Archaeology News for the Week of August 7th, 2011

December 2011, Daily News

Sat, Aug 06, 2011

August 13th, 2011

Irish prehistoric bog body may have been sacrifice victim

Human remains found in an Irish bog could be up to 3,000 years old, according to archaeologists. The body, thought to be that of a woman, was discovered by the driver of a turf-milling machine in the bog near Portlaoise in the Midlands on Wednesday. Parts of the body, including the head and torso which had been enclosed in a leather bag, did not survive, but the legs had been preserved by the chemicals in the peat. (BBC News)

Archaeologists Uncover Secrets Of Irish Immigrants

Last year, archaeologists discovered a world of hard work, simple toys and shanty structures in the ground in Lowell. This year, they're expanding their search in the hope of gaining more insight into the world of some of Massachusetts' first Irish settlers. (The Boston Channel)

Oxford Viking massacre revealed by skeleton find

Evidence of a brutal massacre of Vikings in Oxford 1100 years ago has been uncovered by archaeologists. At least 35 skeletons, all males aged 16 to 25 were discovered in 2008 at St John's College, Oxford. Analysis of wound marks on the bones now suggests they had been subjected to violence. Archaeologists analysing the find believe it dates from 1002 AD when King Ethelred the Unready ordered a massacre of all Danes (Vikings) in England. (BBC News)

Possible slave quarters found at William and Mary

Archaeologists at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg have uncovered the brick foundations of a Colonial-era structure that may have housed slaves who cooked and cleaned for students and faculty. (The Washington Post)

More Native American remains found in Oak Harbor; count rises to 11

State experts have identified the remains of at least seven more Native Americans under SE Pioneer Way in Oak Harbor. Allyson Brooks, director for the state Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, confirmed late Thursday that the remains were discovered over the past two days by members of the city's hired archaeological firm. (SeattlePI)

August 12th, 2011

Chimps, Humans Share a Key Evolutionary Development, Study Says

There is something a little more human-like about the appearance of an infant chimpanzee as compared to its fully grown counterpart. A new study shows that there is even more to that beneath the surface. It confirms that infant chimpanzees, much like infant humans, are born with immature forebrains, otherwise scientifically known as the prefrontal cortex, allowing for the time and plasticity needed to develop the more complex social functions, knowledge and skills that distinguish humans and chimpanzees from other primates and life-forms. It also suggests that the condition existed in a common ancestor of both humans and chimpanzees before they theoretically split apart some 6 - 7 million years ago in the evolutionary bush. (Popular Archaeology)

Salme Yields Evidence of Oldest Sailing Ship in Baltic Sea

The ancient ship burial site in Salme on the island of Saaremaa still has some surprises in store. The archeological excavations in Salme, soon to be completed, have yielded evidence that the ship that had been buried with 35 warriors and nobles had a keel, which in turn leads to the conclusion that it used sails. This represents the earliest known use of sails on a vessel in the Baltic Sea region, reported ETV. (ERR News)

Stone Age toe could redraw human family tree

ON THE western fringes of Siberia, the Stone Age Denisova cave has surrendered precious treasure: a toe bone that could shed light on early humans' promiscuous relations with their hominin cousins. New Scientist has learned that the bone is now in the care of Svante Pääbo at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who revealed the first genetic evidence of interbreeding between ancient humans and other hominins. (New Scientist)

Iron Age people gave interiors of dwellings a decorative streak

Archaeologists in Saxony-Anhalt have discovered a 2,600-year-old wall painted in bright patterns. It reveals that Iron Age houses were not the drab constructions they were once thought to be. (The Local, Germany's News in English)

Remains found on building site believed to be those of patron saint

ARCHAEOLOGISTS believe they may have found the remains of Bicester's patron saint, St Edburg, underneath a former block of flats. The team believe it could be the first time in the country the bones of a saint have been found.(Bicester Advertiser)

Roman child's remains dug up in Dorchester

THE buried remains of a Roman child have been uncovered during the construction of the Charles Street development in Dorchester. Stone foundations of Roman houses, painted wall plaster and coins have also been found. (Dorset Echo)

Bat tombs a treasure trove of history

Among the recent discoveries at Bat, the ancient civilisation site, another major find are new honey comb tombs. The Ministry of Heritage and Culture of the Sultanate, in collaboration with archaeologists, began exploration work at the site in the year 1973 and the research work continues till date. Excavation is going on in the area to find out more about the archaeological sites and the Omani traditional civilisation. (Times of Oman)

Vladimir Putin does underwater archaeology

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has donned a wetsuit in his latest attempt to enhance his action man image. He's been scuba diving at the bottom of the Black Sea to collect ancient artefacts. Back on dry land, Putin visited an archaeological site where excavations are talking place on the ancient town of Fanagoria (3news.co.nz)

Civil War Artifact Found In Gettysburg Tree

An artifact from the Civil War battle of Gettysburg is seeing daylight for the first time in 148 years. When workers began cutting up a tree on Culps Hill, they found a white mark inside the trunk. (8WGAL.com)

August 11th, 2011

Taking the measure of a hobbit

There’s just no getting ahead when you’re a hobbit. Anthropologists are arguing yet again over whether a tiny 18,000-year-old Indonesian skull represents a separate species of little human cousins, or an ordinary Homo sapiens with an abnormally small head. New data compare the fossil to a large group of modern humans with microcephaly, a genetic condition that makes the head smaller than usual. Measurements of the hobbit skull suggest its proportions fall within the range of microcephalic Homo sapiens, researchers report August 8 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Science News)

Archaeologists Uncover 25,000-year-old Pendant in Spain

A pendant some 25,000 years old has been found in the Irikaitz dig in northern Spain's Basque region by archaeologists from the Sociedad Aranzadi. (Fox News Latino)

Mammoth find in Scott County intrigues researchers

A man doing terrace work for a Scott County farmer unearthed a large find — bones from a mammoth that could date back to the earliest New World civilization. It is the latest of several discoveries over the decades that have included the fossils of giant mammoths, the extinct, prehistoric cousin to the elephant that once roamed the region during the Ice Age.(The Garden City Telegram)

Tyre tries to defend World Heritage status

Tyre's heritage isn't just known by locals, as the presence of foreign tourists suggests. It is, in fact, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But recently, reports have emerged that the ancient sites of the city once visited by Herodotus are in danger due to, among other factors, a lack of conservation. It's been said UNESCO is considering revoking the city's valued status. (The Daily Star)

Marco Polo 'never went to China and picked up tales of the Orient from other travellers'

Marco Polo, one of history's greatest explorers, may in fact have been a conman, it was claimed yesterday. Far from being a trader who spent years in China and the Far East, he probably never went further east than the Black Sea, according to a team of archaeologists. They suspect the Venetian adventurer picked up stories about the mysterious lands of the Orient from fellow traders around the Black Sea who related tales of China, Japan and the Mongol Empire in the 13th century. (DailyMail.co.uk)

Archaeology dig seeks clues to Nebraska's prehistoric past

Matt Marvin and Steve Sarich are digging and sifting. Marvin is using a shovel to remove dirt from their excavation site, a half centimeter at a time. Sarich is carefully sifting the dirt through a screen. They're standing amidst grass, weeds and dead reeds, fighting flies, ticks and sometimes 100 degree heat in the middle of the drained Hugh Butler Lake, north of McCook. There's no Indiana Jones glamour in this real archaeology world. (KVNO News)

Pontefract dig uncovers English Civil War 'casualties'

Archaeologists working on the site of a former hospital in West Yorkshire have uncovered human remains thought to date back to the English Civil War. The bones, including a hip bone and parts of a skull, were dug up in the grounds of the old Pontefract General Infirmary, currently being demolished. The remains are believed to be of civilian casualties from the third siege of Pontefract in 1648. (BBC News)

August 10th, 2011

Archaeologists uncover 3,000-year-old lion adorning citadel gate complex in Turkey

Archaeologists leading the University of Toronto's Tayinat Archaeological Project in southeastern Turkey have unearthed the remains of a monumental gate complex adorned with stone sculptures, including a magnificently carved lion. The gate complex provided access to the citadel of Kunulua, capital of the Neo-Hittite Kingdom of Patina (ca. 950-725 BCE), and is reminiscent of the citadel gate excavated by British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley in 1911 at the royal Hittite city of Carchemish.The Tayinat find provides valuable new insight into the innovative character and cultural sophistication of the diminutive Iron Age states that emerged in the eastern Mediterranean following the collapse of the great civilized powers of the Bronze Age at the end of second millennium BCE. (EurekAlert!)

Roman ruins found in Naqoura - South Lebanon

Early Roman ruins have been discovered along a main road in the Tyre area, causing the road to be partially closed while excavations continue ,the find is significant, because of the scale of the ruins, which consist so far of five Byzantine marble tombs, and the fact they were found largely intact. "This is the first such discovery this year, and the most important Byzantine ruins found in the area in the past five years," said Nader Saqlawi, who is leading the excavation. (Saida Online)

Stamping out the illicit trade in cultural artifacts

The allegations could have come straight out of an Indiana Jones movie. Three art dealers and a collector have been accused of running an antiquities smuggling ring that illegally shipped Egyptian treasures, including Egyptian sarcophagi, funerary boats and limestone figures over 2,000 years old, to the United States. The relics arrived stateside in innocuous freight boxes, labeled "antiques" and "wooden panels," in order to escape scrutiny. (guardian.co.uk)

Anthropologist believes he has found B.C. village that may be 10,000 years old

When Farid Rahemtulla and his anthropology students began to dig in the forest floor on Calvert Island, he pretty much knew what to expect – lots of clam and mussel shells. But shortly after the team from the University of Northern British Columbia started to sink pits into a shell midden (refuse dump) on the Central Coast, he realized it was much bigger than anyone imagined – so large he now believes it is part of a long-lost, ancient village called Luxvbalis. (The Globe and Mail)

Ancient Graves Reveal When Elderly Gained Power

It's not easy to study the elderly in a society where life was all too often cut short by disease, childbirth and injuries. But new research on people living in the Bronze Age suggests the elderly began to gain power over a 600-year period in Austria. The findings rely on skeletal aging and a comparison of objects placed in graves of individuals of different ages. As time passed in the small farming hamlets of lower Austria, researchers reported online July 15 in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology, older men began to be buried with copper axes, a privilege not granted to younger men. (LiveScience)

Ancient Egypt was destroyed by drought, discover Scottish experts

THEY built the iconic pyramids and the Great Sphinx of Giza, which still stand as a monument to their skills and tenacity to this day. But the fall of the great Egyptian Old Kingdom may have been helped along by a common problem which remains with us now - drought. Researchers from the University of St Andrews have confirmed that a severe period of drought around 4,200 years ago may have contributed to the demise of the civilisation. (News.scotsman.com)

August 9th, 2011

Roman dead baby 'brothel' mystery deepens

New research has cast doubt on the theory that 97 infants were killed at a Roman brothel in Buckinghamshire. In 2008, the remains of the newborn babies were rediscovered packed in cigarette cases in a dusty museum storeroom by Dr Jill Eyers from Chiltern Archaeology. They were excavated from the remains of a lavish Roman villa complex in Buckinghamshire almost 100 years earlier, but had remained hidden ever since. The story caught the attention of the world's press last year as Dr Eyers suggested that the villa was operating as a brothel and its occupants committing infanticide to dispose of unwanted offspring. (BBC News)

Two rare archaeological artifacts found in Jerusalem dig

Israel's Antiquities Authority announced Monday that a rare Roman sword in its leather scabbard which belonged to a Roman soldier and an engraving of a Menorah on a piece of stone dating from 66 CE were found in recent days in the 2000 year old drainage system in Jerusalem which ran between the City of David and the Jerusalem Archaeological Garden. Professor Ronny Reich told CNN that the sword probably belonged to a Roman infantryman stationed in Jerusalem during the Great Revolt (66 CE). (CNN World)

Remains of Ancient Palace Discovered

Hidden beneath an ancient palace in what is now central Sudan, archaeologists have discovered the oldest building in the city of Meroë, a structure that also may have housed royalty. The capital of a vast empire that flourished around 2,000 years ago, Meroë was centered on the Nile River. At its height, the city was controlled by a dynasty of kings who ruled about 900 miles (1,500 kilometers) of territory that stretched from southern Egypt to areas south of modern-day Khartoum. (Live Science)

Quarry site for the Ho Citadel discovered

Archaeologists working in north Vietnam have discovered the stone quarry most probably used to provide the construction material for the Ho Citadel, which was inscribed as a World Heritage Site earlier this year. (SEAArch)

Archaeologists uncover two major monuments at Karnak Temple

French-Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed two major monuments while working at the Karnak Temple in Luxor. The first is the wall that once enclosed the New Kingdom temple of the god Petah and the second is a gate dated back to the reign of 25th dynasty King Shabaka (712-698 BC), reports the Palestine Telegraph. (Newstrack India)

August 8th, 2011

Crocodile sculpture found in Vishwamitri

Workers cleaning up the banks of Vishwamitri river here have stumbled upon a giant sculpture of crocodile, a councillor has claimed, adding he was told by MSU students that it could be as old as 248 years. On Friday, BJP councillor Ashok Pawar, who is involved in cleaning up the banks of Vishwamitri, was informed by workers that they had come across a big sculpture of crocodile while cleaning the steps of a Shiva temple at the river ghat.(IndianExpress.com)

Ancient stone chamber unearthed in garden

An ancient underground chamber which could date back 2,000 years has been unearthed near Clonmany in Inishowen. Discovered by Clonmany man Sean Devlin, the previously unrecorded structure appears to be an underground tunnel or souterrain. Mr Devlin revealed yesterday that he first discovered the underground chamber several years ago while landscaping his front garden, but didn't make much of a fuss about his amazing find at the time. The historic significance of the tunnel only became apparent recently after Mr Devlin showed it to amateur archaeologist friends. (Derry Journal)

Maryland Archaeologists Unearth The Past In Prince George's County

In the shallows of the Patuxent River near Upper Marlboro is the site of Maryland's largest artifacts from the War of 1812. "It is very interesting that we found it here in the heart of the Patuxent in the heart of Maryland. There are probably other vessels nearby," said archaeologist Susan Langley. (CBS Baltimore)

Rare Nguyen Dynasty bronze seal found in Ha Tinh Province

Experts from Ha Tinh Museum in the north central coastal province of Ha Tinh yesterday unearthed a rare antique bronze seal sculpture from Tung Anh commune in Duc Tho District of the province. The bronze seal sculpture lay embedded in a pottery jar, buried around 2 meters under the ground. (SEAArch)

Wreck of Capt. Morgan's Pirate Ship Found, Archaeologists Say

The lost wreckage of a ship belonging to 17th century pirate Captain Henry Morgan has been discovered in Panama, said a team of U.S. archaeologists -- and the maker of Captain Morgan rum. Near the Lajas Reef, where Morgan lost five ships in 1671 including his flagship "Satisfaction," the team uncovered a portion of the starboard side of a wooden ship's hull and a series of unopened cargo boxes and chests encrusted in coral. (FoxNews.com)

August 7th

Archaeologists uncovering the secrets of Fort Harmony

In the center of a green valley beneath the towering red pinnacles of Kolob Canyons, BYU archaeologist Richard Talbot and his crew paused from their excavation work, gazed around them at the stunning panorama, and reverently contemplated the lifestyle and commitment of the Latter-day Saint pioneers who built Fort Harmony in 1854. From 1854 to 1862 at this spot, hundreds of Mormon pioneers lived, labored, worshiped and died.( Deseret News)

Water pipe evaluation leads to Pinhoe Iron Age remains

An ancient Iron Age settlement has been uncovered by archaeologists working for South West Water in Devon. It was found during an archaeological evaluation of the route of a new water mains between Beacon Hill reservoir, near Exeter, and the town of Cranbrook (BBC News)

Underwater dig finds 13th century mill

AN underwater archaeological dig has uncovered further remains of a 13th century cloth mill high up in the Cheviots. Members of Coquetdale Community Archaeology (CCA) finished a grueling 10-day dig exploring the remains of a medieval fulling mill on the River Coquet near Barrowburn on Sunday. Records maintained by the monks at Newminster Abbey in Morpeth showed they had built a mill along this stretch of river, and last summer masonry blocks were found in the bank, along with some timber remains. Carbon dating on these showed that they were around 800 years old. (The Berwick Advertiser)

Whirlow dig reveals rare insight into city’s Roman past

IMPORTANT new evidence of Roman Sheffield has been uncovered at a summer dig just completed by archaeologists at a farm on the edge of the city. Experts planning the excavations at Whirlow Hall Farm expected to find evidence of an Iron Age or Romano-British farmstead. But the work carried out with the help of over 100 volunteers has revealed a far larger settlement - providing a rare insight into a little-understood period of the city’s history. (Sheffield Telegraph)

Roman civilization travelled further than history books tell us

The discovery of a large Roman Settlement in Devon was the result of a chance metal detecting coin find. Danielle Wootton, the Finds Liaison Officer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) and archaeologist at the University of Exeter was called on to investigate further. Two metal detectorists discovered nearly a hundred Roman coins in a series of fields a several miles west of Exeter. This would not be unusual in other parts of Britain but it has always been thought that Roman influence never made it this far into Devon as there is little evidence of Romans in the South West Peninsula of Britain. (PhysOrg.com)

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