (Jose Fajardo et al., 2015)), “a fiber of notable resistance and flexibility that grows abundantly in the southwestern peninsula” (Guillermo Carvajal).

Because other examples of the footwear at the same site were dated to the 1st century AD, it is inferred that the sandals’ utility was such that the same design was used essentially unchanged for over 400 years. Which is a remarkable testament to the craftmanship of those ancient shoe-makers. Further examination of the items revealed that their production “followed precise planning: the thicker and more homogeneous ropes were used in the areas of the sole that bore the greatest stress during walking, while the finer fibers were reserved for the straps and binding elements. This differential distribution of thicknesses is not accidental but indicates skilled artisanal production and advanced knowledge of esparto’s behavior under friction and weight, systematically applied by the makers to extend the useful life of the footwear in an environment as harsh as a mine” (Guillermo Carvajal).

All of this analysis was only possible because of the peculiarities of the site-specific physical conditions of preservation of the plant-based artefacts. Normally such organic material does not last long in the archaeological record (Shelby Brown), but burial beneath a pile of ash in this instance permitted their survival. These particular dead men’s shoes [Ed. – and here I’m assuming they belonged to men rather than women because of the working environment from which they were excavated] speak eloquently of many things and “highlights the importance that the exploitation of plant fibers and their transformation into everyday products had within ancient craftsmanship, a field of the domestic economy that written sources usually address tangentially and that the archaeological record, due to the fragility of its materials, rarely manages to document with such clarity” (Guillermo Carvajal).

For more on this story, see Gary Manners, Ella Spitz, Andrew Paul, here, here, Kambiz Kamrani, and – most certainly! – Guillermo Carvajal (the scicomm item that initiated my interest in this story).

[Ed. – by way of bringing this millennia-old ethnobotanical story up to-date in the 21st century, and whilst it’s good to know that esparto is still used in crafting artefacts in Spain (e.g., Jose Fajardo et al., 2015; José Antonio González & Francisco Amich, 2015), Stipa tenacissima is also being investigated as a “promising source of bioactive compounds with antioxidant and anticancer potentials” (Mehdi El Bouchti et al., 2021).]

* For those who appreciate a bit of myth-busting, this use of human-associated objects to discern information about past lives, etc. helps to give the lie to those who promote the proverb (Kassiani Nikolopoulou) that “dead men tell no tales”. The patent falsehood of which statement is convincingly – and regularly and repeatedly – demonstrated by any ‘police procedural’ programme featuring forensic science and/or post mortem examinations. Dead bodies – and their associated artefacts – tell us lots about the person, their life and times (provided they are appropriately preserved).

** For a bit of etymological diversion, the mining connection of the ancient Latin name of the excavation site, Urium (Bustamante-Álvarez et al., 2026), is honoured in mineralogy, where ‘urium’ is the name given to “The earth that envelops the ore” (quoted from here). Historically, the word is specifically referenced in an English translation of the works of Pliny the Elder (Kenneth F Kitchell Jr, 2024) in his account of gold-mining in Hispania: “earthy sediment of this kind is called urium” (Ioan-Lucian Bolunduț, 2024). [Ed. – which surely begs the question, which was named first? The place or the earthy sediment..?]

Urium is the specific epithet for an acidophilic green alga (Stephen S Daggett, 2019), Chlamydomonas urium, isolated from the Río Tinto – ‘red river’ – in the region (María Esther Pérez-Pérez et al., 2024), “since urium was the original name of Río Tinto coined by the Romans”. [Ed. – the origins of Rio Tinto, a global metals and mining business, “lie in our namesake, the Rio Tinto or red river mines in Huelva, a region in southern Spain”].

And, “Urium in the Assamese language is the name of a plant identified with Bischofia javanica Blume”. In English, Bischofia javanica, “A Potent Medicinal Plant” (Minakshee Sarmah, 2023), is known as bishop wood.

Nowadays – certainly amongst those discerning individuals in the know [Ed. – or ‘nose’..?] – the name is most notably associated with Spain’s sherry-producing winery of Bodegas Urium (Ruben Luyten).

*** This is an interesting case where a scientific discovery is primarily published in a non-English language. [Ed. – ‘Interesting’ to Englishman Mr Cuttings perhaps, but I’m sure there will be hundreds – if not thousands – of other examples of non-English language publications throughout the world. To express surprise at this shows a very English-centric – and frankly rather arrogant, entitled, and privileged – view of the world, Mr Cuttings] For decades now it appears – and has been assumed – that English (“the most successful lingua franca the world has ever seen”) is the lingua franca (Richard Nordquist, 2020; Gordon Allen-Young, 2022; Alexandra Aikhenvald, 2026) of science (Raoul Kamadjeu, 2019; Robert Sanders, 2020; Briony Fane & Juergen Wastl). [Ed. – whether that should be the case, and whether it is good for humanity and science, is a moot point (Christine Tardy, 2004; Rogerio Meneghini & Abel L Packer, 2007; Robert Sanders, 2020; Briony Fane & Juergen Wastl)…].

Back in the day (from Ancient times until the 19th century (Alexandra Aikhenvald, 2026), it would have been Latin, the literary and spoken language of the learned (Barry Wood, 2019). A reminder of that linguistic heritage is seen today in the Latinisation of scientific binomial names of species (Ronald Coleman) (such as Chlamydomonas urium**), and the plethora of scientific and medical terms that have been derived from Latin (e.g., here, here, Andrew Dunning, Rebecca Ramdeholl; Yuliia Lysanets & Olena Bieliaieva, 2018).

**** Even with an approximate age of up to 2,400 years, these miners’ sandals are not the oldest items of footwear found in Europe. The record – to date – goes to “22 pairs of woven grass sandals discovered in the cave [Spain’s Cueva de los Murciélagos (“cave of bats”)] are some 6,200 years old — and thus the oldest shoes ever found in Europe” (Kaleena Fraga). Interestingly, these artefacts  were also fashioned from esparto grass (Stipa tenacissima) (Francisco Martínez-Sevilla et al., 2023). It is therefore likely that use of this material for footwear is an unbroken practice from 21st century espadrilles (Heidi) to the 5th millennium BCE’s ‘bat cave sandals’.

With that long background and tradition, it’s little surprise to learn that the country’s ‘culture of esparto’ is one of the elements designated as a “Representative Manifestation of Intangible Cultural Heritage” (MRPCI) by Spain’s Ministry of Culture (which manages that nation’s “General Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage”) (more here, here, and here).

And, demonstrating some of the utility of esparto***** – i.e., it’s not used solely in footwear, there is evidence of its participation in the production of textiles. This evidence comes from presence of ropes made from esparto that were part of a wooden loom (Jason Crawford) for weaving cloth preserved by fire 3,500 years ago. No space for more on that story here, but see the interpretative article by Guillermo Carvajal, and the original scientific paper by Ricardo Basso et al. (2026).

***** Extending the utility of esparto, some of the other articles made from it include: “cord, for tying things and for weaving different types of basket, aguaderas or aguandangas (a vessel for supporting cántaros, i.e. 16-L round bottomed vessels), protection for jugs, demijhons [sic.] and bottles, and moulds for making cheese” (González & Amich, 2015); basket, beehive, belt, cheese mould, contraceptive (for sheep!), ferret basket, fishing net, hat, long rug, saddle, shepherd’s spoon, snail basket, stool, and muzzle (for mules) (Fajardo et al., 2015)…

REFERENCES

Ricardo E Basso et al., 2026. Evidence of a warp-weighted loom in the Bronze Age settlement of Cabezo Redondo (south-east Spain). Antiquity 100(411): 636-653; doi:10.15184/aqy.2026.10312

Ioan-Lucian Bolunduț, 2024. History of gold in antiquity. Mining Revue 30(1): 48-57; https://doi.org/10.2478/minrv-2024-0005

Mehdi El Bouchti et al., 2021. Stipa tenacissima L.: A new promising source of bioactive compounds with antioxidant and anticancer potentials. Life 11: 757; https://doi.org/10.3390/life11080757

Macarena Bustamante-Álvarez et al., 2026. Nuevos ejemplares de calzado en esparto en contexto minero. Excavaciones del sector “Nuevo Filón Norte 1” en Urium (Riotinto, Huelva). Pyrenae 57(2): 79-112; doi: 10.1344/Pyrenae2026.vol57num2.4

Jose Fajardo et al., 2015. Traditional craft techniques of esparto grass (Stipa tenacissima L.) in Spain. Econ Bot 69: 370–376; https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-015-9323-x

José Antonio González & Francisco Amich, 2015. Plants traditionally used for industrial and artisanal purposes in the Arribes Del Duero (Spain). Anales Del Jardin Botanico De Madrid 72(2): e025–e025; doi:10.3989/AJBM.2335

Raoul Kamadjeu, 2019. English: the lingua franca of scientific research. The Lancet Global Health, 7e1174; https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(19)30258-X

Yuliia V Lysanets & Olena M Bieliaieva, 2018. The use of Latin terminology in medical case reports: quantitative, structural, and thematic analysis. J Med Case Rep. 12(1): 45; doi: 10.1186/s13256-018-1562-x

Francisco Martínez-Sevilla et al., 2023. The earliest basketry in southern Europe: Hunter-gatherer and farmer plant-based technology in Cueva de los Murciélagos (Albuñol). Science Advances 9(39): eadi3055(2023); doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adi3055

Rogerio Meneghini & Abel L Packer, 2007. Is there science beyond English? Initiatives to increase the quality and visibility of non-English publications might help to break down language barriers in scientific communication. EMBO Rep. 8(2): 112-116; doi: 10.1038/sj.embor.7400906

María Esther Pérez-Pérez et al., 2024. Lipid turnover through lipophagy in the newly identified extremophilic green microalga Chlamydomonas urium. New Phytologist 243(1): 284-298; https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.19811

Minakshee Sarmah, 2023. Bischofia Javanica [sic.]: A potent medicinal plant. International Journal of Biomed Research 2(5): doi: 10.31579/2834-5029/030

Christine Tardy, 2004. The role of English in scientific communication: lingua franca or Tyrannosaurus rex? Journal of English for Academic Purposes 3(3): 247-269; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2003.10.001

Barry Wood, 2019. Latinus Scientificus: The history and culture of scientific Latin. Journal of Big History 3(2): 33-46; http://dx.doi.org/10.22339/jbh.v3i2.3230

Trending tickers: Exxon Mobil, Eli Lilly, Rio Tinto and Boohoo

Stocks had a mixed start to trading on Monday morning, amid intensified conflict in the Middle East, which…
#EuropeSays #Britain #Europe #EU #RioTinto #0.4% #ai #boohoogroup #Boohoo/DebenhamsGroup #DebenhamsGroup #EBITDA #ELILILLY #ExxonMobil #f #ftse #Insilico #InsilicoMedicine #Iran #MiddleEast #Monday #Mondaymorning #morning #nearly1% #nearly4% #Pilbara #Rio‌Tinto #Streeter #XOM
https://www.europesays.com/britain/116499/

Boorloo, Perth, Western Australia

Got confidence that the WA state government will put any limits on mining companies that are not ok with said mining companies?

Juukan Gorge rock shelters.
46,000 years of Aboriginal history.
Destroyed by Rio Tinto in explosions to make exportable iron ore.
May 2020.
All legal in WA.
Premiers:
Collin Barnett 2008-2017
Mike McGowan 2017-2023
Corporate stooges.
#JuukanGorge #RioTinto #WesternAustralia #CorporateCapture #ColinBarnett #MikeMcGowan #AusPol

This is an interesting article. Why? Because it goes beyond the normalized threadbare reporting we are subjected to from main stream media. And because the information imparted by the article is so… *refreshing* ?… due to its structure (the way it is written) and the information it reveals, both of which entice the reader to pay attention while reducing the temptation to *skim* the article — *skim reading* is a pathology thrust upon readers of social media platforms, it is highly infectious and to date there are no remedies (but maybe this article and the type of *journalism* it champions is the antidote).

The article **explains** (wooaah, that’s bold and inovative) that the #TomagoSmelter bail out isn’t, in fact, a run-of-the-mill govt *bail out*.

“…there is every chance that this arrangement will be cost-neutral over the decade, while at the same time turbocharging the energy transition and economic diversification of Australia’s most prominent industrial region.” That is the exiting part.

But there is a dependency and #RioTinto needs to stick to the commitment for a decade at least. “ For its part, Tomago has committed to investing a minimum of $1.1 billion in reducing energy usage and switching to renewables. Not only will closure be avoided, but there will be a value-add to the region.”

And that #Corporation has a track record : https://www.accr.org.au/news/rio-tinto-climate-hypocrisy-accr-to-disengage-following-revelation-of-lobbying-the-prime-minister-on-climate-trigger/

If it all works out as planned, this public funding/investment (not a bail out as such) will benefit all parties including the #HunterRegions and support the transition to #Renewables energy.

Read the article here: https://thepoint.com.au/opinions/260814-tomago-aluminium-deal-is-no-ordinary-bail-out

#ThisIsJournalism #NotThreadbareReporting #AusPol #Economics #PublicPurse #QuidProQuo #EnergyCosts #ElectricalEnergyContracts #GovtBailOut #Electrification #GreenEnergy #TransitioningToRenewables #GreenAluminium
#AustralianSmelters

Spain’s blood-red Río Tinto river is as acidic as vinegar, and Nasa says it could help scientists find life on Mars | World News

PC: David Santiago Garcia/Aurora Photos/Getty Images At first glance, the Río Tinto in southwestern Spain looks almost unreal.…
#Spain #ES #Europe #Europa #EU #acidicriver #Europeanmininghistory #extremophiles #geochemicalprocesses #lifedetectiontechnology #microbiallife #NASA #RíoTinto #Spanishgeology #vinegartherotinto
https://www.europesays.com/spain/67704/

Spain’s blood-red Río Tinto river is as acidic as vinegar, and Nasa says it could help scientists find life on Mars | World News https://www.byteseu.com/2258885/ #AcidicRiver #EuropeanMiningHistory #extremophiles #GeochemicalProcesses #LifeDetectionTechnology #MicrobialLife #NASA #RioTinto #Spain #SpanishGeology #VinegartheRoTinto

Good ol' #RioTinto. Building a dangerous #LithiumHydroxide plant near some of my ancestral lands (#Wolinak #Abenaki). They seem to have a pattern of polluting and destroying #IndigenousLands -- whether in #Canada, the #UnitedStates , #Australia, etc., etc.!

#RioTinto takes majority control of #Canada’s #Nemaska #Lithium

By Thomson Reuters Feb 18, 2026 | 8:35 AM

Feb 18 (Reuters) – "Rio Tinto said on Wednesday it has gained majority control of Canada’s Nemaska Lithium, advancing its push ​to build an integrated lithium business ‌in #Quebec.

"The Anglo-Australian miner now holds a 53.9% stake in the lithium producer and will assume direct management, while the Government of Quebec holds 46.1%.

"Rio ‌Tinto ​is seeking to establish ⁠a fully integrated lithium ⁠supply chain in Quebec, from mining raw ore to chemical processing, to supply the North American electric vehicle market.

"Rio Tinto and ​the eastern Canadian province, through its economic development agency Investissement Quebec, have been ⁠investing in Nemaska Lithium ⁠since March 2025.

"The partners will continue ​to fund the project, including the #LithiumHydroxide ​plant in #Becancour, with first production expected ‌in 2028, it added.

"Quebec will invest up to an additional $200 million in Nemaska Lithium through share subscriptions, the company said, on ⁠top of an investment of more than $300 million by Rio Tinto in 2026 to further develop its ⁠lithium sector ‌in the province.

"Through its acquisition ⁠of #Arcadium in March 2025, ​Rio Tinto ‌acquired a 50% interest in ​Nemaska Lithium, ⁠which includes the lithium hydroxide plant in Becancour, Quebec, and the #Whabouchi spodumene mine in the #EeyouIstchee #JamesBay region of Quebec."

https://kelo.com/2026/02/18/rio-tinto-takes-majority-control-of-canadas-nemaska-lithium/

#CanadaPol #LithiumMining #LithiumProcessing #EnvironmentalRacism #Pollution

I grandi fondi d’investimento abbandonano il tech e scommettono sui metalli
https://www.metallirari.com/grandi-fondi-investimento-abbandonano-tech-scommettono-metalli/
BlackRock, Fidelity e Regal Partners parlano di super-ciclo dei metalli. Tutto quello che c’è da sapere sulla grande scommessa sui metalli industriali
#MetalliRari #Superciclo #Mining2026 #Rame #Alluminio #ETFMinerari #HardAssets #BlackRock #RioTinto #BHP #CommoditySupercycle #InvestimentiMetalli #AIInfrastructure #EnergyTransition #CriticalMinerals #GeopoliticaEconomia #MercatiFinanziari #Copper

Happy (late) #InternationalWomensDay #IWD, love from #Australia. Q: Why does Australian Government have a women problem? A: Apparently it's called "Petromasculinity" #AusPol #feminism #AusVotes #Chevron #RioTinto #fossilfuels #climatesky

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:r2w7iqhngwiaopgkhmt7u63x/post/3l4x3wm7rou2u

Another churchly #ChildKiller retires behind smoke and mirrors: The Case of #JustinWelby.

Raping a child and protecting those who do is as Christian as crucifixion. So no doubt the world is emitting a big yawn today as Justin Welby resigns as #Archbishop of Canterbury after being caught covering for his sadistic child-torturing friend John Smyth.

After all, #Anglican and #Catholic clergy are required by their standing policy of #CrimenSollicitationas to do precisely what Welby did and protect #ChildRapists in their church.

In its typical facile, dissimulating manner, the media has treated Welby’s protection of the brutal child-rapist John Smyth as a one-time, episodic event. In fact, Archbishop Welby is himself a notorious repeat offender who has blood on his hands. The malfeasance of this former #oil company executive turned Anglican #cleric goes way back.

During the first accredited excavation of children’s #MassGraves at the murderous Anglican #Mohawk #ResidentialSchool in #Brantford, #Ontario during 2011, Archbishop Welby ordered all the school records and gravesites destroyed.

During the summer of 2014, Justin Welby was named as a co-conspirator in #ChildTrafficking and killing by a #Brussels based #CitizensTribunal and found guilty of #CrimesAgainstHumanity. Part of the evidence presented to the Tribunal concerned Welby’s participation in a #CatholicAnglican child sacrificial #cult known as the #NinthCircle that operated extensively in the #Canadian ‘Indian #ResidentialSchools and implicates British, Dutch, and Belgian ‘royalty’.

The complicity doesn’t end there. It involves the world’s second biggest #mining company and a close associate and funder of Donald #Trump: Rio Tinto, whose biggest investors include the British royal family. Justin Welby’s ties to #RioTinto Mining and to more murder cropped up in September of 2022, when Tinto and its Canadian subsidiary, #StarDiamondMining, dealt with some “troublesome Indians” on the James Smith #Cree reservation in eastern #Saskatchewan.

After refusing to allow Rio Tinto to begin diamond mining on their land, ten members of the James Smith tribe were #murdered in one night. The alleged killer was a drug addict and drifter who conveniently died in #RCMP custody the next day. Six of the ten murdered people were relatives of Rio Tinto’s biggest opponent among the James Smith Cree natives, Chief Wally Burns.

https://murderbydecree.com/2024/11/13/another-churchly-child-killer-retires-behind-smoke-and-mirrors-the-case-of-justin-welby/

#CanadianCrimes #TrueCrime #ChurchCrimes #ChildAbusers #CanadianConnection #CoverUp

O'odham Woman Becomes Hero When Genocide Joe Comes to Town

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Oct. 25, 2024

"In the #GilaRiver Indian Community today, Biden claimed to be issuing an apology to #NativeAmerican children who were victims of U.S. #BoardingSchools. His glory campaign was short-lived.

"As Biden spoke, an O'odham woman held up this sign: 'There Are Still Babies in Mass Graves. Your Apology Means Nothing!! #LandBack!'

"Calling out to Biden, she said, 'What about the people in #Gaza! What about the people in #Palestine?'

"'How can you apologize for a #genocide while actively committing a genocide in Palestine! #FreePalestine.'

"Security removed her."

Read more:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/10/oodham-woman-becomes-hero-when-genocide.html

#NoMiningWithoutConsent #TruthAndReconciliation #Hulapai #ProtectHaKamwe #ProtectThackerPass #SaveOakFlat #RioTinto #CulturalGenocide #DefendTheSacred #StolenChildren #MMIW #WhiteMesa #LosAlamos #BigMountain

The Silent Killers in #IndianCountry: #Copper, #Lithium, #Uranium and #Plutonium

Judge finds plutonium plants in #NewMexico and #SouthCarolina violated environmental laws

By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, Oct. 10, 2024

"The U.S. government's plan for increased plutonium production at #LosAlamos National Laboratory, in the heart of Pueblo lands in northern New Mexico, has been delayed by a federal judge.

"Continuing the U.S. legacy of poisoning Indian country with #radiation, this comes as the U.S. government is granting leases to foreign #mining companies targeting Native #sacred lands and communities.

"#CopperMining is targeting San CarlosApache's sacred #OakFlat; #Hualapai are suing the US Department of Interior to halt lithium mining at their sacred spring Ha'Kamwe'; and the U.S. government is promoting the ongoing digging into the #Paiute Massacre Site in northern Nevada for #lithium, in violation of all federal laws that protect Native religious and historic sites, the environment and endangered species.

"Uranium mining in the Grand Canyon threatens #Havasupai's aquifer, the haul route endangers everyone in the Four Corners region, and the uranium mill at White Mesa Ute in #Utah is poisoning #Utes.

"Interior Sec. #DebHaaland said in Farmington, N.M., that Los Alamos Labs would be the leader in the so-called '#GreenEnergy transition' in the #FourCorners region.

"More than 500 radioactive #UraniumMill sites remain on the #NavajoNation that have not been cleaned up by the U.S. #EPA, which deceives the public by announcing plans and promises to clean up the #ColdWar sites.

"In the current federal lawsuit, a federal judge in South Carolina ruled that U.S. energy officials illegally neglected to study impacts to the #environment in efforts to increase plutonium production for nuclear weapons in New Mexico and South Carolina.

"'South Carolina District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis sided with environmental, #AntiNuclear proliferation and community groups last week who sued the National Nuclear Security Administration (#NNSA), which oversees the nuclear weapons stockpile as part of the U.S. Department of Energy [#DOE],' reports Source New Mexico.

"The U.S. is investing billions into restarting the manufacture of #PlutoniumPits, the grapefruit-sized spheres developed for #nuclear weapons. The plutonium is produced from uranium.

"'The federal government halted its manufacturing program at the #RockyFlatsPlant in #Colorado in 1989 after an FBI raid due to safety concerns and #EnvironmentalCrimes,' Source New Mexico reports.

"The U.S. government's #AtomicBombTesting in #Nevada left a trail of cancer and death for #WesternShoshone. The documentary 'Downwind' reveals the truth.

"'This is a very serious issue and that's why I can't let it go. I can't move on. People say, 'oh, why don't you just let it go?' Because it's killing my family. It's killing my land. It's killing my people. And that will not stand. It's being done in secret. And killing Indians in secret will not stand,' said Ian Zabarte, Principal Man of the Western Bands of the #ShoshoneNation of Indians. Zabarte is featured in '#Downwind' about radiation poisoning from U.S. #NuclearTests.

"Currently, foreign companies -- which receive the profits and find it easy to avoid clean up and responsibility for #environmental crimes and deaths from #cancer -- are receiving the mining leases from the U.S. government. The leases are granted by the U.S. Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and in the case of #UraniumMining in the #GrandCanyon, it is the USDA's Forestry Service. #Biden's attorneys have joined the lawsuit with #RioTinto to devastate #OakFlat.

"Australian and Canadian mining corporations are devastating Native lands and communities, poisoning the water and causing widespread cancer.
Rio Tinto, targeting Apaches #OakFlat, is an Australian company which destroyed 46,000 years of #Aboriginal sacred history in caves in #Australia.

"Another Australian mining company is targeting #Hualapai's sacred site. It is #Hawstone / #ArizonaLithium, in Perth, Australia.

"#EnergyFuels, now uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, and operating the uranium mill at #WhiteMesaUte, is a Canadian company. Another Canadian company is digging into the #Paiute Massacre Site. It is #LithiumAmericas.
#Hopi judge #DianeHumetewa granted a temporary restraining order to halt the lithium mining at #Hualapai's sacred spring."

Read more:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-silent-killers-in-indian-country.html

#NoUraniumMining #CopperMining #LithiumMining #NoMiningWithoutConsent #EnvironmentalRacism #NoWar #NoNukes #NuclearWeapons #RecycleCopper #RecycleLithium #WaterIsLife #NuclearWaste #DefendTheSacred #WhiteMesaMill #Ute #AtomicBomb #CulturalGenocide #Genocide #FirstNations #NativeAmericanNews #SuperfundSites #ToxicWaste #SaveOakFlat #OpenPitMining #Pollution #ReaderSupportedNews

Federal Judge #DianeHumetewa, #Hopi, is First to Halt Interior Sec. #DebHaaland's #Lithium Drilling Permits in #Native #Ceremonial Places

By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, Sept. 18, 2024

"Federal Judge Diane Humetewa, Hopi, is the first federal judge to halt the lithium permits being given out by Interior Sec. Deb Haaland. Humetewa granted a temporary restraining order halting an Australian company's lithium drilling at #Hualapai's Sacred Spring.

"Now, U.S. District Judge Humetewa will rule on whether to make it permanent. Humetewa is the first to ask attorneys to submit arguments concerning the federal laws that protect historic and archaeological sites and the environment.

"Judge Humetewa gave lawyers on both sides until next Tuesday to summarize their arguments and more specifically respond to questions she asked about the government’s compliance with the #NationalHistoricPreservationAct and the #NationalEnvironmentalPolicyAct.

"#Biden's Justice Dept attorneys joined the drillers in court to argue for the drilling to proceed. And the #NavajoTransitionalEnergyCompany, a tribal enterprise in Farmington, NM, plans to do the drilling. CEO #VernLund has joined the board of the Australian-owned company #Hawkstone / #ArizonaLithium of Perth, Australia.

"In a separate case, the #TohonoOodham and #SanCarlosApache have filed a lawsuit against Interior Sec. Haaland for the bulldozers now destroying ancient village sites, #burial places and #MedicineGrounds in southern #Arizona. A Tucson federal judge refused to halt the destruction by the #SunZia Transmission Lines, for a wind energy project that plans to take electricity from New Mexico to California. The wind energy company, #PattenEnergy, is owned by the #CanadianPensionFund.

"The lithium drilling continues at the #Paiute Massacre Site in northern Nevada by the Canadian-owned #LithiumAmericas / #LithiumNevada. #Paiute and #Shoshone elderly and mothers have been charged in a court case for defending the grounds where their ancestors remain. #Haaland said she supports the #LithiumMining.

"#ApacheStronghold filed a case before the U.S. #SupremeCourt [#SCOTUS] this week, to halt the planned destruction of their ceremonial place, #OakFlat in Arizona, targeted for a massive copper mine by Australia's #RioTinto and #BHP, and pushed by the Biden administration. Rio Tinto already blew up 46,000 years of sacred #Aboriginal teachings in caves in #Australia. Rio Tinto was forced to admit widespread sexual attacks in its mines, with the highest number in Australia and #SouthAfrica."

Source:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/09/federal-judge-humetewa-hopi-is-first-to.html

#DefendTheSacred #ReaderSupportedNews #NoMiningWithoutConsent #NoLithiumMining #EnvironmentalRacism #environment #Greenwashing #EVs #WaterIsLife #NoLithiumMiningWithoutConsent #HumanRights #WaterIsLife #HumanRightsDefenders #IndigenousActivists #CorporateColonialism #SaveOakFlat
#CulturalGenocide #EnvironmentalRacism #ExtractiveMining

Want to help support #ApacheStronghold's #PrayerJourney to the #SupremeCourt? Donate to their #GoFundMe #fundraiser!

Support #ApacheStronghold Prayer Journey to Supreme Court

"Apache Stronghold, San Carlos, Arizona, is a 501(c)3 nonprofit community organization of individuals who come together in unity to battle continued colonization, defend Holy sites and freedom of religion. We are currently in a battle to #SaveOakFlat from destruction by #ResolutionCopper (#BHP & #RioTinto). Chi’chil Biłdagoteel (also known as Oak Flat) is a sacred site for our Apache people and many other #NativeAmericans. This is a place that has special significance— a place where we pray, collect water and medicinal plants for ceremonies, gather acorns and other foods, and honor those that are buried here.

"We received the response from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Our request to be heard by the full 29-judge panel was denied, none of the judges requesting a vote for rehearing. The Court amended its decision to discuss a previous Supreme Court decision that hadn’t been considered, and the 9th Circuit’s decision on the case remained closely divided, 6 to 5, with five dissenting judges and over 240 pages of opinions. We have now completed the 9th Circuit appeal, and the next step is petitioning to be heard by the Supreme Court. I want to thank everyone for your endless support and prayers. I know capitalism had began as far back as when trade began. For over 500 hundred years, we #IndigenousPeople of America, have suffered equally to the rest of the world. What had started in the beginning between good and evil will again face each other. One, to protect the greatest gift god gave the world or the other.,to destroy every human life and the spirit that #MotherEarth gives birth to. The question is, where will you stand in this moment? We will all be judged. Blessings to all.

SUPPORTING APACHE STRONGHOLD AT THE U.S. SUPREME COURT

"Apache Stronghold is grateful for the outpouring of support for our efforts to protect Oak Flat. As our case heads to the Supreme Court, one way to support Apache Stronghold is for interested organizations to file an amicus brief (also called a friend-of-the-court brief) at the Supreme Court.

"The Prayer Journey to Supreme Court [began] July 12 beginning in Seattle, then to #ThackerPass, California, West coast, Arizona, New Mexico, .........and onwards toward Washington DC. This prayer journey will a couple months and visits many supporting organizations, Tribes, churches, religious sites and people for prayers as we cross this Country. The Supreme Court filing is set for September 11, 2024. Apache Stronghold vs United States."

Donate:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/stand-with-apache-stronghold-protect-sacred-sites

More info:
http://www.apache-stronghold.com

#SCOTUS #ProtectOakFlat #DefendTheSacred #SanCarlosApache #ChichilBildagoteel #CopperMine #ProtectOakFlat
#ProtectTheSacred #DefendTheSacred
#IndigenousActivism
#SaveOakFlat #WaterIsLife #SacredSite #CopperMining
#RecycleCopper #NoMiningWithoutConsent
#CulturalGenocide
#Ecocide #NativeAmericanNews
#CorporateColonialism
#WashingtonDC
#PrayerRide #PeacefulProtest
#FightForReligiousRights

#ApacheStronghold's #PrayerJourney to the #SupremeCourt [#SCOTUS] to Stop the Shattering of Human Existence and Protect #MotherEarth.

Join Apache Stronghold on Prayer Journey to Supreme Court: Sept. 8 -- Sept. 11, 2024 in DC Area

On the Journey to the Supreme Court

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/09/join-apache-stronghold-on-prayer.html

#PeeHeeMuhuh #NoCopperMiningWithoutConsent #IndigenousPeoples #IndigenousNews #RioTinto CopperMine #BHP #Apache #NDAA #BigMountain #CulturalGenocide #Genocide #Arizona #ChichilBildagoteel #RioTinto #CopperMine #SanCarlosApache #Arizona #ProtectOakFlat #protectthesacred #DefendTheSacred #IndigenousActivism #SaveOakFlat #WaterIsLife #SacredSite #CopperMining #RecycleCopper #MiningWithoutConsent #ProtectTheSacred #CulturalGenocide #Ecocide #NativeAmericanNews #Greenwashing #NoMiningWithoutConsent #CorporateColonialism #WashingtonDC #PrayerRide #PeacefulProtest #FightForReligiousRights

#ApacheStronghold #PrayerJourney to #SupremeCourt: Oak Flat Mirrors National Struggle for Sacred

By Apache Stronghold, #CensoredNews, August 30, 2024

"On July 11th, 2024, the Apache Stronghold started the journey of prayer to the Supreme Court to stop the shattering of human existence and to protect #MotherEarth. We have traveled, held ceremonies and gathered prayers from Tribes, Communities, Churches, and people in support of saving Oak Flat and religious freedom and protections for all. We began in the Northwest, West Coast, South, Mid- west to the East to gather in Washington DC at the Supreme Court on September 11.

"We are appealing a lower court ruling that would have allowed the total destruction of Oak Flat by allowing the land to be transferred to #ResolutionCopper, a foreign owned company, owned by #BHP and #RioTinto.
We will appeal Apache Stronghold v. United States to the U.S. Supreme Court on September 11. The case involves the federal government’s planned destruction of Oak Flat—known in Apache as Chi'chil Biłdagoteel —a sacred site where Western Apaches and other Native peoples have worshipped since time immemorial. Oak Flat is the birthplace of our religion and the site of sacred ceremonies that cannot take place anywhere else.

"The United States is now planning to transfer ownership of Oak Flat to Resolution Copper, a foreign- owned mining company that plans to destroy it. Resolution’s mine will swallow Oak Flat in a two-mile- wide, 1,100-foot-deep crater, ending Apache religious practices forever.

"Our lawsuit challenges the destruction of Oak Flat as a violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (#RFRA), #TheUSConstitution, and the #1852Treaty with the #WesternApaches. In March, the sharply divided Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, by a 6-5 vote, ruled that the obliteration of Oak Flat does not amount to a 'substantial burden' on our religious exercise and that the Constitution and federal civil rights laws do not apply to the government’s disposition of 'its own land.'

"In September, we will ask the Supreme Court to correct this ruling and hold that federal law protects Oak Flat. The stakes could not be any higher. If the Ninth Circuit’s ruling is allowed to stand, the United States will be allowed to destroy Oak
Flat and any other sacred site with impunity. If the Supreme Court rules in our favor, it will ensure that #NativeAmericans receive the same protection for our religious freedom that all other religious groups across the country already enjoy. A decision in the case is expected in 2025.

"Dr. Wendsler Nosie Sr. explained, 'what saddens me, what I have witnessed going through #reservations, towns, sitting with and discussing with many people across this country, is seeing that when it comes to the #environment, it’s not being protected. When we talked about water or land, it not only affects Oak Flats but many places have been affected by Acts of Congress, the cities are no different. The United States does not protect the environment by bypassing the laws that they enacted, I have seen devastation across this country, the government pursuing unproven endeavors overlooking it’s peoples essential liberties. We need to come together on this court case, our spirituality and the survival of the earth are at stake, the suffering of the people is what we are bringing to the Supreme court.
This is an invitation to participate in the Apache Stronghold’s #DayOfPrayer on September 11, 2024, at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C."

Source:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/08/apache-stronghold-prayer-journey-to.html

FMI:
http://www.apache-stronghold.com/

#SCOTUS #SaveOakFlat #SanCarlosApache #Arizona #ProtectOakFlat #DefendTheSacred #IndigenousActivism #WaterIsLife #SacredSites #RecycleCopper #MiningWithoutConsent #ProtectTheSacred #CulturalGenocide #Ecocide #NativeAmericanNews #IndigenousActivism #NoMiningWithoutConsent #CorporateColonialism #ChichilBiłdagoteel #RespectTheTreaties

#LisjanNation Welcome #ApacheStronghold, on the #PrayerJourney to the #SupremeCourt

By Báásé Pike, Photos by Molly Peters, #CensoredNews, August 12, 2024

CONFEDERATED VILLAGES of LISJAN NATION -- "On August 8th, the Apache Stronghold gathered with the Confederated Villages of #Lisjan Nation for prayers. We were welcomed with open arms to the sacred site of the Lisjan people. Corrina Gould, the leader of the Confederated Villages of Lisjan Nation spoke about the history of the site.

"'It was heartbreaking to learn their #SacredSite was one of the oldest village and ancestral burial sites that was taken over for #CorporateGreed. After many years the people took their sacred land back through a legal battle and purchasing.

"'Throughout this journey, we are reminded of the system that only cares for #colonists’ profits first. Their land was taken forcefully and then made them, the #IndigenousPeople people buy the land that was once their home. This is what the fight is about.

“'As #IndigenousPeople, we know through our history and culture that there is a spiritual connection to the land but this is what the United States wants us to prove in court. However, this case scares the U.S. because they’ll have to answer the question about spirituality. This case makes the United States confront the wrongdoing of the Indigenous people and all people.'

"So, we ask you to please keep us in your prayers as we continue our prayer journey to the #SupremeCourt to stop the shattering of the human existence and to protect #MotherEarth."

Read more:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/08/lisjan-welcome-apache-stronghold-on.html

#RioTinto #BHP #CopperMine #CopperMining #NDAA #CulturalGenocide #Genocide #Arizona #ChichilBildagoteel #SanCarlosApache #Arizona #ProtectOakFlat #DefendTheSacred #IndigenousActivism #SCOTUS #SaveOakFlat
#WaterIsLife #SacredSite #RecycleCopper #MiningWithoutConsent
#ProtectTheSacred #CulturalGenocide #Ecocide #NativeAmericanNews
#IndigenousNews
#Greenwashing #NoMiningWithoutConsent #CorporateColonialism #ReaderSupportedNews

[Photos] #PrayerHorseRide to Peehee Mu'huh

Nanesootuhina Pookoo Goobakatudu

#CensoredNews, March 28, 2024
Photos by Melissa Robles-Dyer

Peehee Mu'huh (#ThackerPass) -- "The Prayer Horse Ride, March 17-26, began in Schurz on its jouney to Peehee Mu’huh, Thacker Pass. The ride is in the traditional, ancestral and #unceded lands of the #Paiute, #Shoshone and #Bannock.

"'We do this prayer ride to reconnect our way of life,' said #JoshDiniSr., #WalkerRiverPaiute, #WaterProtector and #PrayerHorseRider.

"The Prayer Horse Ride is to raise awareness about #LithiumMining in #McDermittCaldera, and also #CopperMining in the #PineNutHills, in remembrance of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women/People (#MMIW / #MMIP). Riders are revitalizing cultural identity, languages and lifeways in #Indigenous communities."

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/03/prayer-horse-ride-to-peehee-muhuh.html

#ProtectThackerPass #IndigenousActivism #IndigenousPeoples #PeeheeMuhuh #NoLithiumMining #EnvironmentalRacism #RecycleElectronics #RecycleLithium #LandBack #TraditionalLands #LithiumNevada #LithiumAmerica #RioTinto #CorporateColonialism

The massive #CopperMine that could test the limits of religious freedom

Story by Taylar Dawn Stagner

"Earlier this month, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to stop the construction of a copper mine in #Arizona on land sacred to the #SanCarlosApache Tribe as well as other Indigenous nations. Chí’chil Biłdagoteel, also known as #OakFlat, sits atop the third largest copper deposit on the planet and is essential to green energy projects. The operation, which will be run by #ResolutionCopper, a subsidiary of mining companies #RioTinto and #BHP, will leave a crater nearly 1,000 feet deep and 2 miles wide.

"'Oak Flat is like #MountSinai to us — our most sacred site where we connect with our Creator, our faith, our families and our land,' said Wendsler Noise of #ApacheStronghold, a nonprofit fighting to protect the area. 'We vow to appeal to the Supreme Court.'

"Over the years, Oak Flat has developed a storied history. In 2014, Oak Flat was a part of a #MilitarySpending bill that would allow the government to 'swap' the area with other land in Arizona. In 2016, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in an attempt to protect it, and in 2021 the Apache Stronghold sued the government, arguing that the land was reserved for the #WesternApaches in an 1852 treaty. Then, in 2023, #Apache Stronghold made the case that the land transfer would keep them from exercising their religion. The court disagreed.

"The issue before the court illustrates a battle between religion, #IndigenousRights, and potential solutions to the climate crisis. For tribal nations like the San Carlos Apache who practice what are known as 'land-based religions' — #ceremonial practices that are inextricably tied to areas Indigenous peoples have relationships with — preserving those lands with religious significance is paramount to the survival, and transmission, of both culture and values to the next generation.

"But for developers, the proposed mine would support a few thousand jobs for the surrounding community, inject $61 billion into the local economy, and provide a critical supply of copper for everything from electric vehicles to energy storage systems. By 2031, the world will need almost 37 million metric tons of copper to continue the process of green-energy electrification. Resolution Copper said that Oak Flat could provide a quarter of U.S. copper production.

"At the heart of Apache Stronghold’s legal case is something called 'substantial burden' — there must be proof that the government has interfered with an individual’s right to practice their religious beliefs. Substantial burden protects U.S. citizens from government interference, unless the government has a really good reason. That means Apache Stronghold’s claim needs to be justified with a high level of scrutiny. "

Read more:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-massive-copper-mine-that-could-test-the-limits-of-religious-freedom/ar-BB1k8Vhn

#SaveOakFlat #RecycleCopper #NoCopperMiningOnSacredLand #CulturalGenocide #LandBack #RespectTheTreaties

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#alumineries #PolQc

#LAutJournal

https://lautjournal.info/20230106/la-spirale-infernale-de-lindustrie-de-laluminium