December 31st, 2013
10 Coolest Archaeology Discoveries of 2013
Archaeologists dig through the faint traces of the past to learn more about human history. And 2013 was a big year for new archaeology finds. From royal tombs to the mysterious vanished inhabitants of Europe, here are some of the strangest and most exciting archaeology finds of the year. (Live Science)
Violent death in the bogs of Ireland
The headless body of Old Croghan Man was found preserved in the bog in 2003. He had died sometime between 362BC and 175BC. Slideshow (BBC News)
New Theory: Hunter-Gatherers Domesticated Dogs From Gray Wolves
Man’s best friends may have started off as European gray wolves, according to scientists whose research is challenging earlier thinking around where and why dogs became domestic animals. The finding, detailed in this week’s issue of the journal Science, challenges past research that had placed dog domestication in East Asia or the Middle East and that had linked the phenomena to the rise of agriculture. (National Geographic)
Massacre in the Well – A 1200 Year Old Murder Mystery
French archaeologists recently completed five months of excavations at the town of Entrains-sur-Nohain in Burgundy as part of a private development in the area. What they did not expect to find in this routine excavation of a Gallo-Roman site was the remains of a mass grave – witness to the massacre of a civilian population from over 1000 years ago. (Past Horizons)
Centuries Before China’s ‘Great Wall,’ There Was Another
The Great Wall of China, built more than 2,000 years ago, stands as one of the monumental feats of ancient engineering. Stretching thousands of miles, it protected the newly unified country from foreign invaders. But before the Great Wall, warring Chinese dynasties built many other walls for protection. An American archaeologist recently began surveying one of the biggest. (NPR)
