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Ancient fort excavated in Dorset

The first excavation of a well-known pre-historic monument has shown it to be much older than previously thought. The archaeological dig at Badbury Rings near Wimborne in Dorset (England) has uncovered evidence that the site was inhabited at least 5,000 years ago ... Stone Pages Archaeo News

Reward offered to solve riddle of ancient cliff tombs

Management of a famous Taoist mountain in east China's Jiangxi Province has offered to pay 400,000 yuan (US$48,000) to anyone who can give a convincing explanation of how tombs were built on its steep cliffs more than 2,600 years ago ... Stone Pages Archaeo News

Mars rovers given six more months

NASA's rovers have their missions extended by six months after weathering the Martian winter solstice, announces the space agency ... New Scientist

Digging up history in Bahrain

A Danish archaeology expedition has called for the restoration of the A'ali burial mounds to make them one of the Kingdom's major historical tourism attractions. The expedition, which arrived yesterday headed by Moesgard Museum curator Dr Flemming Hojlund, is making preparations for further excavation work at the A'ali burial mounds in co-operation with the Information Ministry ... Gulf Daily News

Methane on Mars causes controversy

Methane and water vapour have been found together in Mars's atmosphere, and a common cause has been suggested - life ... New Scientist

Noah's Ark Quest Dead in Water - Was It a Stunt?

In April businessman and Christian activist Daniel McGivern announced with great fanfare a planned summer expedition to Mount Ararat in Turkey. The project, he said, would prove that the fabled Noah's ark was buried there ... National Geographic

How Roman's famous road cut through Bath (UK)

Bath's position as a flourishing town in Roman times has been reinforced, thanks to discoveries made during an ambitious excavation project. A two-year dig near the Royal Crescent has unearthed Roman burial sites and buildings, and allowed archaeologists to piece together how the most important road in early Roman Britain cut through the city ... this is bath

Archaeologists uncover 2,400-year-old golden mask

Archeologists in Bulgaria say they have discovered a 2,400-year-old golden mask that was likely made for a monarch's funeral. The mask depicts a full face with moustache and beard. The rare artifact is made of 500 grams of solid gold and "is without paragon in archaeology" ... CBC News

Flying dinosaur had 'bird brain'

Skull scan confirms Archaeopteryx had the mind for flight.

It was half-bird, half-reptile and it soared above the still lagoons of Bavaria 147 million years ago. Researchers have confirmed that Archaeopteryx had a brain and body geared for flight, earning it the moniker of the world's most primitive bird ... Nature

Dispute over life in Antarctic lake

Controversy has erupted over Lake Vostok, one of Earth's last unexplored frontiers, which lies deep under the Antarctic ice. Last week a team of Russian and French scientists claimed the lake is sterile. But American scientists insist that it is a potential source of undiscovered life forms, and are worried that Russian plans to drill right through the ice will contaminate it ... EurekAlert!

Early fish hit land to be better predators

Our distant fishy ancestors first hauled themselves on to land in order to warm up in the Sun ... New Scientist

Beneath Antarctica's ice lies mysterious Lake Vostok

High-tech tools help scientists detail underwater features.

Far beneath the vast ice sheet that covers Antarctica lies a hidden lake more than 40 times larger than Tahoe. Deeper by far than Tahoe, it holds 300 times more water and, quite possibly, countless millions of microbes that have been living in the lake's darkness for a million years or more ... San Francisco Chronicle

Archaeologists continue Roman excavation

A unique project to map the vast extent of a Roman settlement will take place in Bradford on Avon. Archaeologist Mark Corney, working with his team of 20 for the third year on the excavation of the Roman villa site in St Laurence School playing fields, hopes to map the settlement ... This is Wiltshire

Craig Venter's epic voyage to redefine the origin of the species

He wanted to play God, so he cracked the human genome. Now he wants to play Darwin and collect the DNA of everything on the planet ... Wired

New site for British Museum

The British Museum will launch a new website early next year, linking it with twelve museums across the UK. The project is part of an effort to get British culture online, while creating a more interactive and educational site in the process, also offering more for the user ... netimperative

Archaeologists uncover Roman ruin

Archaeologists are unearthing the remains of a Roman bridge. The ruins of the bridge, which would have once crossed the River Tyne, have been undisturbed for thousands of years in Corbridge, Northumberland ... BBC News

Jamestown wine cellar believed unearthed

Eight glass bottles have been unearthed in a brick-walled space that may have been the wine cellar of a house dating from the close of the 1600s in Jamestown ... The Mercury News

Baths ancient and modern on housing estate (UK)

A modern housing estate seems an unlikely place to find Roman baths.

But the historic discovery in the middle of new-builds and starter homes in Swindon, Wiltshire, has got archaeologists into a real lather.

English Heritage has said the site at Groundwell Ridge is “one of the most important Roman sites in England” and recent finds have confirmed their early enthusiasm.

At a press conference from the muddy dig today, a spokesman announced it is now believed to be the site of a major Roman villa complex, complete with stables and outbuildings ... Scotsman

The start of Irish megalithic tradition

Archaeologists are finally in agreement that the Megalithic period in Ireland 'boomed' between the years 4200 BCE and 3500 BCE. The date controversy over the Irish Megalithic period - most significantly characterised by the Carrowmore site in Sligo - was put to rest at an archaeology conference in Sligo. The findings of the conference have just been released even though it took place two years ago ... Stone Pages Archaeo News

Researchers uncover ancient marine fossils in Newfoundland

Unique three-dimensional imprints preserve organisms that lived at time of dramatic evolutionary change.

Canadian fossil hunters have made a rare find of exquisitely preserved marine animals in Newfoundland, remnants of the first complex organisms to evolve on Earth and unlike anything alive today ... Globe and Mail

Dinosaur tooth found in flying reptile's spine

A hundred-million-year-old Brazilian fossil may offer rare evidence of an ancient encounter between a dinosaur predator and a flying reptile ... National Geographic

Huge dinosaur graveyard unearthed in Germany

German scientists have unearthed the biggest collection of dinosaur fossils ever found in the country, including bones that could belong to previously unknown species ... Reuters

Orkney’s prehistoric secrets unearthed

Archaeologists have found the remains of a prehistoric neolithic village on Orkney, which has already unlocked secrets of the island's life, beliefs and rituals ... The Herald

Speed of light may have changed recently

The speed of light, one of the most sacrosanct of the universal physical constants, may have been lower as recently as two billion years ago - and not in some far corner of the universe, but right here on Earth ... New Scientist

Remains of oldest inhabitant of Abu Dhabi found

Remains of the earliest-known inhabitant of Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) have been found on the western island of Marawah by the Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey, ADIAS ... Stone Pages Archaeo News

An eco-evolutionary dance through deep time

A Talk with paleontologist Scott Sampson:
How did the world of dinosaurs differ from our own? Since we live in a miniscule snapshot in time, most people can’t relate to a thousand years, let alone millions, or billions of years. So how do we get our minds wrapped around Mesozoic timescapes? And once we’re there, how do we then recreate the world of dinosaurs? ... Edge

Huge Etruscan road brought to light

A plain in Tuscany destined to become a dump has turned out to be an archaeologist's dream, revealing the biggest Etruscan road ever found. Digging in Capannori, near Lucca, archaeologist Michelangelo Zecchini has uncovered startling evidence of an Etruscan "highway" which presumably linked Etruscan Pisa, on the Tyrrhenian coast, to the Adriatic port of Spina ... Discovery Channel

Dog's verbal tricks probe origin of language

A word-learning pet dog has given scientists clues that some animals may have the comprehension necessary for language, even though they cannot actually talk. Rico, a smart border collie, was spotted on television by Julia Fischer and her colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. With a "vocabulary" of 200 words, Rico showed exceptional ability in retrieving specific toys when asked to fetch them ... New Scientist

Ancient graves found on cliffs

A 1,250-year-old cliff-face cemetery has been found in Pembrokeshire revealing the county's early Christian past. Two skeletons dating from the Dark Ages of around 750AD have been recovered and a stone with a carefully chiselled cross has also been found. Archaeologists had to work using ropes to reach the site at Longoar Bay, near St Ishmaels ... BBC News

Interactive map of Stonehenge

English Heritage has just launched their new Stonehenge website. It includes historical information, a frequently asked questions page, and (this is the best part) an interactive map ... mirabilis.ca

Ancient Egyptian cemeteries unearthed

Egypt said Sunday an Australian archeological team has unearthed two ancient Pharaonic cemeteries believed to be 5,000 years old ... The Washington Times

Roman farm excavation in Norway

From the Norway Post: Remains of ancient farm excavated in Oestfold. The remains of a farm dating back to the Roman period is being excavated in a field in Raade in the county of Oestfold. It is believed to be the largest find from the Roman period ever made in the Nordic countries, and seen as unique in this region, according to public broadcaster NRK. The 2000-year find consist of among other things the foundation of a 66-metre long farm building. This is the longest such building found from this period, according to the experts ... mirabilis.ca

Irish Viking settlement

The account of a Viking settlement recently discovered in Ireland is sounding more and more interesting. From the Waterford News and Star: Viking ‘town’ is Ireland's equivalent of Pompeii. The site, located close to the River Suir, is 1.5 km long by 0.5 km wide and so far up to 3,000 artifacts have been found over a distance of 150 yards. From photographs, which have been examined by the country’s leading archaeologists, early indications suggest that the complete original town of Waterford founded by the Vikings remains virtually intact with dozens of streets and dwellings just under the soil surface ... mirabilis.ca

Perfect pterosaur found in fossil egg

Find sheds light on prehistoric flying reptiles.

The preserved bones of ancient creatures allow fossil-hunters to glimpse lives lived millions of years ago. But researchers in China have uncovered the remains of a life that was snatched away before it had even begun ... Nature

'Best' medieval track found in bog

The best preserved example in Wales of a medieval track, which dates back 1,000 years, has been unearthed by archaeologists in Ceredigion ... BBC News

Lost City of Atlantis Found in Spain?

The fabled lost city of Atlantis might lie in a salt marsh region off Spain's southern coast, according to research reported online by the archaeology journal Antiquity.

The study, not yet peer-reviewed by archaeologists, is based on satellite images showing ancient ruins that appear to match descriptions made by the Greek scholar Plato ... Discovery Channel

In China, a new two-sided body of evidence

In the "Cambrian Explosion" story of biology textbook fame, a slew of creatures sporting an array of anatomical blueprints burst onto the scene, or at least into the fossil record, around 540 million years ago. The back story is more muddled, with few fossils to document the evolution of one- celled organisms into the much more architecturally advanced Cambrian creatures. And of particular relevance to human anatomy is the question of how animals with a two-sided, or bilateral, body plan arose ... Newsday.com

Satellite images 'show Atlantis'

A scientist says he may have found remains of the lost city of Atlantis. Satellite photos of southern Spain reveal features on the ground appearing to match descriptions made by Greek scholar Plato of the fabled utopia. Dr Rainer Kuehne thinks the "island" of Atlantis simply referred to a region of the southern Spanish coast destroyed by a flood between 800 BC and 500 BC ... BBC News

Glimpses of genius

Mathematicians and historians piece together a puzzle that Archimedes pondered.

At the start of the 20th century, a Danish mathematical historian named Johan Ludvig Heiberg made a once-in-a-lifetime find. Tucked away in the library of a monastery in Istanbul was a medieval parchment containing copies of the works of the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes, including two never-before-seen essays. To mathematicians' astonishment, one of the new essays contained many of the key ideas of calculus, a subject supposedly invented two millennia after Archimedes' time. The essay caused a sensation and landed Heiberg's discovery on the front page of a 1907 New York Times ... Science News Online

A short life in Shanghai 6,000 years ago

The lifespan of people in the Shanghai (China) region, now famous for the longevity of its citizens, seldom exceeded 30 years in ancient times, according to current archaeological research ... Stone Pages Archaeo News

Ancient fort provides insight into history of weaving

Weaving has existed in the Middle East for thousands of years. And yet exactly how far back in the history of the region it goes is a matter of some debate. However, a recent discovery of a cache of clay loom weights at Khirbat al-Mudaybi in Central Jordan is shedding new light on ancient textile crafts and industries ... Stone Pages Archaeo News

New dinosaur stumps scientists

A 50-foot-long sauropod recently unearthed in southern Montana has a mysterious second hole in its skull that leaves researchers baffled ... Wired News

Geological time gets a new period

Geologists have added a new period to their official calendar of Earth's history - the first in 120 years.

The Ediacaran Period covers some 50 million years of ancient time on our planet from 600 million years ago to about 542 million years ago ... BBC News

Four-winged birds may have been first fliers

The first birds were probably four-winged gliders, and only later evolved into the sophisticated flapping fliers with light skeletons and two wings that we see today. This view of avian evolution is supported by a new study of Archaeopteryx, the most famous bird fossil, which reveals it had long feathers on its back and legs, as well as on its wings ... New Scientist

Historic wrecks to be protected

Efforts are being made to simplify the laws protecting historic shipwrecks off the south-west coast of England.

The government and English Heritage have launched a joint consultation to try to disentangle the maze of legislation surrounding them ... BBC News

Stone tools suggest bison hunting site in Alberta on trade route

Archeologists in Alberta have found a large bison kill site containing stone tools that point to an early trade route.

The bison bones are behind wind-swept sand dunes in a small, shallow valley near Purple Springs, Alta., about 70 kilometres from Lethbridge.

Archeologists think more than 1,000 years ago, hunters stalked, slaughtered and processed thousands of the animals at the site, primarily in the winter ... CBC News

Halley's comet portrayed on ancient coin

Could the star shape on the king's crown be Halley's comet?
A rare ancient coin may feature an early record of Halley's comet, researchers say.

The coin features the head of the Armenian king Tigranes II the Great, who reigned from 95 to 55 BC. A symbol on his crown that features a star with a curved tail may represent the passage of Halley's comet in 87 BC, say the Armenian and Italian researchers ... News in Science

Temple of Love found in Athens

The clincher was a small anchor cut from stone. Digging at the site of the Olympic equestrian center, about 30 km southeast of Athens, archaeologist Michalis Sklavos already knew he was onto something — his team had unearthed a cluster of small clay bowls from around the 4th century B.C. followed by several washbasins ... Time Europe

Is Troy true? The evidence behind movie myth

Did the city of Troy really exist? Is the Trojan War myth or military reality? And what about that giant horse? As the blockbuster Brad Pitt film Troy storms the cinemas, archaeologists and historians are shedding light on the ancient city and epic that inspired the movie ... National Geographic News

Turkey displays Troy treasures in time for film

The Istanbul Archaeology Museum threw open the doors Friday to its ancient Troy exhibition, shut for years due to lack of funds, just in time for the world premiere of the mega-budget film "Troy" starring Brad Pit ... Reuters.com

Crater linked to mass extinction

A team of American researchers announced Wednesday that they have identified an ancient impact crater buried off the northwest coast of Australia - a find that supports the theory that a giant meteor caused a mass extinction on Earth approximately 250 million years ago ... Wired News

Mexican Air Force Films UFOs

Pilots conducting drug surveillance over Campeche state filmed 11 unidentified flying objects in early March, after the UFOs appeared to surround the aircraft. Now, Mexican officials release the video ... Wired News

Guidelines for reburial of old Christian bones

After years of uncertainty, archaeologists and church leaders in the UK have agreed a set of guidelines governing excavations of Christian graves.

The move is a response to calls for excavated human remains to be reburied on consecrated ground, and follows controversies over repatriating remains from North America and Australia held in museums ... New Scientist

Physicists probe ancient pyramid

The largest particle detector in Mexico is being built inside a pyramid in the ancient settlement of Teotihuacan. The equipment will detect muons, tiny particles that are created when cosmic rays bombard the Earth's atmosphere.

Dr Arturo Menchaca and colleagues from Mexico's National Autonomous University hope that by tracking the muons through the pyramid, they can find cavities. This could indicate whether the kings of the ancient people who built the site are also entombed within it ... BBC News

Venus crossing Sun for first time since 1283

Children will join amateur and professional astronomers to witness one of the rarest events seen from Britain - the planet Venus moving across the face of the Sun.

So-called "transits" occur when the complex orbits of the Earth and Venus around the Sun result in all three bodies being lined up briefly in space, causing Venus to pass directly between the Earth and the Sun ... Independent.co.uk

Dinosaur discovered in Patagonia - named "Small Head"

Argentine paleontologists have discovered a 13-foot (4-meter) plant-eating dinosaur with a long neck and small head that roamed the southern tip of South America about 70 million years ago.

The team, led by Fernando Novas of the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences in Buenos Aires, named the dinosaur Talenkauen santacrucensis. Talenkauen means "small head" in the Aonikenk Indian language ... National Geographic News

Dead archaeology

Sir Mortimer Wheeler: "Dead archaeology is the driest dust that blows".

Wooden pipe find excites Irish archaeologists

Archaeologists are dancing with delight after discovering a set of musical pipes believed to have been used 4,000 years ago by prehistoric man in Ireland, making them the world's oldest wooden instruments.

Archaeologists discovered the six wooden pipes, which are not joined, during excavations of a housing development site near the coastal town of Greystones, south of Dublin ... abc.net.au

World's oldest seat of learning found

A Polish-Egyptian team has unearthed the site of the fabled University of Alexandria, home of Archimedes, Euclid and a host of other scholars from the era when Alexandria dominated the Mediterranean ... smh.com.au

Did ancient Britons use returning boomerangs?

A British historian has claimed to have uncovered the world's oldest evidence of the returning boomerang – in Yorkshire. Terry Deary says his research indicates a rock carving on Ilkley Moor in West Yorkshire (England) is of a four-armed boomerang which dates back as far as 4000 BCE ... Stone Pages Archaeo News

Ancient Buzzing: German site yields early hummingbird fossils

Photo: Science.

Excavations in a clay pit in southwestern Germany have yielded two tiny treasures. They're the first fossils of hummingbirds from the Old World and, by far, the oldest ones unearthed anywhere ... Science News

Mayan Queen's Tomb Found in Rain Forest

While excavating an ancient royal palace deep in the Guatemalan rain forest, archaeologists made a rare discovery — the 1,200-year-old tomb and skeleton of a Mayan queen ... Associated Press

Welsh Bronze Age gold hoard declared treasure

A Bronze Age hoard of international significance has been declared treasure today by H.M. Coroner for North East Wales. Dating to the Middle Bronze Age, this hoard includes a torc, bracelet, a necklace pendant and a collection of beads and rings, all of gold ... Stone Pages Archaeo News

Cuneiform Goes Digital: UCLA Professor Illuminates Life in Ancient Iraq

It's not exactly Google, but the stunning cache of information Professor Robert Englund and his colleagues are making accessible on the Web is revolutionary - nearly one million lines of transcribed cuneiform, the earliest form of writing, with much more to come - documenting the social and literary worlds of Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria, and Persia, ancient lands comprising modern Iraq and parts of Iran, Syria, and Turkey ... boston.com

Major dig for Roman bridge

A buried Roman bridge in Corbridge (UK) – thought to have been a spectacular representation of the power of the Empire – will be rescued in a major archeological dig.

It is hoped the remains of the largest stone bridge in Roman Britain will uncover vital clues to the movement of the Romans in Corbridge, and reveal more about the origination of the village itself ... Hexham Courant

Discovery Pushes Back Date of 'Classic' Maya

A discovery of monumental carved masks and elaborate jade ritual objects in 2,000-year-old ruins of a city in Guatemala is raising serious questions about the chronology of the enigmatic Mayan civilization. In many respects, the city appeared to be ahead of its time ... New York Times

River Thames "Mudlarks" Dig Up Medieval Toys

Members of the London-based Society of Thames Mudlarks look very different today from the Victorian street children the group takes its name from. Where ragged waifs once searched for bits of bone and coal to sell, men in overalls, gloves, and rubber boots now comb the River Thames foreshore with metal detectors.

And though these amateur treasure hunters seldom find silver or gold, historians say what they do dig from the mud is transforming our understanding of childhood during the Middle Ages ... National Geographic News

Researchers find evidence that sea turtles navigate with magnetic maps

Among the most accomplished navigators in the animal kingdom, sea turtles often migrate across thousands of miles of open ocean to arrive at specific feeding and nesting sites. How they do so, however, has mystified biologists for over a century ... Science Blog

A new way to view dig at Jamestown

Historic Jamestown took a major step Friday evening when the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities and the National Park Service broke ground for an “archaearium.” It's a unique facility to showcase artifacts and the findings of the dig at the original fort of 1607 ... The Virginia Gazette

Scientists, First Nations treasure ancient feather find

By examining 4,300-year-old bird feathers, scientists are gaining a glimpse into the pre-history of the Yukon. Twelve feather samples were sent to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. after melting out of ice patches in alpine meadows in southern Yukon. The feathers were first discovered several summers ago, attached to ancient arrows or darts ... CBC News

Searching for Atlantis

A quest for the lost island of Atlantis began off the southern shores of Cyprus yesterday.

After a decade of intense study an American, Robert Sarmast, claims to have assembled evidence to prove that the fabled island lies a mile deep in the sea between Cyprus and Syria. He says he has detected "around 48" of the 50 geographical features Plato described the island as having before it was "swallowed up by the earth" ... Guardian

Noah's Ark Found?

Satellite pictures taken last summer of Mount Ararat in Turkey may reveal the final resting place of Noah's ark, according to Daniel McGivern, the businessman and Christian activist behind a planned summer 2004 expedition to investigate the site ... National Geographic News: Archaeology & Paleontology

The Jiroft Civilization

In Iran, an archaeologist is racing to uncover a literate Bronze Age society he believes predates ancient Mesopotamia. Critics say he may be overreaching, but they concede his dig will likely change our view of the dawn of civilization ... φλυζειν

Underground maze crammed with mummies

Archaeologists in Egypt unearth an undisturbed network of tombs containing at least 50 mummies and dating back 2660 years ... New Scientist

In Wisconsin Rock, Traces of a Meteor

The muddy brown hills and rolling farmland here look like those in other places in Wisconsin. Tall grasses, cornfields and a bubbling brook yield to rocky outcroppings and rows of trees.

But scientists years ago saw something different about those rocks and concluded that a catastrophe had occurred here long ago, although what sort remained a mystery. They believe they have finally found a solution: a 650- to 700-foot meteorite crashed into the earth here at up to 67,500 miles an hour ... New York Times: Science

Austrian Bronze Age settlements as centres of trade

Austrian settlements in the Region of the Danube were prosperous and cosmopolitan in the Bronze Age. That's what new studies undertaken by researchers in the Prehistoric Commission of the Austrian Academy of Sciences show in a project supported by the Austrian Science Fund FWF. It is centred around analysing the findings from excavations on the Oberleiserberg Mountain in Lower Austria where scientists discovered traces of a major trade and relics of a once-flourishing culture of crafts ... Stone Pages Archaeo News

Signs of primeval life said found in lava rocks

Scientists studying ancient creatures celebrate finds such as an ankle bone or jaw fragment because they help to piece together the varied history of our planet’s past inhabitants. But as investigators reach ever farther back in time, the evidence of early life becomes increasingly difficult to discern. A new discovery may help to fill in some of the blanks. Researchers report that tiny tubes in rocks that are billions of years old further suggest that microbes were eating their way into lava on the ocean floor during Earth’s early history ... Scientific American

Stonehenge is heading towards 1 million visitors a year

Stonehenge is heading towards the magical one million visitors a year mark, after its busiest Easter in five years. Over the bank holiday weekend, 18,000 pairs of feet tramped around ... Stone Pages Archaeo News

Fabled Etruscan Kingdom Emerging?

The fabled kingdom of the Etruscan king Lars Porsena is coming to light in the Tuscan hills near Florence, according to an Italian University professor. Known as Chamars, where the lucumo (king) Porsena reigned in the 6th century B.C., this was the leading city-state of the Etruscan civilization that dominated much of Italy before the emergence of Rome ... Discovery.com

Epact: A collection of medieval and renaissance scientific instruments

Epact is an electronic catalogue of medieval and renaissance scientific instruments from four European museums: the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza, Florence , the British Museum, London, and the Museum Boerhaave, Leiden. Together, these museums house the finest collections of early scientific instruments in the world.

Epact consists of 520 catalogue entries and a variety of supporting material. All European instruments from the four museums by makers who were active before 1600 have been entered in the catalogue. They include astrolabes, armillary spheres, sundials, quadrants, nocturnals, compendia, surveying instruments ... Epact

Archaeologists Uncover Maya "Masterpiece" in Guatemala

Archaeologists working deep in Guatemala's rain forest under the protection of armed guards say they have unearthed one of the greatest Maya art masterpieces ever found.

The artifact—a 100-pound (45-kilogram) stone panel carved with images and hieroglyphics—depicts Taj Chan Ahk, the mighty 8th-century king of the ancient Maya city-state of Cancué ... National Geographic News

Ancient inscribed slab brought to light

A team of German and Egyptian archaeologists working in the Nile Delta has unearthed "quite a remarkable" stele dating back 2 200 years to Ptolemaic Egypt which bears an identical inscription in three written languages - like the famed Rosetta Stone ... IOL

Humans took 1000 years to tame wild plants

Remnants of ancient barley, wheat, figs and pistachios nearly 10,000 years old are helping to solve the mystery about how and when nomadic hunter-gatherers became sedentary farmers ... Stone Pages Archaeo News

Warrior's grave points to Bronze Age burial site

The discovery of the body of a warrior - thought to have died in battle more than 2,000 years ago - could help archaeologists to pinpoint the site of an ancient holy site. The young warrior, aged about 30, with his spear, a sword, his belt and scabbard, stunned archaeologists who found his stone coffin. The discovery on Marshill, Alloa, last year was hailed as one of the most significant Iron Age finds for decades in Scotland ... Stone Pages Archaeo News

Dozens of Inca Mummies Discovered Buried in Peru

Dozens of exquisitely preserved Inca mummies are being recovered from a barren hillside on the outskirts of Peru's bustling capital city, Lima. In a matter of months a highway will roar past the ancient cemetery ... National Geographic

Wrapped in the shroud

The discovery of a second face on the Turin Shroud has again divided opinion. Does this mean it is real after all? Or does it mean it's an even better hoax than was previously thought? Some people, and not just the faithful, never stopped believing in the first place ... BBC News

Divided lion takes pride of place

Two halves of a 2,500-year-old terracotta lion's head which spent most of their existence apart have been reunited for a new exhibition. It ends an international search which began when half was lent to Newcastle University's Shefton Museum of Greek Art and Archaeology in the 1970s. Professor Brian Shefton traced the second half to a Swiss collector who has since bequeathed it to the museum ... BBC NEWS

Geologist studies clues from ancient comet impact

To the rhinos and crocodiles of the far north, the day was like any other. They ate, swam and napped, unaware a celestial body was headed their way at 60,000 miles per hour. Suddenly, a wayward comet screamed into the atmosphere, struck Earth and created a bowl a mile deep and 15 miles in diameter. Haughton Crater was born.

This commotion happened 22 million years ago at a spot now known as Devon Island, located about 600 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Canada's Northwest Territories. Today, Haughton Crater provides geologists a unique chance to find out what happens when a massive object strikes the planet ... Anchorage Daily News

Turin Shroud Back Side Shows Face

The ghostly image of a man's face has emerged on the back side of the Turin Shroud, the piece of linen long believed to have been wrapped around Jesus's body after the crucifixion, according to new digital imaging processing techniques.

The discovery adds new complexity to one of the most controversial relics in Christendom, venerated by many Catholics as the proof that Christ was resurrected from the grave and dismissed by some scientists as a brilliant medieval fake ... Discovery

Debate over world's artifacts rages on

Who owns the products of a people's cultural industry? Is it the heritage of an individual country or region? Is art taken in war the property of conquerors or of the culture from which it came? When, how, why and should works of art be returned to their places of origin? ... St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Christening spoon found in grave of Saxon king

An ancient silver spoon buried in the grave of an early Christian king may be one of the earliest christening spoons found in Britain, archaeologists said yesterday.

The spoon was discovered alongside a lyre and copper box for holding relics in the burial chamber of the so-called Prince of Prittlewell, a high-ranking aristocrat who lived in Essex 1,400 years ago ... telegraph.co.uk

'Sensational' discoveries unearthed in Roman armoury

Archaeologists in Germany have described a Roman weapons dump discovered near the city of Göttingen as a "sensational find" that is yielding valuable military artefacts.

Excavations on the site have just started, but more than 250 metal objects, most of them weapons or tools used by Roman legionnaires in 10BC, have been found. They include several rare examples of a soldier’s axe, an all-purpose Swiss army knife of its day ... Scotsman.com

Researchers identify new archaeological sites on north coast, Ireland

Researchers from the University of Ulster's Centre for Maritime Archaeology have begun a major study to identify new archaeological sites of interest on the north coast and Rathlin Island.

The archaeologists have already uncovered 600 new sites in a study at Strangford Lough and are hopeful that their latest project will be as successful ... 4NI

Oldest Known Pet Cat? 9,500-Year-Old Burial Found on Cyprus

Since at least the time of the ancient Egyptians, cats have been cherished as companions, worshipped as idols, and kept as agents of pest control and good luck. But now French archaeologists have found evidence that our close relationship with cats may have begun much earlier.

The carefully interred remains of a human and a cat were found buried with seashells, polished stones, and other decorative artifacts in a 9,500-year-old grave site on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. This new find, from the Neolithic village of Shillourokambos, predates early Egyptian art depicting cats by 4,000 years or more ... National Geographic

Quick flip of Earth's magnetic field revealed

It takes an average of only 7000 years to reverse its polarity, but the switch happens much more quickly near the equator ... New Scientist

Brain machine for instant genius

Scientists have developed a machine they believe can turn anyone into a genius by switching off part of the brain. Australian National University scientist Professor Allan Snyder says the machine transmits harmless magnetic pulses through the brain, temporarily switching part of it off. This forces the rest of the brain to link in new ways and become more creative ... Herald Sun

America's Lost Colony: Can New Dig Solve Mystery?

More than four centuries ago, English colonists hoped to carve out a new life - and substantial profits - in the wild and strange land of North America. One group of colonists gave up and returned to England. A second colony, in what is now North Carolina, vanished in the 1580s and became immortalized in history as the "Lost Colony" ... National Geographic News: Archaeology & Paleontology

Plant-Eating Dinosaur Discovered in Patagonia

Argentine paleontologists have discovered a 13-foot (4-meter) plant-eating dinosaur with a long neck and small head that roamed the southern tip of South America about 70 million years ago.

The team, led by Fernando Novas of the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences in Buenos Aires, named the dinosaur Talenkauen santacrucensis. Talenkauen means "small head" in the Aonikenk Indian language ... National Geographic News: Archaeology & Paleontology

Astronomy study reveals ancient places of healing

Mysterious T-shaped monuments scattered around the Mediterranean island of Menorca were most probably places of healing, says an archaeoastronomer who has studied the orientation of the Bronze Age monuments ... New Scientist

Namibia’s fairy circles leave scientists flummoxed

Attempts by South African botanists to explain “fairy circles” in Namibia — bizarre outlines in the grass, somewhat akin to Britain’s bogus crop circles — have drawn a complete blank, New Scientist reports.

The circles comprise innumerable discs of completely bare sandy soil, ranging from two to 10 metres (seven to 25 feet) across, found in grass on Namibia’s coastal fringe.

Over the past three decades, scientists have wrangled over how the shapes are formed ... Daily Times

Site reveals 6,000-year-old relics

Relics dating back 6,000 years to the Neolithic age are being uncovered by archaeologists working on the site of the Fordham bypass. A team from Cambridgeshire County Council's archaeology field unit are carrying out "digs" on the line of the road before the construction workers move in to build the new route ...

Shining new light on our past

A budding archaeologist has discovered a century-old trove of information about Florida's ancient history ... HeraldTribune.com

Secrets of deep uncovered

Experts at the University of Ulster in Coleraine are helping to uncover the secrets of ancient shipwrecks such as the Spanish Armada ship Girona, which sank off the north Antrim coast in 1588. The university's Centre for Maritime Archaeology (CMA) - based at the Coleraine campus - is using state-of-the-art sonar technology to find out more about shipwrecks and shifting sands ...Belfast Telegraph

Builders of ancient tombs followed sun and stars

Two studies of ancient monuments in southwest Europe reveal the influence the Sun and stars had on their builders according to Dr Michael Hoskin, a historian of astronomy at Cambridge ... Stone Pages Archaeo News

3,000 year-old mirror discovered in Scotland?

Experts from the national museum are rushing to the Borders after a rare piece of treasure was unearthed near Yetholm. Local historians are already describing the find as one of the most important ever in the south of Scotland. And if their early calculations are right – the object may be a 3,000 year-old mirror ... Stone Pages Archaeo News

Rollrights stone circle vandalised

Vandals have splattered bright yellow gloss paint over the entire ring of stones at The Rollrights in Oxfordshire. The damage was discovered by a member of a geo-physics team ... Stone Pages Archaeo News

Full frontal antiquity

Egyptologists have pieced together fragments of the first known ancient portrait of a pharaoh drawn from the front rather than in profile, a Spanish archaeologist said Thursday. The archaeologist said the portrait, which appears to show either Tuthmosis III or his mother Hatshepsut, was painted on a wooden board buried in the courtyard in front of a tomb in the southern town of Luxor. The piece is unusual because ancient Egyptians always portrayed Egyptians in profile. The only frontal portraits are of foreigners, underworld demons and other weird creatures ... mirabilis.ca

Fins to Limbs: New Fossil Gives Evolution Insight

Today researchers announced their discovery of a 365-million-year-old fossil limb bone of an ancient tetrapod. Tetrapods, including humans, are four-limbed animals with backbones. The fossil was found during road construction that revealed an ancient streambed ... National Geographic News

Ancient human remains reveal a bloody end

University of Leicester archaeologists discovered the earliest human remains from Leicestershire (England). Analysis of the remains found eight years ago in a gravel quarry near Watermead Country Park, Birstallhas, established that they met with violent deaths. Experts have just completed investigations on the remains and a series of scientific tests undertaken this year have come up with some gruesome results ... Stone Pages Archaeo News

Polar Dinos Spotlighted in "Dinosaurs of Darkness"

If famed Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen trekked across Antarctica a few hundred million years earlier, he may never have returned to reveal the details of the world's underside. Cryolophosaurus ellioti might have eaten him for dinner.

The 22-foot-long (7-meter-long) carnivore with an unusual crest on its skull was one of several dinosaurs that thrived in the extreme polar regions of the world. Though the climate was warmer then than it is now, the dinosaurs endured months of darkness and temperatures that plunged below freezing ... National Geographic News: Archaeology & Paleontology

Pickled dragon update

Remember reading the dragon in a jar news a couple of months ago? Everybody wondered who made that dragon, when, and why. Here's the update, from the BBC website: Book deal for dragon hoax author. An author who was so desperate to get his book published that he staged a hoax involving a baby dragon has won a lucrative publishing contract. After numerous rejections Allistair Mitchell concocted a tale that a dragon had been found in a garage last year. He said: "I created the hoax in order to attract potential readers" ... mirabilis.ca

The Amesbury Archer: The King of Stonehenge?

An excavation in Wiltshire has recently revealed the grave of a Bronze Age archer, buried with a rich array of precious metal goods and a quiver of arrows. Was this the King of Stonehenge? Andrew Fitzpatrick of Wessex Archaeology takes up the story ... BBC - History

Nelson's great love found at the bottom of the ocean

Admiral Horatio Nelson’s favourite ship, on which he is said to have seduced Lady Hamilton and lost an eye in battle, has been found off the coast of Uruguay.

International treasure-divers said yesterday that they had found HMS Agamemnon, a 64-gun vessel which was the pride of Britain’s naval fleet when it went down in 1809 ... Scotsman.com

Neolithic relics uncovered in Cambridgeshire

Relics dating back 6,000 years to the Neolithic age are being uncovered by archaeologists working on the site of the Fordham bypass (Cambridgeshire, England) ... Stone Pages Archaeo News

Banished Thoughts Resurface in Dreams

"Wishes suppressed during the day assert themselves in dreams," Sigmund Freud wrote more than a century ago. Now new research provides evidence suggesting that not just wishes but all kinds of thoughts we bar from our minds while awake reappear when we sleep ... Scientific American.com:

Mixed human and animal ashes give insights into Bronze Age

The 4000-year-old cremated remains of a young man have provided fresh insights into the superstitious bonds between farmers and their animals in Bronze Age society ... [Stone Pages Archaeo News]

King Tut drank red wine

Among the objects buried in the catacombs of Egyptian King Tutankhamen were wine jars intended as funerary meals to ensure a pleasant afterlife. Scientists have known for decades that the ancient Egyptians had an affinity for wine, but it has been unclear what variant of the beverage they favored--until now. The first extensive chemical analysis of a jar recovered from King Tut’s tomb indicates that the ruler preferred red ... Scientific American

Archaeologists: the tunnel under Stonehenge is inadequate

Archaeologists have branded the government's £200m plans for a 2.1km tunnel under Stonehenge "inadequate", claiming it would bring "irreversible damage to the World Heritage site". The National Trust has objected...Stone Pages Archaeo News

Stort jernalderhus fundet i Gilleleje

[In Danish only:) Resterne af en af Sjællands største jernaldergårde er nu kommet frem i lyset ved industriområdet Stæremosen i Gilleleje, skriver Frederiksborg Amts Avis. Gårdanlægget består af tre parallelt liggende huse, hvoraf det største er 36 meter langt og seks meter bredt. Fundet er gjort af Gilleleje Museum, der er i gang med at undersøge området inden et forestående erhvervsbyggeri.

Sandjord gemte sjælden stridsøkse

[In Danish only:] I fire uger har fire arkæologer fra Haderslev Museum gravet i den frosthårde jord ved Vongshøj ved Løgumgårde. Og arkæologerne har ikke gravet forgæves. Resultatet er blandt andet en særdeles sjælden bådformet stridsøkse, som i forvejen kun findes i et enkelt eksemplar i Sønderjylland.

Stridsøksen fra fundet i Vongshøj, der ligger i forgrunden, er udformet med et skaftrør og er efter al sandsynlighed ikke sønderjysk, men fremstillet i Sverige i tiden omkring 2300 før Kristi fødsel. Foto: Haderslev Museum.

- Det var en spændende og stor oplevelse, siger arkæolog Gunvor Christiansen, der gravede det sjældne eksemplar fri af den sønderjyske sandjord ... JydskeVestkysten

Ever-decreasing circles

The Stonehenge Inquiry, into the proposed scheme to tunnel the A303 for a mile and bit under the site of the stone circle, opened on February 17, after decades of discussion, and will probably continue until the end of April. Stonehenge's present plight has been described by many, including a parliamentary committee, as a "national disgrace". That is an understatement.

The monument is currently hemmed in by a narrow triangle, formed by the junction of the A344 road, just yards away from the stones, and the traffic-choked A303, less than 200 yards away ... Telegraph

Mysterious Sedna

Astronomers have discovered a mysterious planet-like body in the distant reaches of the solar system.

NASA-funded researchers have discovered the most distant object orbiting the sun. It's a mysterious planet-like body three times farther from Earth than Pluto ... NASA

Teeth unravel Anglo-Saxon legacy

New scientific research adds to growing evidence that the Anglo-Saxons did not replace the native population in England as history books suggest.

The data indicates at least some areas of eastern England absorbed very few Anglo-Saxon invaders, contrary to the view in many historical accounts ... BBC NEWS

Stunning amber butterflies hint at ancient origins

"Butterflies may be far more ancient creatures than previously believed, reveals a new study of fossil specimens exquisitely preserved in amber.

Image: Royal Society.

The oldest known butterflies fossilised in rocks suggest the winged insects date back to about 40 or 50 million years ago. But evidence from the five stunning amber specimens now suggests it is possible butterflies may have even fluttered around the heads of dinosaurs, which were wiped out 65 million years ago" ... New Scientist

Colorado Cave Yields Insights into Evolution and Climate Change

Abundant, well-preserved mammal remains in a Colorado cave are providing paleobiologists with rich data on how a species changes and evolves, and how its evolution is affected by climate change. UC Museum of Paleontology Curator Tony Barnosky and Chris Bell (Univesity of Texas, Austin) detail their study of fossil sagebrush voles in a paper published online Oct. 21 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Read a UC Berkeley press release for more information. [UC Museum of Paleontology]

Urn-burials at Adinchanallur

100 years after an urn-burial site was first excavated by an amateur British archaeologist the Archaeological Survey of India [ASI] has resumed digging at Adichanallur in Tamil Nadu. To date,... [Stone Pages Archaeo News]

4,000-year-old skeleton in Tierra del Fuego

Anthropologists and geologists from the Austral Scientific Research Centre have discovered the body of an adult who lived on the north coast of Tierra del Fuego (Argentina) 4,000 years ago.... [Stone Pages Archaeo News]

Farmers and their Languages

Jared Diamond and Peter Bellwood have written an article which appears in Science (subscription) on "Farmers and Their Languages: The First Expansions". The abstract:

"The largest movements and replacements of human populations since the end of the Ice Ages resulted from the geographically uneven rise of food production around the world. The first farming societies thereby gained great advantages over hunter-gatherer societies. But most of those resulting shifts of populations and languages are complex, controversial, or both. We discuss the main complications and specific examples involving 15 language families. Further progress will depend on interdisciplinary research that combines archaeology, crop and livestock studies, physical anthropology, genetics, and linguistics."

The authors list three reasons for the success of farmers compared to hunter gatherers:

1. Food production can accommodate larger populations in a given area.

2. Food producers were sedentary and could store surpluses, leading to complex technology, social stratification, centralized states, and professional armies.

3. Farmers had immunity to infectious diseases such as smallpox that co-evolved with farming communities ... Dienekes' Anthropology Blog

Dinosaur species found in Antarctica

The remains of two species of dinosaur, one a quick-moving meat-eater and the other a giant plant-eater, have been discovered in Antarctica, according to US researchers. The 70 million-year-old fossils of the carnivore would have rested for millenniums at the bottom of an Antarctic sea, while remains of the 30-metre herbivore were found on the top of a mountain ... The Age

Shakespeare's will on the web

Rare examples of William Shakespeare's signature in a will are among important historical papers now available online. The document, which is joined by one million others, has been put on the web by the National Archives ... BBC NEWS

Roman water mains still flowing

Archaeologists on a Roman fort dig at Vindolanda in Northumberland have unearthed 30 yards of wooden mains which fed the fort with water from nearby springs. Amazingly, the mains were still working and carrying water - almost 2,000 years after they were first installed. "The fact that they were still working is quite incredible but it was also a nuisance because they flooded the excavation trenches which had to be pumped out every day," said Robin Birley, director of excavations at Vindolanda. The pipes had been created by drilling huge lengths of alder, which were joined together by oak pegs. [UK archaeology]

Roman treasure found in pond dig

A man unearthed a priceless hoard of 20,000 Roman coins as he dug a new fishpond in his back garden.

Experts say the money may date from the 4th Century and could be the biggest find of its kind in Britain ...
BBC NEWS

Discovery of Dilmun civilisation to be celebrated

Bahrain is planning to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the ancient Dilmun civilisation by Danish archaeologists. A five day event at the end of the year, under the patronage of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, will begin with the opening of a museum at Bahrain Fort.
The Dilmun civilisation dates back to 3200 BCE, and was discovered in 1954 when PV Glob uncovered the remains of the Barbar Temple ... Stone Pages Archaeo News

Greek Astronomy and the Medieval Arabic Tradition

The medieval Islamic astronomers were not merely translators. They may also have played a key role in the Copernican revolution. Islamic scholars of the Middle Ages are often credited with preserving the scientific writings of Antiquity through the Dark Ages of Europe. Saliba argues that the medieval Islamic astronomers did far more—actually correcting and improving on Greek astronomy by creating new mathematical tools to explain the motions of celestial objects ... American Scientist Online

Remains of Viking harbor complex found in Norway

Archaeologists in western Norway found the remains of a harbor complex built by the Vikings 1,000 years ago -- the first of its kind discovered in the country. The ancient harbor complex at Faanestangen, near the west coast city of Trondheim and some 250 miles north of Oslo, was discovered when a local landowner started work on a small boat dock on the same spot selected by his ancestors a millennium earlier ... Newsday.com

The relocation of Paris

French archaeologists pulled quite a stunt last month by declaring that, contrary to popular belief, Paris wasn't always Paris – before Roman times, Paris was Nanterre, a rather dull city also located on the Seine ... The Tufts Daily

When the Games Began: Olympic Archaeology

In "Ancient Greek Athletics," a book being published next month by Yale University Press, Dr. Stephen G. Miller of Berkeley has sifted through literature, art and recent archaeology to compile a comprehensive history of sports in ancient Greece and their relationship with social and political life ... New York Times

1200-year-old Viking graffiti

A walker has discovered a mysterious stone inscribed with 1200-year-old Viking graffiti which could provide the first tangible evidence that the fearsome Norse raiders gave up raping and pillaging to live alongside native Scots.

Experts believe the palm-sized slate unearthed in a rabbit burrow and carved with runes, an alphabetic script used by the peoples of Northern Europe from the first century AD, could be the work of a Viking raider or a first generation Danish settler ... The Herald

A monumental tragedy unfolds

In the low winter sunlight, a Wiltshire hillside fills with the long shadows of an ancient settlement. Twenty years ago these banks and hollows were prominent landmarks; next year or the year after and the last faint echo of this numinous place will have gone ... Financial Times

Dozens of Inca mummies found on outskirts of Lima

Dozens of mummies dating back more than 500 years have been discovered on the path of a proposed highway on the outskirts of the Peruvian capital, near an Inca graveyard, archeologists said on Friday.

Archeologists uncovered 26 burial bundles, each containing one or more adult and child mummies dating from 1472 to 1532 ... Reuters

Did a comet trigger the great Chicago fire?

Perhaps it was not Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern that sparked the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed the downtown area and claimed 300 lives.

New research lends credence to an alternative explanation: The fire, along with less-publicized and even more deadly blazes the same night in upstate Wisconsin and Michigan, was the result of a comet fragment crashing into Earth's atmosphere.

The comet theory has been around – and most often discarded – since at least 1883, but Robert Wood, a retired McDonnell Douglas physicist, said never before has the orbital parameters of the rogue comet been taken into consideration ... Discovery Channel

A fish ate my phone!

Something very fishy has been going on at Marwell Zoo.
One greedy resident has built up quite a reputation for his insatiable appetite after swallowing two mobile phones and a watch.

The red-tailed catfish enjoyed his latest meal with a difference when a visitor accidentally dropped the contents of his pockets into the water ... thisissouthampton

Rediscovering the legend of the lake dwellers

One hundred and fifty years ago, the first settlements of ancient lake-dwelling peoples emerged from Lake Zurich. The discovery gave Europeans a new insight into the lives of their distant ancestors.

In the winter of 1854, the commune of Meilen took advantage of exceptionally low water levels to start building a harbour on the shore of Lake Zurich. Quite by chance, the excavations unearthed a number of odd-looking, superbly preserved ancient artefacts, and a series of wooden poles embedded in the mud. The diggers had found a prehistoric lake village ... swissinfo

Italy's Medici Murder Plot Solved

One of the most notorious crimes of the Renaissance, the attempted assassination of Florence's grandest son, Lorenzo dei Medici, has been solved more than 500 years later ... Discovery Channel

America's Lost Colony: Can New Dig Solve Mystery?

More than four centuries ago, English colonists hoped to carve out a new life – and substantial profits – in the wild and strange land of North America. One group of colonists gave up and returned to England. A second colony, in what is now North Carolina, vanished in the 1580s and became immortalized in history as the "Lost Colony."

Today the prosperous little town of Manteo, North Carolina, surrounds the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, a national park protecting the place where the English tried to establish their first American colony – before Plymouth, before even Jamestown.

Archaeologists know that the colonists spent some time at this spot on the north end of Roanoke Island, but they don't know much more about those unlucky settlers ... National Geographic

Researchers Rewrite First Chapter for the History of Medicine

An art historian and a medical researcher say they have pushed back by hundreds of years the earliest use of a medicinal plant.

Until now, the earliest known use was around 1000 B.C., with visual and written evidence for the myrtle, the lily, the poppy and others. Now, scholars say, the dating of a volcanic eruption and botanically accurate wall paintings indicate that saffron has been a versatile medicine since 3,500 years ago ... New York Times

Experts Say New Desktop Fusion Claims Seem More Credible

Scientists are again claiming they have made a Sun in a jar, offering perhaps a revolutionary energy source, and this time even some skeptics find the evidence intriguing enough to call for a closer look.

Using ultrasonic vibrations to shake a jar of liquid solvent the size of a large drink cup, the scientists say, they squeezed tiny gas bubbles in the liquid so quickly and violently that temperatures reached millions of degrees and some of the hydrogen atoms in the solvent molecules fused, producing a flash of light and energy ... New York Times

Asteroid Couldn't Wipe Out Dinos

A Mexican crater, caused by an asteroid crash that many scientists thought led to the extinction of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, has just been dated to 65.3 million years ago, three hundred thousand years before dinosaurs disappeared off the face of the Earth... Discovery Channel :: Asteroid Couldn't Wipe Out Dinos

Tuscan Mystery to be Unearthed

Archaeological digging might soon unveil the mystery surrounding a sword buried in a Gothic abbey in Tuscany, Italian researchers announced.

Known as the "sword in the stone," the Tuscan "Excalibur" is said to have been plunged into a rock in 1180 by Galgano Guidotti, a medieval knight who renounced war and worldly goods to become a hermit ... Discovery Channel

Two New Dinos Found in Antarctica

Two new species of dinosaur, one a meat-eater, the other a plant-eater, have been found in Antarctica, according to the National Science foundation.

Living millions of years apart, the species were found in vastly different locations: one on the sea bottom and one on a mountaintop, according to an NSF press release.

The carnivorous beast, found at the bottom of the Weddell Sea, was a member of a group of dinosaurs called theropods, which walk on two legs and include Tyrannosaurus Rex, as well as the velociraptors of "Jurassic Park" movie fame ... Discovery Channel

Mystery Roman Emperor Existence Proven

The coin of Domitianus.

The discovery of a coin appears to confirm the brief rule of Domitianus, a mysterious Roman emperor whose very existence had been doubted ... Discovery Channel

Stonehenge tunnel row set for inquiry

A row over government plans to tunnel beneath the World Heritage site of Stonehenge is set to erupt at the opening of a public inquiry.

The controversy centres over the proposal to dig under Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain and questions over whether the Government's plans go far enough to protect an irreplaceable asset ... ic Wales

Iron Age remains unearthed in Edinburgh

Workmen digging up a city street in preparation for a new bus route have uncovered an Iron Age structure.

The remains of the 3000-year-old stone enclosure were discovered in the Broomhouse area.

Archeologists believe the 130ft by 100ft structure dates back to around 1000BC, making it from the late Bronze or early Iron Age ... Edinburgh Evening News

'The Fabric of the Cosmos': The Almost Inconceivable, but Don’t Be Intimidated

Brian Greene has assigned himself the task of explaining the weirdest, most arcane principles of cutting-edge physics to lay readers ... Books of The Times

'Museum without walls' displays Egypt's glories

Website designed by Toronto team gives close-ups of ancient and modern wonders.

Experiencing the glories of Egypt, both ancient and modern, will become a lot easier starting today thanks to a groundbreaking joint effort of the Egyptian government and a Toronto-based team of Web designers.

The result of their three-year collaboration is a new website known as "Eternal Egypt", paid for by a $2.5-million (U.S.) donation from the IBM corporation ... The Globe and Mail

65-million-year dinosaur egg found in India

A dinosaur's egg, possibly dating back to 65 million years ago, has been found in Gujarat, India ... HindustanTimes.com

Viking graves in Pskov, North-Western Russia

Archaeologists are examining the items found in the ancient burial place of a Viking woman in downtown Pskov. In the last days of 2003 in Pskov during archaeological research of the construction site, burial place related to X century, was discovered. At the depth of 4 meters in the burial chamber the remains of a woman were found along with decoration of bronze and silver, bronze scales, glass beads and several dozens of other items ... PRAVDA.Ru

Mammal mums can alter their offspring's sex

Knowing whether a pregnancy will produce a boy or girl is not left up to chance for some mammals - UK biologists claim they have conclusive proof that zebras, bison and certain other mammals actively adjust the sex of their offspring.

It has long been known that many insects, birds and fish are capable of influencing the sex of their offspring, but the idea of gender adjustment in mammals has been controversial. American biologist Robert Trivers first suggested that female red deer alter the sex of their offspring according to their physical condition at the time of conception, and the idea has been debated for the 30 years since ... New Scientist

'Awesome' Treasure Find Could Be England's First Viking Boat Burial

Photo: Kippa Matthews. Courtesy York Museums Trust.

Archaeologists in York believe a hoard of treasure recently found by metal detectorists could lead to the first discovery of a Viking boat burial in England.

Simon Holmes, Finds Liaison Officer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme in Yorkshire, told the 24 Hour Museum that certain artefacts suggest this "awesome" find could be one of the most significant discoveries in the British Isles.

"Some of the finds are boats nails," he said. "95% of me is happy that we?ve got a boat burial. There is a very, very strong possibility that England has a first!" ... 24 Hour Museum News

Past, Present, Future

Perceptions of time through the ages.

By Dan Falk: "Time envelops and defines our world. We try to save time; we hate to waste time; we say we'll make time for some favorite activity. We say that time flies when we're having fun and slows to a crawl when we're not. Many of us are paid by the hour; Internet and phone companies bill by the minute; advertising time is sold by the second. Yet just a few centuries ago, our ancestors would have worried little about minutes and not at all about seconds. The way we conceive of time has varied greatly across the millennia and from one ancient culture to another--from those who tracked the sun and stars with stunning accuracy to those who barely acknowledged the existence of past and future. In some cases, time's fingerprints can be seen in the archaeological record--in clocks and calendars, observatories, and monuments. But it is also reflected in more subtle ways--in the religions we practice, the rituals we follow, and even the words we speak. Perceptions of time have shaped the lives and minds of everyone who has lived on this planet, in every culture and in every age" ... Archaeology.org

Plans to restore ancient Rome spur dissent

Controversial plans are afoot to revamp Rome's historic centre - to give visitors a better insight into how the ancient city looked.

A 78-year-old Italian professor of architecture, Carlo Aymonino, has been entrusted by the city's mayor with redesigning the area around the Roman forum - once dominated by a soaring, white marble temple ... BBC NEWS

Half of all languages face extinction this century

Half of all human languages will have disappeared by the end of the century, as smaller societies are assimilated into national and global cultures, scientists have warned ... New Scientist

Roman remains uncovered in county

Part of a 2,000-year-old Roman Road has been unearthed in Hereford, UK.

Archaeologists also found cremated human remains and luxury Roman pottery underneath an existing road in Stretton Sugwas ... BBC NEWS

Vikings' Barbaric Bad Rap Beginning to Fade

"Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race. – Behold, the church of St. Cuthbert, spattered with the blood of the priests of God, despoiled of all its ornaments; a place more venerable than all in Britain is given as a prey to pagan peoples."

So wrote religious scholar Alcuin of York in the late eighth century in a letter to Ethelred, king of Northumbria in England. He was describing a violent raid by Vikings on a monastery in present-day Scotland ... National Geographic

Remains of Darwin's ship may lie under Essex mud

A group of marine archaeologists may have solved one of the world's most enduring maritime mysteries – the final resting place of HMS Beagle in which Charles Darwin developed his landmark theory of evolution ... CNN.com

Suspected Viking burial fills a hole in English history

One of the great missing pieces of Britain's archaeological jigsaw may finally have fallen into place with the discovery of swords, ship nails and a silver Baghdad coin in a Yorkshire field.

Tight security has been put on the site since metal detecting enthusiasts came upon what is thought to be the first known Viking ship burial south of Hadrian's Wall ... Guardian Unlimited

Where'd I Put That?

Maybe it takes a bird brain to find the car keys.

Should humanity get a little too full of itself and its intellectual prowess, there's always Clark's nutcracker to think about. This pale-gray bird with black wings and a long beak flits through woodlands in the West, collecting seeds during times of plenty and tucking them away for a hungry winter's day. During a year, each bird buries 22,000 to 33,000 seeds in up to 2,500 locations, and scientists estimate that the bird recovers two-thirds of them up to 13 months later.

Just how seed cachers do this has fascinated biologists for decades ... Science News Online

Amesbury Archer 'King of Stonehenge' was a settler from the Alps

The man who may have helped organise the building of Stonehenge was a settler from continental Europe, archaeologists say. The latest tests on the Amesbury Archer, whose grave astonished archaeologists last year with the richness of its contents, show he was originally from the Alps region, probably Switzerland, Austria or Germany. The tests also show that the gold hair tresses found in the grave are the earliest gold objects found in Britain ... Popular Science

Getting back to the basics / Workshops for learning primitive skills

Tamara Wilder squatted, then spun a slim, buckeye shaft into a block of box elder wood. She worked this primitive fire drill by rubbing palms of both her hands swiftly together. Wisps of steam, then smoke, trailed into gray sky. A coal glowed in the elder "hearth" on Wilder's sixth pass ... SFGate.com

Oldest insect hints at dawn of flight

The world's oldest known insect has been found lurking in a fossil-filled vault under a museum. The finding pushes back the origins of winged insects by 80 million years, and could shed light on the mystery of why the ability to fly first evolved. The fossilised creature, Rhyniognatha hirsti, is 400 million years old and comes from near Aberdeen, Scotland. The Australian entomologist Robin John Tillyard studied it in the 1920s and reported that it might be related to insects, but he could not be sure ... New Scientist

German archaeologist throws light on pyramid origin

Egypt's ancient pyramids are probably a byproduct of a decision to build walls around the tombs of kings, a leading expert on early Egyptian royal burials said Wednesday. Guenter Dreyer, director of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, said he based his theory on similarities between Egypt's first pyramid, built at Saqqara south of Cairo for the Pharaoh Zozer in about 2650 BC, and the structure of the tomb of one of his immediate predecessors ... Reuters

Ignored for Decades, Insect Fossil Is Declared World’s Oldest

Scientists say they have discovered the world's oldest known insect fossil – a 400 million-year-old set of minuscule jaws that lay unrecognized for nearly a century in a lonely drawer at the Natural History Museum in London. The findings, being published on Thursday in the journal Nature, pushes the date for the appearance of insects, one of the most successful life forms on earth, some 10 million to 20 million years back in the fossil record. And they suggest that insects were among the first animals to live on land ... New York Times

Study Explains Loud Birds

While humans try to outsing each other on televised talent contests, birds are doing nearly the same thing in nature, with the winners gaining peer prestige and female admirers instead of record contracts ... Discovery Channel

Evolution of Alphabets

The evolution of alphabets – animated: Cuneiform, Phoenician, Greek, etc. This page is part of the course material for "History of the Alphabets" taught by Prof. Robert Fradkin ... University of Maryland

Pigeons reveal map-reading secret

Homing pigeons are finding their way around Britain by following roads and railways, zoologists claim.

They say the birds' natural magnetic and solar compasses are often less important than their knowledge of human transport routes ... BBC NEWS

Archaeologist to present report on Traveler's Rest

A report by a Missoula archaeologist confirms the exact location of the Lolo-area campsite used by Lewis and Clark nearly two centuries ago, the Travelers' Rest Chapter of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation says.
The exact Travelers' Rest site has eluded historians, but a recently completed report by archaeologist Daniel S. Hall provides compelling evidence that the site has been identified just south of Lolo ... Ravalli Republic Online

Fabulous Finds as Saxon King's Tomb Is Unearthed

The tomb of an East Saxon king containing a fabulous collection of artefacts has been unearthed, it was announced today.

The burial chamber, believed to date from the early 7th century, has been described by experts as the richest Anglo-Saxon find since the Sutton Hoo ship burial in Suffolk – one of Britain's most important archaeological locations.

The site in Prittlewell, Southend, Essex was filled with everything a King might need in the afterlife, from his sword and shield to copper bowls, glass vessels and treasures imported from the farthest corners of the then known world.

The remains of the nobleman's body have dissolved in the acidic soil, but two gold foil crosses were found which suggest he was a newly-converted Christian ... Scotsman.com News

Archaeologists find 1,400-year-old tomb of Anglo-Saxon king

A coloured glass bowl, one of several artifacts found in the burial site of a Saxon king in Southend-on-Sea, England (AP photo)

More than 60 Saxon treasures from gold crosses to glass jars have gone on display in London, giving a glimpse into a royal tomb from the seventh century.
Archeologists call the king the "Prince of Prittlewell." Nothing remains of the king, who was buried in a wood-walled grave.
The body is the only thing missing from the four-metre-square chamber.
"To find an intact chamber grave and a moment genuinely frozen in time is a once-in-a-lifetime discovery," said Ian Blair, the senior archaeologist on the dig ... CBC News

Search for ancient Persian warships

An international research team including a University of Colorado at Boulder professor has mounted a deep-water search off the northern coast of Greece in search of Persian warships presumed lost in a massive ocean storm in 492 B.C. ... EurekAlert

Saxon king's burial chamber yields its secrets

Historians believe they may have found King Saeberht's resting place.
A burial chamber, believed to be that of an early Christian king who ruled over Anglo Saxon Essex nearly 1,400 years ago, has been uncovered by archaeologists.
The discovery, due to be announced today, is one of the most important finds in decades, researchers say ... Telegraph News

Five seconds of boredom relief

While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot slightly off the floor and make clockwise circles with your foot. Now, while doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction..... counter clockwise...

You can't help it! ... hanging-fire.net

Baltic Sea Awash In Shipwrecks

Leaning across the wooden helm of his boat, Vello Mass scans the Baltic Sea to the horizon and muses about the treasures lying beneath the cold, gray waves.

"There are hundreds of Viking ships out there, hundreds of old trading ships, hundreds of warships," the 63-year-old wreck-hunter remarks. "The Baltic's an archaeological paradise" ... CBS News

When Giants Had Wings and 6 Legs

There was a time when giants roamed the Earth.

No, not those giants, the dinosaurs that stomped and slogged their way through the Mesozoic Era. These giants crawled and crept, slithered and scurried, burrowed, slinked, skittered and, above all, flitted and fluttered millions of years before the dinosaurs arrived.

They were the giant arthropods of the Carboniferous.

There were extra-large mayflies, supersized scorpions and spiders the size of a healthy spider plant. There was an array of giant flightless insects, and a five-foot-long millipede-like creature, Arthropleura, that resembled a tire tread rolled out flat ... New York Times

Archeologists discover evidence of ancient culture in Mexico City

Archeologists announced Wednesday they have discovered an ancient Teotihuacan settlement on a hill in central Mexico City, dozens of kilometres from the pyramids where Teotihuacan - long regarded as a mother culture of central Mexico - flourished nearly 2,000 years ago.

The discovery in December of structures and tools on a hill just behind the city's landmark Chapultepec Castle suggests Teotihuacan spread and influenced Mexico City even earlier than previously thought. Teotihuacan, 50 kilometres north of Mexico City, remains largely a mystery today, and it was so even for the Aztecs, who are credited with founding Mexico City in the 1300s ... CBC News

Rat Radar: Rodent Uses Natural "GPS"

Hikers trekking through unfamiliar territory are well advised to carry a compass, if not a GPS unit, to stay on course. Other animals are lucky enough to have complex navigational equipment in-built. New research reveals that Israel's blind mole rat (Spalax ehrenbergi) uses the Earth's magnetic field on long journeys, much like a compass, to continuously monitor and maintain its course ... National Geographic News

8 million-year-old whale fossil found in Maryland

Days after Hurricane Isabel ravaged the cliffs lining St. Mary's River last year, Jeff DiMeglio and his girlfriend went scouring for shark teeth and found what DiMeglio, an experienced fossil hunter, recognized as the rib of a whale.

He immediately covered the findings and contacted a museum. Heavy erosion from the storm had unearthed the complete fossilized skull of what paleontologists say was an 8 million-year-old whale. The find is important because little is known about whales of that era ... CNN.com

Pickled dragon mystery

A pickled "dragon" that looks as if it might once have flown around Harry Potter's Hogwarts has been found in a garage in Oxfordshire, England.
The baby dragon, in a sealed jar, was discovered with a metal tin containing paperwork in old-fashioned German of the 1890s ... smh.com.au

Flower Power Takes on Land Mines

A Danish biotech company has developed a genetically modified flower that could help detect land mines and it hopes to have a prototype ready for use within a few years. The genetically modified weed has been coded to change color when its roots come in contact with nitrogen dioxide evaporating from explosives buried in soil ... Wired News

Wissenschaftler erforschen Umfeld der Himmelsscheibe

Wissenschaftler der Universitäten Leipzig, Halle, Jena und Freiberg erforschen gemeinsam die Bedeutung der Himmelsscheibe von Nebra für die Bronzezeit Europas. Geplant ist ein auf sechs Jahre angelegtes Forschungsprojekt, das von der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft gefördert werden und im August dieses Jahres beginnen soll ... Archäologie Online

Keltenmuseum Hochdorf

From Humbul Record: The great tumulus excavated at Eberdingen-Hochdorf, Germany, is one of the largest and most lavishly furnished burial mound of the late Hallstatt period (c540 BC) and contained the remains of a rich chieftain now housed at the Keltenmuseum in Hochdorf, Baden-W?rttemburg. While burial mounds of this kind are well known from the West Hallstatt area in Eastern France and Southern Germany, many were excavated prior to the development of modern techniques so this intact example is particularly notable. This website, in German with some English translation, provides an attractive guide to the main discoveries at the Eberdingen-Hochdoch mound with numerous plans, photographs and images (viewable at different scales) and links to outside sources of information ... LINK

Earliest Land Animal Fossil Found

From Discovery Channel: A millipede whose fossilized remains were discovered last year in eastern Scotland is the earth's oldest known land-dwelling creature, according to scientists quoted in the Scottish press on Sunday.

Paleontologists from the Scottish National Museums and Yale University in the United States have concluded that the creature is more than 420 million years old, the weekly Sunday Herald reported ... LINK

Archaeo-moblog: Hopkins in Egypt Today

In early January 2004 Professor Betsy Bryan, with a team of JHU students and photographer Jay VanRensselaer, will arrive in Luxor, a southern Egyptian city. This is the tenth year of the Johns Hopkins University Expedition under the direction of Dr. Bryan. Jay VanRensselaer is making his sixth trip with Professor Bryan to photograph the finds of her excavations. Along with his standard equipment, he is carrying a digital camera. He will be sending daily photographs with commentary from Professor Bryan on the team's progress during the month of January ... LINK

Researchers pinpoint exact location of Lewis & Clark's campsite

From The Missoulian: For only the second time, historians, geologists and archaeologists have been able to document the exact location of a campsite used by the famous expedition by finding physical evidence of their stay ... LINK

Disgraced archaeologist apologizes

From Washington Times: Japanese archaeologist Shinichi Fujimura, accused of faking stoneware discoveries, now blames mental illness for his conduct.

In an interview with Mainichi Shimbun published Monday, Fujimura also claimed he had been under mounting pressure from experts and media to make more important discoveries ... LINK

Sleeper Effects: Slumber may fortify memory, stir insight

From Science News Online: There's nothing like a good night's sleep to get some serious thinking done. That, at least, is the theme of two new investigations, one conducted with rodents and the other with people ... LINK

The Amish diet

From The Globe and Mail: New research shows that Old Order Amish – a religious group who shun technology – have an obesity rate of only 4 per cent despite a meat and potatoes (and pie) diet.

Their secret: physical activity in the form of hard work and walking. Lots of walking ... LINK

Study confirms sleep essential for creativity

From CNN.com: Everybody feels refreshed following a good night's sleep. But can you wake up smarter? More artistic perhaps?

German scientists say they have demonstrated for the first time that our sleeping brains continue working on problems that baffle us during the day, and the right answer may come more easily after eight hours of rest.

The German study is considered to be the first hard evidence supporting the common sense notion that creativity and problem solving appear to be directly linked to adequate sleep, scientists say. Other researchers who did not contribute to the experiment say it provides a valuable reminder for overtired workers and students that sleep is often the best medicine ... LINK

Olympic work sends archaeologists on treasure hunt

From AP: A cloud of white dust drifts over Athens' former international airport as a crew using heavy equipment builds facilities for this summer's Olympics.
A few paces away, another team – with only brushes and gardentools – carefully digs into the past ... LINK

Bronze Artifacts Found Off Egypt's Coast

From the Guardian: A French archaeological team has retrieved more than 1,000 bronze artifacts, including statues and busts of Pharoanic gods and goddesses, from the site of an ancient port city off Egypt's northern coast, officials said Sunday.

The artifacts were found during archaeological surveys near Alexandria last month and date to the 3rd through 5th centuries B.C. Among them are tools and containers used in religious rituals, said Mohamed Abdel Maqsoud, a senior official with Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities ... LINK

Saving Venice

From Nature.com: Plans have been resurrected to raise Venice above the encroaching sea.

Venice could be saved from sinking into the sea by using oil-industry technology to pump fluid underneath the city, says a team of geomechanical engineers ... LINK

Bronze Age discovery in Croatia

From icBirmingham: A team of experts from the University of Birmingham has discovered a major archaeological site in a riverbed in Croatia. Items recovered from the river include more than 90 swords, a Roman legionnaire's dagger complete with sheath, more than 30 Greco-Illyrian helmets, plus numerous items of jewellery, axes and spearheads. It is believed a large number of objects were thrown into River Cetina deliberately, possibly as offerings to gods.

Initial surveys of the site indicate that the remarkable finds span a period of history from 6,000 BCE onwards. These include 33m long timbers, clearly visible from the riverbank, which show evidence of late Neolithic or early Bronze Age wooden settlements. Project leader Dr Vincent Gaffney, director of the university's Institute for Archaeology and Antiquity, said: "The Cetina Valley is certainly the most remarkable site that I have, and will ever, have the privilege of being involved in. As the majority of the Cetina Valley site is waterlogged, the level of preservation is quite exceptional. I believe this to be one of the most important archaeological wetlands in Europe."

Sediments in the river valley also provide an environmental record covering around 10,000 years, offering an insight into the everyday life of the people who would have lived there. The Birmingham University team is to return to the site in May to carry out an extensive survey.

Relics of Ancient Burial Rites Reveal Siberian Trade Route

From the Moscow Times: In a medieval Siberian graveyard a few miles south of the Arctic Circle, Russian scientists have unearthed mummies roughly 1,000 years old, clad in copper masks, hoops and plates -- burial rites that archaeologists say they have never seen before.

Among 34 shallow graves were five mummies shrouded in copper and blankets of reindeer, beaver, wolverine or bear fur. Unlike the remains of Egyptian pharaohs, the scientists say, the Siberian bodies were mummified by accident. The cold, dry permafrost preserved the remains, and the copper may have helped prevent oxidation ... LINK

Ancient port found below Naples

From Discovery Channel: Italian archaeologists have discovered the ancient port of Neapolis during excavation work for a new subway in Naples, they announced at a news conference this week.

Extending into the heart of present-day Naples, the second-century port was found 13 meters (43 feet) beneath one of the city's main squares, not far from the 13th-century Maschio Angioino fortress ... LINK

Lion mummy found in Egyptian tomb

From CBS News: For the first time, archaeologists have discovered a preserved lion skeleton in an ancient Egyptian tomb, demonstrating the exalted reputation enjoyed by the king of beasts more than 3,000 years ago.

A research team led by French archaeologist Alain Zivie found the lion's remains in 2001 as they excavated the tomb of Maia, wet nurse to Tutankhamun, the "boy king" popular with museum visitors today for his opulent gold funeral relics. He ruled for 10 years and died around 1323 B.C. ... LINK

Circles for space

From Scientific American: German "Stonehenge" marks oldest observatory.
A vast, shadowy circle sits in a flat wheat field near Goseck, Germany. No, it is not a pattern made by tipsy graduate students. The circle represents the remains of the world's oldest observatory, dating back 7,000 years. Coupled with an etched disk recovered last year, the observatory suggests that Neolithic and Bronze Age people measured the heavens far earlier and more accurately than scientists had imagined ... LINK

Melting ice in Yukon reveals ancient hunting artifacts

From CBC News: Archeologists working in the Yukon's melting snow fields say they've found some of the oldest evidence of human habitation in the territory.
Last year's warm summer further melted the territory's alpine snowfields, which have become a rich source of artifacts from the territory's pre-history ... LINK

Archaeologists mistake 1940s patio for Viking village

From Ananova: Archaeologists have admitted to having been made to look "very silly" after mistaking a 1940s sunken patio for a 9th century Viking village.

Fife County Archaeologist Douglas Spiers says his team concluded the slabs found in the back garden of a Buckhaven home had originally been hauled by Norse settlers from a nearby beach.

Even the discovery of a Second World War gas mask on the plot failed to deter them from their theory that this was the first evidence ever seen of Viking homes built on mainland Scotland, reports the Daily Mail ... LINK

Well gives peek into early Jamestown

From the Washington Times: The remains of a 17th-century well in historic Jamestown have provided glimpses into a massacre, the pioneering settlement's early struggles, and the colony's later success with tobacco, archaeologists said yesterday.
The well, built as early as 1617, likely is the earliest of two dozen wells discovered at the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Unearthed in summer 2002, it has yielded a treasure trove of artifacts — from drinking vessels likely dropped by accident to armor used to protect colonists from American Indians ... LINK

The 400BC Ferrari

From The Scotsman: An Iron Age chariot unearthed at an Edinburgh building site has been proved the oldest in Britain.
Radiocarbon tests on the wheels of the chariot, which has been described as a "Ferrari of the Iron Age", have proved it dates back to 400BC - 200 years earlier than the previous oldest British find ... LINK

When sand dunes collide, sometimes they mate and multiply

From New York Times: The steady desert winds that slowly nudge sand dunes across barren plains can produce remarkable collisions.
In findings that appear to shatter the conventional notion that two dunes crossing paths always merge into one, German researchers report that one crescent-shaped dune can bump into another and seemingly pass straight through — creating the illusion that it emerged on the opposite side without losing its shape ... LINK

German man wants alpine iceman reward

From News-Journal: A German who discovered the body of a 5,000-year-old man frozen in the Italian Alps said Monday he is demanding a finder's fee of up to $300,000.
Helmut Simon discovered the iceman, known as Oetzi, near the Italy-Austria border while on a 1991 hiking trip with his wife. Oetzi's well-preserved body, clothing and tools have given scientists a window on the previously little-known world of copper-age Europe ... LINK

Alberta archeologists racing to save ancient artifacts

From CBC News: A team of archeologists from Calgary is heading to Sudan over the holidays, where they'll be racing to save the remnants of an ancient African civilization.
Archeology and anthropology professors John Robertson and Rebecca Bradley of Mount Royal College will try to find and save artifacts of the Kush, a little-known people who lived about 2,000 years ago along the banks of the Upper Nile in what is now Sudan ... LINK

The Long Now Foundation

The Long Now Foundation was established in 01996** to develop Clock and "Library" projects as well as to become the seed of a very long term cultural institution. It has been nearly 10,000 years since the end of the last ice age and the beginnings of civilization. Progress lately is often measured on a "faster/cheaper" scale. The Long Now Foundation seeks to promote "slower/better" thinking and to foster creativity in the framework of the next 10,000 years ... LINK

Santa Clara firm to help show Mars landing

From Business Journal: Speedera Networks of Santa Clara, which sells on-demand distributed application and content delivery services, and Capcave, an Internet systems integrator based in the Netherlands, say they are working directly with the European Space Agency (ESA) to provide live streaming of the Mars Express probe scheduled to arrive on Mars at Christmas.
"Mars Express has been designed to perform a thorough exploration of the Red Planet, not only searching for water but daring to search for life itself," says Fulvio Drigani, ESA's portal manager. "The Web site is key to bringing this ambitious project home to the viewers on Earth."
The Beagle 2 lander will be released from the orbiting Mars Express mother craft on Dec. 19 and is expected to touch down on the surface of the Red Planet on the night of Dec. 24-25. The European probe -- built for ESA by a consortium of European companies led by Astrium -- carries seven scientific instruments that will perform a series of remote-sensing experiments designed to shed new light on the planet's structure, geology and atmosphere, as well as its potential for supporting life ... LINK

Where dinosaurs roamed, she throws stones

From New York Times: Remember the riddle about the extinction of the dinosaurs? It bedeviled many of us as children. It seemed to have been solved two decades ago with the theory that a single meteor plowed into the Earth 65 million years ago. Poof, we thought, the dinosaurs were gone.
But Gerta Keller, 58, a professor in Princeton University's department of geosciences, is part of a small group that is rattling the foundations. And the theory she supports, which argues that the demise of the dinosaurs was more complicated, has unleashed a small tempest of its own among die-hard believers in the meteor theory, who are known as "impacters" ... LINK

Replica Wright Flyer ends up in puddle

From CTV News: Engineers tried twice to launch a replica of the Wright Flyer today as part of celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of flight. Coincidentally, many of the same problems faced by Wilbur and Orville in 1903 came back to haunt today's pilot ... LINK

Twelve seconds that changed the world

From ABC News: In the Greek myth, Icarus proved the dangers of sticking feathers to himself with wax and flying like a bird. (He fell into the ocean.) But 100 years ago, Wilbur and Orville Wright ushered in modern aviation with not much more: They stretched a little white muslin cloth over a spruce wood skeleton, cranked up a homemade 12 h.p. gasoline engine, and took off for the sky. Just barely ... LINK

Wright brothers reenactment flops in the mud

From Reuters: Modern-day aviators have failed to duplicate the pioneering flight of the Wright brothers a century ago as a replica of their primitive 1903 flying machine flopped into the mud. On a rain-soaked field in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, where the bicycle mechanics from Ohio achieved the age-old dream on December 17, 1903, an exact copy of the wood-and-cloth Wright Flyer trundled down a wooden rail but failed to generate the speed and lift it needed to fly in an unreliable breeze ... LINK

Scientist gives Rudolph wings

From the Guardian: Forget reindeer. If Father Christmas really wants to get his sleigh airborne next week, scientists say he should call on the services of a flying dinosaur.
Paolo Viscardi, a flight physiologist at the University of Leeds, has calculated that flying reindeer would need wings 10 metres (33ft) long. That's three times the wingspan of the wandering albatross and more impressive even than the bird with the largest known wingspan, the extinct South American Argentavis magnificens ... LINK

The Englishman Who Wanted to Fly

From Wired News: With all the hoopla surrounding the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' legendary flight, it'd be easy to overlook the work of an eccentric English baronet, Sir George Cayley. But Cayley is as responsible as anyone for making the age-old dream of flying machines real, aviation historians say. And Cayley's aircraft flew 50 years before Orville Wright took off from Kitty Hawk ... LINK

Honoring the centennial of flight with flight

From New York Times: A replica of the Wright brothers' 1903 Flyer will try to take off at 10:35 a.m. tomorrow from the original site, 100 years to the minute after the original. If the wind is not too fast and not too slow, and everything else cooperates, the airplane will hop the same 120 feet, with President Bush and thousands of others gathered to watch on the beach at Kill Devil Hills, N.C. ... LINK

Meteorite that killed 90% of species may have hit tropics

From New York Times: Scientists who support a controversial theory that a meteor crash coincided with the largest mass extinction in earth's history now assert that they have narrowed the location of the impact — somewhere on land in the tropics.
The extinction occurred 250 million years ago at the boundary between the Permian and Triassic geological periods, and killed 90 percent of the living species ... LINK

Ancient machinery drove cruelty at the Colosseum

From Telegraph News: The Colosseum in Rome was as sophisticated as a modern stage set, according to archaeologists who have calculated how an intricate system of gangplanks, trapdoors and levers was used to bring wild animals into the arena.
Under the 55,000-seat Colosseum, pulleys and ropes were operated at split-second intervals to connect passages, open gates and hoist cages from the basement to the floor of the arena ... LINK

Flight into the future

From BBC News: It is difficult to appreciate now the overwhelming challenge that faced Wilbur and Orville Wright as they attempted the first powered flight on 17 December, 1903.
But as the aviation industry looks towards the next 100 years, it will have to confront challenges at least as daunting as those faced by the Wright brothers ... LINK

More on the West Yorkshire chariot burial

From Oxford Archaeology (with excellent photos!): A rare and nationally significant Iron Age chariot burial has recently been found in West Yorkshire during excavations for the route of the new A1 motorway, one of Britain’s largest road improvement schemes. It is the first burial of its type to be found in West Yorkshire.
The chariot had been placed in a large oval pit in the centre of a square ditched enclosure. The burial pit would originally have been covered by a low earth mound formed from the spoil dug out of the surrounding enclosure ditch. As this had been dug into limestone, the mound would have been clearly visible from a distance ... LINK

Archaeologist finds treasure of a lifetime

From Portsmouth Herald: University of New Hampshire archaeologist William Saturno will grace the pages of the December 2003 edition of National Geographic - his second time in his two years since discovering a 2,000-year-old Maya mural in Guatemala.
Saturno, now 34, discovered the oldest known intact wall painting of Maya mythology while hiding from the hot sun during a dig in San Bartolo ... LINK

The return of the mummy

From Forbes.com: Collecting antiquities used to be a fun adventure. But now that other countries are repatriating their most valuable treasures, you stand to lose it all.
Amenhotep III, the 14th-centurey B.C. Egyptian pharaoh, could hardly have foreseen the problems he would cause 3,300 years after his death. A stone bust of the pharaoh is in Britain's Scotland Yard. The police don't know what to do with it. The Cairo government claims the head was taken out of Egypt illegally and is poised to sue for it. The company that last owned the head, Robin Symes Ltd., is in receivership. There may be other parties who will try to lay claim to it ... LINK

Archaeology of food

From The Guardian: If you've ever seriously wondered what hunter-gatherers from the palaeolithic period actually slapped down on the cave floor after a hard morning's hunting, we may have found the postgraduate course for you writes Miles Brignall of The Guardian.
The University of Leicester's school of archaeology and ancient history has just launched a new MA focusing on what ancient, and relatively modern civilisations ate, and what those details tell us about they way they lived ... LINK

Celtic stone warrior delights experts

From BBC News: Archaeologists are delighted by a 2,500-year-old stone statue that offers a rare insight into life in western Europe before the Roman conquest.
The stone torso, unearthed at Lattes in southern France, is one of just a few detailed figurines considered to have been made by the ancient Celts ... LINK

Democratic peer review

From Pitch Journal: Pitch uses a democratic method of peer review where all readers participate in the review process. Instead of sending submitted articles away for 12 months of secret review by three individuals, Pitch allows your peers to review your work. In Pitch everyone "pitches in" to rate papers submitted to the journal. Papers receiving ratings above a cut score (currently an average of 3.5 out of 5 points) after a minimum number of reviews (currently 20 reviews) are accepted for publication. Once you register you can review articles and make comments on published articles, as well as upload your own articles for peer review/publication ... LINK (registration)

Evaluating information found on the internet

From The Sheridan Libraries: The World Wide Web offers information and data from all over the world. Because so much information is available, and because that information can appear to be fairly “anonymous”, it is necessary to develop skills to evaluate what you find. When you use a research or academic library, the books, journals and other resources have already been evaluated by scholars, publishers and librarians. Every resource you find has been evaluated in one way or another before you ever see it. When you are using the World Wide Web, none of this applies. There are no filters. Because anyone can write a Web page, documents of the widest range of quality, written by authors of the widest range of authority, are available on an even playing field. Excellent resources reside along side the most dubious. The Internet epitomizes the concept of Caveat lector: Let the reader beware. This document discusses the criteria by which scholars in most fields evaluate print information, and shows how the same criteria can be used to assess information found on the Internet ... LINK

Earliest known marsupial unearthed in China

From New Scientist: The oldest known fossil skeleton of an ancestor of modern marsupials has been unearthed in north-eastern China. The spectacular find is 50 million years older than the previous record holder, and helps to fill a key gap in the understanding of early mammal evolution.
China's Yixian rock formation, which is 125 million years old, has produced a spectacular haul of early mammal fossils, including, in 2002, the earliest known placental mammal, Eomaia scansoria. Now, this mouse-sized ancestor of opossums and kangaroos, Sinodelphys szalayi, has been unearthed ... LINK

The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map

LINK

Japanese Mars probe abandoned

From NewScientist.com: – Japan has been forced to abandon its first ever interplanetary space mission after failing to correct an onboard electrical fault with its Mars probe Nozomi ... LINK

Historic shipwreck found off Norway

From New Zealand Herald: – A sunken 18th-century ship laden with artefacts has been found off Norway's coast during a gas pipeline project, archaeologists said on Tuesday.
The ship's bell, bearing the date 1745, had been raised as well as an empty French wine bottle, presumably from 1760 to 1780, but five canon, parts of the ship's rigging, almost a thousand other bottles and ceramics were seen on the deck.
"This is a relatively well preserved and big shipwreck from the second half of the 18th century with thousands of artefacts," marine archaeologist Marek Jasinski told Reuters ... LINK

Exhumation of King 'Harold' refused

From BBC News: – A group of historians have lost their battle to exhume a body from a medieval church to find out if it is the remains of King Harold.
A church court has refused permission for the contents of the tomb, at the Holy Trinity Church in Bosham, West Sussex, to be examined.
The historians, led by retired paper merchant John Pollock, wanted to see if DNA tests on the headless legless body in the coffin could confirm it was the Saxon king ... LINK

Viking queen may be exhumed for clues to killing

From CNN.com: – The grave of a mysterious Viking queen may hold the key to a 1,200 year-old case of suspected ritual killing, and scientists are planning to unearth her bones to find out.
She is one of two women whose fate has been a riddle ever since their bones were found in 1904 in a 72 feet longboat buried at Oseberg in south Norway, its oaken form preserved miraculously, with even its menacing, curling prow intact ... LINK

German 'Stonehenge'

From Scientific American: – A vast, shadowy circle sits in a flat wheat field near Goseck, Germany. No, it is not a pattern made by tipsy graduate students. The circle represents the remains of the world's oldest observatory, dating back 7,000 years. Coupled with an etched disk recovered last year, the observatory suggests that Neolithic and Bronze Age people measured the heavens far earlier and more accurately than scientists had imagined ... LINK

Experts study Viking find

From St. Albans Observer: – A gilded 10th Century Viking sword hilt thought to be of national importance is due to be taken to the British Museum on Thursday, December 11, by Verulamium Museum's first finds liaison officer.
Archaeologist Julian Watters' new job, covering all of Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, is to identify finds brought in by members of the public and date them to go on a national website of historical treasures under the new Portable Antiquities scheme funded by the Heritage Lottery.
Among the first handed in is an artistically worked sword hilt discovered in north Hertfordshire ... LINK

ArchSearch - the ADS online catalogue

The complete series of CBA [: Council for British Archaeology] Research Reports, including microfiche, has been digitised and is being made available by the CBA as a staged process. Those reports now available are linked.
They are available in PDF format, which preserves the layout of the original publication. To read the PDF files you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader software... LINK

Stone Age research center opens

From Yahoo! News: – A husband-and-wife team of anthropologists has opened a new center devoted to research of the Stone Age, offering scholars laboratories and 50,000 books and articles on the lives of early humans. Nicholas Toth and Kathy Schick of Indiana University are scheduled to dedicate the CRAFT Stone Age Institute Friday. The name stands for Center for Research into the Anthropological Foundations of Technology. The center north of Bloomington features laboratories, offices, meeting rooms and a large, open library with a vaulted ceiling.
"We're planning on it being an international research facility, to provide a haven for people doing various investigations from around the world," Schick said. "The emphasis is really on research, but the educational component is there too"...LINK

The Myth of Doomed Data

From MIT Technology Review: – The handwringing about obsolete formats is misguided. The digital files we create today will be around for a very, very long time...LINK

Reclaim your brain

More information has been produced and stored in the past five years, than at any time in human history. E-mails, text messages, mobile phone calls, TV, websites. We are drowning in the stuff. But how much of it has added to the sum of human knowledge? And has anyone thought what it is doing to our brains?...LINK

Ghost written contributions to peer-reviewed medical journals

From the Observer: – Pharmaceutical giants hire ghostwriters to produce articles – then put doctors' names on them. Hundreds of articles in medical journals claiming to be written by academics or doctors have been penned by ghostwriters in the pay of drug companies, an Observer inquiry reveals...LINK

'Lost' sacred language of the Maya rediscovered

From The Independent: – Linguists have discovered a still-surviving version of the sacred religious language of the ancient Maya - the great pyramid-building civilisation that once dominated Central America.
For years some Maya hieroglyphic texts have defied interpretation - but now archaeologists and linguists have identified a little-known native Indian language as the descendant of the elite tongue spoken by rulers and religious leaders of the ancient Maya...LINK

A fossil, decidedly male

From New York Times: – 425-million-year-old fossil found in Herefordshire, England, may be the oldest record of an animal that is unarguably male. Scientists report Friday in the journal Science that the tiny crustacean, only two-tenths of an inch long, had an unmistakable penis. In their paper, the scientists name the creature Colymbosathon ecplecticos, which they say means swimmer with a large penis...LINK

DSpace Federation

DSpace is a groundbreaking digital library system to capture, store, index, preserve, and redistribute the intellectual output of a university’s research faculty in digital formats.
Developed jointly by MIT Libraries and Hewlett-Packard (HP), DSpace is now freely available to research institutions world-wide as an open source system that can be customized and extended...LINK

The Stonehenge Project

New website: "The Stonehenge Project is designed to improve the setting and interpretation of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. It will remove the sights and sounds of the roads and traffic from the area near the Stones, improve the landscape by changing it to chalk downland, and transform the visitor experience with better access and a new world class visitor centre"...LINK

One megalith may be raised at Avebury

From Evening Advertiser: – One of the fallen megaliths at Avebury may be restored to its original place, even though there are no plans to excavate its long-buried brothers...LINK

Fossils shed light on Africa's "Missing Years"

From National Geographic News: – A massive, ancient, rhino-like creature with two bony horns protruding from its nose and several species of distant elephant relatives are among a jackpot of fossils recovered from the highlands of Ethiopia.
The fossils help fill a huge gap in the evolutionary history of African mammals known as the "missing years," shedding light on the origin and distribution of the famed beasts that roam Africa today...LINK

Ancient chariot unearthed

From the Guardian: – Motorway builders have unexpectedly unearthed one of the most important Iron Age relics to be found in Britain - appropriately, a chariot.
Buried for 2,500 years, the find is a complete chariot containing the skeleton of a tribal leader, with the remains of at least 250 cattle, probably slaughtered for the funeral feast...LINK

Researchers say Stonehenge depicts female genitalia

From ABC News Online: – Stonehenge is a massive fertility symbol, according to Canadian researchers who believe they have finally cracked the mystery of the ancient monument in southern England.
In the arrangement of the stones, the researchers say they have spotted the original design: female genitalia.
The theory is laid out in a paper entitled "Stonehenge: a view from medicine" in the July issue of Britain's Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine...LINK

Nearby star may have planetary system like ours

From Scientific American: - Astronomers scanning the skies for far-flung planets have found that the area surrounding a nearby star is very familiar. A report published in the current issue of the Astrophysical Journal suggests that Vega, located 25 light-years away from our sun, may have an orbiting planetary system that is more similar to our own than is any other yet discovered...LINK

'Lost' Avebury stones discovered

From BBC News: – An arc of buried megaliths that once formed part of the great stone circle at Avebury in Wiltshire has been discovered. A map of Avebury drawn up by William Stukely in the 1720s showed that many of the stones in the south east and north east quadrants of the circle were missing. A survey of these areas by the National Trust has revealed that at least 15 of the megaliths lie buried in the circle itself...LINK

Oetzi's new home

From www.iol.co.za: – The Stone Age ice man known as Oetzi has been given a new home - a refrigerated igloo in Bolzano, which experts believe will prevent him from losing mass, the Ansa news agency reported on Tuesday. The world's oldest and best-preserved mummy, which is widely believed to be 5 300 years old, was discovered in 1991 by two German tourists after they strayed from the regular path on a hiking trip up the Italian Alps straddling Austria and Italy...LINK

Lose weight the Stone Age way

From CheshireOnline: – Researchers at Liverpool University have found that the healthiest way to eat is to copy our Palaeolithic ancestors. They claim a regime of organic meat with a side dish of fresh leaves, nuts and fruit washed down with water is perfect for the human body...LINK

Define: Archaeology

From Wikipedia: – Archaeology (or archeology) is the study of past human cultures, primarily through the study of material remains, which includes but is not limited to architecture, artifacts, biofacts, the human body, landscapes, or any object or data that pertains to human activities. Archaeology as a subfield of anthropology has as its primary goal the study of human culture where direct ethnography is impossible, such as ancient cultures or historic cultures. The historical (i.e. written) record is incomplete in many areas, such as the history of non-elite segments of society, and archaeology provides a vital contribution to the study of human history... LINK

Ghost fleet 'shows Pisa was an ancient Venice'

From Telegraph: – The chance discovery of a Roman "ghost fleet" buried in mud just outside Pisa has led experts to conclude that the city was built on a lagoon much like an early Venice...LINK

Going nuts about Stone Age diet

From scotsman.com: – The latest diet fad seized on by hopeful weight-watchers can be traced back two million years, it emerged today. The Stone Age diet advocates eating the sort of food which was around before society was civilised and before agriculture developed. It encourages the consumption of lean red meat, fruit and nuts, but forbids pasta, bread and milk...LINK

Vinland map: New study supports authenticity

From EurekAlert: – Recent conclusions that the storied Vinland Map is merely a clever forgery are based on a flawed understanding of the evidence, according to a scientist at the Smithsonian Institution. Results from last year's study debunking the map's authenticity can also be construed to boost the validity of its medieval origins, the scientist claims.
The report will appear in the Dec. 1 edition of Analytical Chemistry, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society...LINK

Movie review: 'Timeline'

From The New York Times: – The clumsy, wooden, screen adaptation of Michael Crichton's novel "Timeline" suggests a particularly wretched episode of "Star Trek" tricked out with fancy fireworks and weighed down with a score that grinds away like a cement mixer. The pyrotechnics, in which battling 14th-century soldiers catapult fireballs into each other's fortresses, may be diverting. But from the beginning, this fantasy of time travel, in which a group of contemporary archaeologists plunges through a wormhole in the time-space continuum to land in France in 1357, pounds you over the head with its noisy, ridiculous notions of medieval life...LINK

Graffiti Archaeology

Graffiti Archaeology is one of the most ambitious, as well as impressive, web projects. On the site, you can currently track over eleven graffiti covered walls to see how they've changed over time. Some of the photos date back to 1998, so you can see five years of evolution. The site has an extremely user friendly interface that lets you see the wall evolve in a time lapse fashion...LINK

Ink analysis smudges case for forgery of Vinland map

From Scientific American: "To some, the Vinland map offers proof that Norse explorers discovered North America before Columbus did; to others, it is simply a well-crafted forgery. Last year, the publication of two studies that supported opposite conclusions fueled debate over the map's origins"...LINK

Bronze Age sun disc

From BBC: An ancient gold disc which was used as an item of adornment at a burial 4,000 years ago has been discovered in Ceredigion, Wales. Experts say the priceless sun disc is the first one of its kind to be found in Wales and only the third known piece of gold from the Bronze Age uncovered here...LINK

Humbul Humanities Hub

The Humbul Humanities Hub aims to be UK higher and further education's first choice for accessing online humanities resources...LINK

Before Farming

From ABOUT Archaeology: – A print/online hybrid, Before Farming is "the journal designed for archaeologists and anthropologists researching hunter-gatherers past and present". First two issues are free to download; future issues beginning 2003/2004 will be subscription only...LINK

Food for Thought

From Science News Online: – By the time most people reach their 40s [I'm 56], the mind has lost some of its youthful nimbleness. They learn a little more slowly. They forget more frequently. Sometimes, they don't remember where they put the car keys or the name of that popular actor...LINK

Treasure, NOT archaeology

I totally agree with the writer of this weblog entry: – There's a new event at the British Museum entitled "Buried Treasure" that is being promoted as "a major archaeological exhibition".
"Treasure" is NOT archaeology. It is merely stuff, usually glittery stuff. It is stuff that people decide is "valuable" in a monetary sense...LINK

A call from heaven?

You know how cellphones always seem to ring at the most inopportune moments? Well it can't get more inopportune than this:

A Belgium newspaper, Gazet van Antwerpen, is reporting that the family of a recently deceased motorcyclist are suing the funeral firm they chose, after the dead mans cell phone started ringing - from inside the coffin...

The night before the funeral, the family gathered at the undertakers for a final private farewell, when they heard the sound of his cellphone ringing from within the sealed coffin. Several distressed members of the family had to leave the funeral home whilst staff rushed to remove the cell phone.
The family is suing the funeral home for negligence, but what we really want to know is, who was calling?

Neolithic site of Göbekli

At ZDF.de some excellent video footage of the Neolithic site of Göbekli Tepe (Turkey) can be found. (In German only)...LINK

The Archaeology Channel

Explore the human cultural heritage through streaming media. Travel through time and feel the thrill of discovery. Examine the wonderful diversity of the human experience!...LINK

L'Anse aux Meadows

From ABOUT Archaeology: A Viking colony in the New World.
Archaeological excavations in Newfoundland, Canada, reveal evidence of a failed Viking colony on the Atlantic shore of the American continent...LINK