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Keyword: archaeology

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  • Archaeologists strike gold in quest to find Queen of Sheba's wealth

    02/11/2012 8:10:11 PM PST · by Engraved-on-His-hands · 15 replies
    The Guardian [UK] ^ | February 11, 2012 | Dalya Alberge
    A British excavation has struck archaeological gold with a discovery that may solve the mystery of where the Queen of Sheba of biblical legend derived her fabled treasures. Almost 3,000 years ago, the ruler of Sheba, which spanned modern-day Ethiopia and Yemen, arrived in Jerusalem with vast quantities of gold to give to King Solomon. Now an enormous ancient goldmine, together with the ruins of a temple and the site of a battlefield, have been discovered in her former territory. Louise Schofield, an archaeologist and former British Museum curator, who headed the excavation on the high Gheralta plateau in northern...
  • 'Woolly mammoth' spotted in Siberia

    02/08/2012 2:52:34 PM PST · by Red Badger · 138 replies
    The Sun - UK ^ | Wed Feb 08, 2012 | Staff
    A BEAST lurches through icy waters in a sighting a paranormal investigator thinks could prove woolly mammoths are not extinct after all. The animal – thought to have mostly died out roughly 4,000 years ago – was apparently filmed wading through a river in the freezing wilds of Siberia. The jaw-dropping footage was caught by a government-employed engineer last summer in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug region of Siberia, it is claimed. He filmed the elephant-sized creature as it struggled against the racing water. Its hair matches samples recovered from mammoth remains regularly dug up from the permafrost in frozen Russia....
  • 'The Oldest (Neanderthal) Work Of Art Ever': 42,000-Year-Old Paintings Of Seals Found In Spain

    02/08/2012 10:36:42 AM PST · by blam · 84 replies
    The Daily Mail ^ | 2-7-2012 | Tom Worden
    'The Oldest (Neanderthal) Work Of Art Ever': 42,000-Year-Old Paintings Of Seals Found In Spanish Cave* Six paintings were found in the Nerja Caves, 35miles east of Malaga * They are the only known artistic images created by Neanderthal man By Tom Worden Last updated at 9:27 PM on 7th February 2012 Comments (38) Share The world's oldest works of art have been found in a cave on Spain's Costa del Sol, scientists believe. Six paintings of seals are at least 42,000 years old and are the only known artistic images created by Neanderthal man, experts claim. Professor Jose Luis Sanchidrian,...
  • Dog: Man's Best Friend for Over 33,000 Years (Oldest Known Evidence of Dog Domestication)

    02/05/2012 8:24:42 AM PST · by DogByte6RER · 32 replies
    FoxNews.com ^ | January 24, 2012 | FoxNews.com
    Dog: man's best friend for over 33,000 years He's been man's best friend for generations. An ancient dog skull found in Siberia and dating back 33,000 years presents some of the oldest known evidence of dog domestication. When combined with a similar find in Belgium, the two skulls indicate that the domestication of dogs by humans occurred repeatedly throughout early human history at different geographic locations -- rather than at a single domestication event, as previously believed. "Both the Belgian find and the Siberian find are domesticated species based on morphological characteristics," said Greg Hodgins, a researcher at the University...
  • Temple Menorah Stamp Affirms Jewish Claim to Land

    01/10/2012 1:55:40 AM PST · by Eleutheria5 · 23 replies
    Arutz Sheva ^ | 10/1/12 | Gil Ronen
    Just two weeks after a Temple era seal was displayed to the public, archeologists continue to dig up breathtaking proofs of the ancient and never-severed connection between Jews and the Land of Israel. This time, the find is a 1,500 year old tiny stamp discovered near the city of Akko, bearing the image of the seven-branched Temple Menorah. The stamp was used to identify baked products and probably belonged to a bakery that supplied kosher bread to the Jews of Akko in the Byzantine period. The ceramic stamp dates from the Byzantine period (6th century CE) and was uncovered in...
  • Ancient Texts Part of Earliest Known Documents

    12/31/2011 5:23:11 PM PST · by Engraved-on-His-hands · 27 replies
    Discovery News ^ | December 27, 2011 | Rossella Lorenzi
    A team of scholars has discovered what might be the oldest representation of the Tower of Babel of Biblical fame, they report in a newly published book. Carved on a black stone, which has already been dubbed the Tower of Babel stele, the inscription dates to 604-562 BCE. It was found in the collection of Martin Schøyen, a businessman from Norway who owns the largest private manuscript assemblage formed in the 20th century. Consisting of 13,717 manuscript items spanning over‭ ‬5,000‭ ‬years, the collection includes parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Buddhist manuscript rescued from the Taliban, and even...
  • Flood waters unearth 18th century fort in Montgomery Co. (NY)

    12/13/2011 2:30:15 PM PST · by NYer · 28 replies
    Fox 23 ^ | December 13, 2011 | Katherine Underwood
    Irene’s flood waters tore up the parking lot at the Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site, uncovering remnants of an 18th century fort.“For the first time we now know where one block house of Fort Hunter was,” said Archeologist Michael Roets with the State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.Roets talked to reporters Tuesday while standing in middle of a block house, built by the British to accommodate about 20 soldiers.“We never would have had this exposed without the flood,” Roets said.During Irene, raging flood waters ripped up the parking lot and unearthed the foundation of a 24-by-24 foot block...
  • Solving the Mystery of a 35,000-Year-Old Statue

    12/12/2011 4:22:24 AM PST · by Renfield · 22 replies
    Spiegel (Germany) ^ | 12/09/2011 | Matthias Schulz
    Using a hand hoe and working in dim light, geologist Otto Völzing burrowed into the earth deep inside the Stadel cave in the Schwäbische Alb mountains of southwestern Germany. His finds were interesting to be sure, but nothing world-shaking: flints and the remnants of food eaten by prehistoric human beings. Suddenly he struck a hard object -- and splintered a small statuette. It was 1939 and Völzing didn't have much time. He had just been called up to serve in the military and World War II was about to begin. He quickly packed the pieces into a box and the...
  • Bronze age man's lunch: a spoonful of nettle stew

    12/05/2011 9:04:42 AM PST · by Renfield · 32 replies
    Guardian (UK) ^ | 12-03-2011 | Dalya Alberge
    Six boats hollowed out of oak tree trunks are among hundreds of intact artefacts from 3,000 years ago that have been discovered in the Cambridgeshire fens, the Observer can reveal. The scale, quality and condition of the objects, the largest bronze age collection ever found in one place in Britain, have astonished archaeologists – and barely a fraction of the site has been excavated. Unique textile fragments, wicker baskets and wooden sword handles have survived. There are even containers of food, including a bowl with a wooden spoon still wedged into the contents, now analysed as nettle stew, which may...
  • Archaeology and the New Testament

    12/03/2011 1:04:14 PM PST · by GonzoII · 6 replies
    Apologetics Press, Inc ^ | 2004 | Kyle Butt, M.A.
    Archaeology and the New Testament by  Kyle Butt, M.A. Any time a book alleges to report historical events accurately, that book potentially opens itself up to an immense amount of criticism. If such a book claims to be free from all errors in its historical documentation, the criticism frequently becomes even more intense. But such should be the case, for it is the responsibility of present and future generations to know and understand the past, and to insist that history, including certain monumental moments, is recorded and related as accurately as possible. The New Testament does not necessarily claim to...
  • Digging up history at old Transbay Terminal

    12/02/2011 7:26:34 PM PST · by thecodont · 6 replies
    San Francisco Chronicle / SFGate.com ^ | Friday, December 2, 2011 | Michael Cabanatuan, Chronicle Staff Writer
    When most people ponder the past at the Transbay Terminal construction site, they imagine the hustle and bustle of gray-suited commuters swarming in and out of the Art Deco-style train depot in the mid-20th century. But archaeologists working at the site during demolition of the dingy old terminal last winter and construction of its grand replacement have unearthed artifacts that help reveal what it must have been like to live in the Irish working-class neighborhood that existed in that part of the South of Market in the mid- to late 1800s. They've dug up bottles that once held soda, booze...
  • One of the earliest known examples of math homework

    12/01/2011 7:56:37 PM PST · by thecodont · 27 replies
    BoingBoing ^ | at 10:42 am Thursday, Dec 1 2011 | By Maggie Koerth-Baker
    It's stuff like this that makes me love archaeology. Turns out, we can trace the concept of math homework back to at least 2300 B.C.E., in ancient Mesopotamia. In the early 20th century, German researchers found several clay tablets at the site of Šuruppak. (Today, that's basically the Iraqi city of Tell Fara.) Some of the tablets appear to be the remains of math instruction, including two different tablets that are working the same story problem. A loose translation of the problem is: A granary. Each man receives 7 sila of grain. How many men? That is, the tablets concern...
  • 'Alien' Skull Discovery Tops South American Bone Finds

    11/23/2011 10:57:17 PM PST · by nickcarraway · 38 replies
    Yahoo ^ | Tue, Nov 22, 2011 | Tammy Lee Morris
    It wasn't discovered by Indiana Jones and it isn't crystal, but an elongated skull that is as long as the 20-inch body it belongs to is raising interest after it was discovered in Peru. According to a report from The Sideshow, the remains of the unidentified "creature" was described as having a "triangle-shaped" skull and was at first believed to have been a child with a misshapen head, but according to a news report, anonymous Russian and Spanish scientists claim the remains belong to an extraterrestrial being. While the discovery of the skull seems to be a somewhat real-life version...
  • New Find Sheds Light on Ancient Site in Jerusalem

    11/23/2011 8:10:21 AM PST · by lbryce · 5 replies
    AP via Yahoo News ^ | November 23, 2011 | MATTI FRIEDMAN
    Newly found coins underneath Jerusalem's Western Wall could change the accepted belief about the construction of one of the world's most sacred sites two millennia ago, Israeli archaeologists said Wednesday. The man usually credited with building the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary is Herod, a Jewish ruler who died in 4 B.C. Herod's monumental compound replaced and expanded a much older Jewish temple complex on the same site. But archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority now say diggers have found coins underneath the massive foundation stones of the compound's Western...
  • Oldest rock art in Egypt discovered

    11/17/2011 4:49:02 PM PST · by Renfield · 16 replies
    Yale News ^ | 11/10/2011 | Dorie Baker
    Using a new technology known as optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), a team of Belgian scientists and Professor John Coleman Darnell of Yale have determined that Egyptian petroglyphs found at the east bank of the Nile are about 15,000 years old, making them the oldest rock art in Egypt and possibly the earliest known graphic record in North Africa. The dating results will be published in the December issue of Antiquity (Vol. 85 Issue 330, pp. 1184–1193). The site of the rock art panels is near the modern village of Qurta, about 40km south of the Upper-Egyptian town of Edfu. First...
  • Is the Wood Recently Found on Mt. Ararat from the Ark?

    11/16/2011 7:49:05 AM PST · by fishtank · 86 replies
    Answers in Genesis ^ | Nov. 9, 2011 | Andrew A. Snelling
    From the conclusion: "Conclusion If the wooden remains of the Ark were to be found on Mt. Ararat, then samples of that wood would be expected to yield C-14 dates of between 20,000 years and 50,000 years, consistent with the C-14 dates of pre-Flood wood found fossilized in the geologic record of the Flood. Even though the true age of such fossilized pre-Flood wood should be only 4,500 years or so old, around the date for the biblical Flood, these grossly inflated C-14 dates obtained in conventional radiocarbon dating laboratories are due to those laboratories ignoring the very much less...
  • 'Sabre-toothed squirrel': First known mammalian skull from Late Cretaceous ...

    11/03/2011 1:42:52 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 29 replies
    http://www.physorg.com ^ | 03 NOVEMBER 2011 | Provided by University of Louisville
    Paleontologist Guillermo Rougier, Ph.D., professor of anatomical sciences and neurobiology at the University of Louisville, and his team have reported their discovery of two skulls from the first known mammal of the early Late Cretaceous period of South America. The fossils break a roughly 60 million-year gap in the currently known mammalian record of the continent and provide new clues on the early evolution of mammals. Details of their find will be published Nov. 3 in Nature. Co-authors are Sebastián Apesteguía of Argentina's Universidad Maimónides and doctoral student Leandro C. Gaetano. The new critter, named "Cronopio dentiacutus" by the paleontologists,...
  • Hunters present in North America 800 years earlier than previously thought: DNA analysis

    10/20/2011 12:18:28 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 51 replies
    http://www.physorg.com ^ | 20 OCT 2011 | Provided by Texas A&M University
    The tip of a bone point fragment found embedded in a mastodon rib from an archaeological site in Washington state shows that hunters were present in North America at least 800 years before Clovis, confirming that the first inhabitants arrived earlier to North America than previously thought, says a team of researchers led by a Texas A&M University archaeologist. Michael Waters, director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans in the Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M, and colleagues from Colorado, Washington and Denmark believe the find at the Manis site in Washington demonstrates that humans were...
  • UK taxi driver becomes first mummy for 3,000 years

    10/18/2011 1:24:26 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 17 replies
    http://www.physorg.com ^ | 18 Oct 2011 | Staff
    A former British taxi driver has become the first person in the world for 3,000 years to be mummified in the same way as the pharaohs. Channel Four viewers will see Alan Billis turned into a mummy over the space of a few months as his body is preserved using the techniques which the ancient Egyptians used on Tutankhamun. Billis had been terminally ill with cancer when he volunteered to undergo the procedure which a scientist has been working to recreate for many years. The 61-year-old from Torquay in Devon had the backing of his wife Jan, who said: "I'm...
  • Archaeologists find blade production earlier than originally thought

    10/17/2011 8:23:34 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 54 replies
    http://www.physorg.com ^ | 17 OCT 2011 | Provided by Tel Aviv University
    Archaeology has long associated advanced blade production with the Upper Palaeolithic period, about 30,000-40,000 years ago, linked with the emergence of Homo Sapiens and cultural features such as cave art. Now researchers at Tel Aviv University have uncovered evidence which shows that "modern" blade production was also an element of Amudian industry during the late Lower Paleolithic period, 200,000-400,000 years ago as part of the Acheulo-Yabrudian cultural complex, a geographically limited group of hominins who lived in modern-day Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. Prof. Avi Gopher, Dr. Ran Barkai and Dr. Ron Shimelmitz of TAU's Department of Archaeology and Ancient...
  • 100,000-year-old ochre toolkit and workshop discovered in South Africa

    10/13/2011 11:32:56 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 10 replies
    http://www.physorg.com ^ | 13 Oct 2011 | Provided by University of the Witwatersrand
    An ochre-rich mixture, possibly used for decoration, painting and skin protection 100,000 years ago, and stored in two abalone shells, was discovered at Blombos Cave in Cape Town, South Africa. "Ochre may have been applied with symbolic intent as decoration on bodies and clothing during the Middle Stone Age," says Professor Christopher Henshilwood from the Institute for Human Evolution at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, who together with his international team discovered a processing workshop in 2008 where a liquefied ochre-rich mixture was produced. The findings will be published in the journal Science tomorrow. The two coeval, spatially associated...
  • Cannibalism Confirmed Among Ancient Mexican Group

    10/06/2011 5:45:10 PM PDT · by Renfield · 32 replies
    National Geographic ^ | 9-30-2011 | Sabrina Valle
    It's long been rumored that an ancient, isolated people in what's now northern Mexico ate their own kind, in the hopes that they'd be able to eat corn later. Now an analysis of more than three dozen bones bearing evidence of boiling and defleshing confirms that the Xiximes people were in fact cannibals, archaeologists say. The Xiximes believed that ingesting the bodies and souls of their enemies and using the cleaned bones in rituals would guarantee the fertility of the grain harvest, according to historical accounts by Jesuit missionaries...
  • Bowls of Fingers, Baby Victims, More Found in Maya Tomb

    09/25/2011 6:27:22 AM PDT · by Renfield · 59 replies
    National Geographic ^ | 7-21-2010 | John Roach
    Reeking of decay and packed with bowls of human fingers, a partly burned baby, and gem-studded teeth—among other artifacts—a newfound Maya king's tomb sounds like an overripe episode of Tales From the Crypt. But the tightly sealed, 1,600-year-old burial chamber, found under a jungle-covered Guatemalan pyramid, is as rich with archaeological gold as it is with oddities, say researchers who announced the discovery Friday. "This thing was like Fort Knox," said Brown University archaeologist Stephen Houston, who led the excavation in the ancient, overgrown Maya town of El Zotz. Alternating layers of flat stones and mud preserved human bones, wood...
  • Mideast riddle: Strange stone structures caught on camera

    09/17/2011 3:24:59 PM PDT · by NYer · 67 replies
    CBS ^ | September 15, 2011 | Owen Jarus
    Giant stone structures in the Azraq Oasis in Jordan They stretch from Syria to Saudi Arabia, can be seen from the air but not the ground, and are virtually unknown to the public. They are the Middle East's own version of the Nazca Lines -- ancient "geolyphs," or drawings, that span deserts in southern Peru -- and now, thanks to new satellite-mapping technologies, and an aerial photography program in Jordan, researchers are discovering more of them than ever before. They number well into the thousands. Referred to by archaeologists as "wheels," these stone structures have a wide variety of...
  • Gardens were important to ancient civilizations

    09/01/2011 4:50:15 PM PDT · by Renfield · 9 replies
    We tend to think of garden design as a relatively new vocation. The truth told by archaeological findings not only lays such thoughts to rest, it tells a tale of a rich and ancient heritage of garden design. One such finding shows a garden of Ninevah, in present-day Iraq, that dates back to 650 BC. There are date palms, trees and shrubs of many types. True, an enemy's severed head is seen hanging from one of the trees, but times were different, or are they? They did like their gardens, however. Our vision of ancient Egyptian temples is one of...
  • Leftists in Last-Minute Bid to Halt Ir David Excavations

    08/30/2011 2:34:17 PM PDT · by Eleutheria5 · 18 replies
    Arutz Sheva ^ | 30/8/11 | David Lev
    A group of 150 archaeologists and students sent a petition Tuesday to Environment Minister Gilad Erdan and Sport and Culture Minister Limor Livnat, asking them to drop their support for a law that formalizes private archaeological digs and research at national parks and historical sites. The petition says that the law would “politicize archaeology in Israel and damage the independence of researchers," and calls for the ministers to oppose the "privatization of archaeology," which, they write, would be the death knell of archaeology in Israel. But supporters of the law said that there were already hundreds of independent and private...
  • 'Britain's first pre-Roman planned town' found near Reading

    08/20/2011 8:10:56 AM PDT · by decimon · 21 replies
    BBC ^ | August 17, 2011 | Louise Ord
    Archaeologists believe they have found the first pre-Roman planned town discovered in Britain.It has been unearthed beneath the Roman town of Silchester or Calleva Atrebatum near modern Reading. The Romans are often credited with bringing civilisation to Britain - including town planning. But excavations have shown evidence of an Iron Age town built on a grid and signs inhabitants had access to imported wine and olive oil. Prof Mike Fulford, an archaeologist at the University of Reading, said the people of Iron Age Silchester appear to have adopted an urbanised 'Roman' way of living, long before the Romans arrived. "It...
  • Michigan Copper in the Mediterranean

    08/06/2011 4:11:06 PM PDT · by Renfield · 84 replies
    Grahamhancock.com ^ | 8-2011 | Jay Stuart Wakefield
    The Shipping of Michigan Copper across the Atlantic in the Bronze Age (Isle Royale and Keweenaw Peninsula, c. 2400BC-1200 BC) Summary Recent scientific literature has come to the conclusion that the major source of the copper that swept through the European Bronze Age after 2500 BC is unknown. However, these studies claim that the 10 tons of copper oxhide ingots recovered from the late Bronze Age (1300 BC) Uluburun shipwreck off the coast of Turkey was “extraordinarily pure” (more than 99.5% pure), and that it was not the product of smelting from ore. The oxhides are all brittle “blister copper”,...
  • Ancient Sacrificer Found With Blades in Peru Tomb?

    08/01/2011 12:35:48 PM PDT · by Renfield · 6 replies
    National Geographic News ^ | 7-28-2011 | Ker Than
    ~~~snip~~~ The new tomb discovery was made during excavations of a section of Chotuna-Chornancap that was used to perform crop-fertility rituals, according to the team. The skeleton belonged to a male between 20 and 30 years old, and that the tomb was built sometime in the late 1200s or early 1300s A.D., toward the end of the Sicán period, they say. The cause of death of the tomb's inhabitant is unknown, but based on the kind and quantity of artifacts buried with him—including ceramic pots, a skirt made of copper disks, and ornate copper knives—the team thinks he was a...
  • How early reptiles moved

    07/27/2011 9:19:08 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 7 replies
    http://www.physorg.com ^ | 07-27-2011 | Staff + Provided by Friedrich-Schiller-Universitaet Jena
    Jena (Germany) Modern scientists would have loved the sight of early reptiles running across the Bromacker near Tambach-Dietharz (Germany) 300 million years ago. Unfortunately this journey through time is impossible. But due to Dr. Thomas Martens and his team from the Foundation Schloss Friedenstein Gotha numerous skeletons and footprints of early dinosaurs have been found and conserved there during the last forty years. "It is the most important find spot of primitive quadruped vertebrates from the Perm in Europe," says Professor Dr. Martin S. Fischer from the University Jena (Germany). The evolutionary biologist and his team together with the Gotha...
  • Ancient Bell Found in Jerusalem Old City Sewer Rings Again

    07/25/2011 6:52:05 AM PDT · by NYer · 11 replies
    Fox News ^ | July 24, 2011
    JERUSALEM –  A tiny golden bell pulled after 2,000 years from an ancient sewer beneath the Old City of Jerusalem was shown Sunday by Israeli archaeologists, who hailed it as a rare find. The orb half an inch in diameter has a small loop that appears to have been used to sew it as an ornament onto the clothes of a wealthy resident of the city two millennia ago, archaeologists said. When Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority shook it Sunday, the faint metallic sound was something between a clink and a rattle. The bell's owner likely "walked in...
  • Archaeologists Discover High Priest's Bell?

    07/21/2011 3:51:57 PM PDT · by Eleutheria5 · 15 replies
    Arutz Sheva ^ | 21/7/11
    Archaeologists have discovered a rare gold bell with a small loop at its end. The finding was made during an archaeological excavation in the City of David National Park (near the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem) by the Israel Antiquities Authority in cooperation with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and the Ir David Foundation. The directors of the excavation on behalf of the Antiquities Authority, archaeologists Eli Shukron and Professor Ronny Reich of Haifa University, said after the finding, “The bell looked as if it was sewn on the garment worn by a man of high authority...
  • Carthaginian temples found -- Azores

    07/10/2011 6:57:49 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 49 replies
    Portuguese American Journal ^ | Saturday, July 9, 2011 | paj.cm
    Archaeologists from the Portuguese Association of Archeological Research (APIA) believe to have found in the Azores a significant number of Carthaginian temples, from the fourth century BC, dedicated to the goddess Tanit. The new archaeological sites were found in Monte Brasil, Angra Heroismo, Terceira island. According to APIA archaeologists Nuno Ribeiro and Anabela Joaquinito, "More than five hypogea type monuments (tombs excavated in rocks) and at least three 'sanctuaries' proto-historic, carved into the rock, were found." A monument located at "Monte do Facho" shows inbuilt sink shaped carvings linked to water conduits for libations. "There are 'chairs' carved into the...
  • "Tomb of the Otters" Filled With Stone Age Human Bones

    07/10/2011 7:35:41 AM PDT · by Renfield · 19 replies
    7-7-2011 | James Owen
    Thousands of human bones have been found inside a Stone Age tomb on a northern Scottish island, archaeologists say. The 5,000-year-old burial site, on South Ronaldsay (map) in the Orkney Islands, was accidentally uncovered after a homeowner had leveled a mound in his yard to improve his ocean view. ~~~snip~~~ The underground grave consists of a 4- by 0.75-meter (13- by 2.5-foot) central chamber surrounded by four smaller cells hewn from sandstone bedrock. Capping the central chamber are large water-worn slabs supported by stone walls and pillars. At least a thousand skeleton parts belonging to a mix of genders and...
  • The Origins of Archery in Africa

    07/06/2011 4:15:09 AM PDT · by Renfield · 15 replies
    It is well understood that projectile weapons allow lethal killing power at a safe distance and their use is near universal among human groups. Before the firearm began it’s rise to prominence over the last 500 years the most popular projectile weapons systems were the atlatl (spearthrower/dart) and the bow and arrow. Most researchers consider these as ‘‘true’’ projectile technologies, distinguishing them from thrown spears, throwing sticks and other hurled weapons. There is considerable archaeological consensus that projectile weapons were in use by the Late Palaeolithic at least 30,000 years ago. However, last year, anthropologist Marlize Lombard of South Africa’s...
  • Woman’s skeleton found at Sedgeford dig sheds light on Norfolk 4,000 years ago

    07/05/2011 4:22:20 PM PDT · by Renfield · 14 replies
    EDP24.co.uk ^ | 7-4-2011 | Chris Bishop
    Curled up in her burial pit with her amber beads, an ancient woman’s remains show our ancestors farmed a lush Norfolk valley thousands of years earlier than previously believed. ~~~snip~~~ “It was a total surprise to us,” he said. “You don’t bury people anywhere other than near where they live, so what we can say is that people were farming the land here 4,000 years ago.”....
  • Human Ancestor in Indonesia Died Out Earlier Than Once Thought

    07/05/2011 4:52:32 AM PDT · by Renfield · 12 replies
    A 1996 expedition resulted in conclusions that the ancient early human species, Homo erectus, coexisted for a time with modern humans in Indonesia. The most recent expedition suggests otherwise, challenging a widely held hypothesis of human evolution. Homo erectus, an ancient human ancestor that lived 1.8 million - 35,000 years ago, is said by theorists of human evolution to have lived alongside Homo sapiens (modern humans) in Indonesia, surviving most other Homo erectus populations that became extinct in Africa and most of Eurasia by 500,000 B.P. Perhaps not so, according to an international team of researchers, after conducting archaeological investigations...
  • Treasure estimated at $10 Billion found in secret vaults in Indian temple

    07/01/2011 8:54:57 PM PDT · by cold start · 25 replies
    Times of India ^ | 2 july 2011
    THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The legend of El Dorado was definitely not set on the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple. But the seven-member panel, which is drawing up a list of assets at the famed shrine here, had a feel of the lost city of gold as they set foot in one of the two secret vaults located inside the sprawling granite structure which gives the Kerala capital its name. On Thursday, the team assisted by personnel from the fire services and archeology department opened the locks of vault A to find a narrow flight of stairs leading down to an underground granite cellar. Oxygen...
  • Image of ancient mammoth or mastodon found on bone (Florida 13,000bc)

    06/23/2011 8:06:42 PM PDT · by Islander7 · 16 replies
    AP ^ | June 23, 2011 | RANDOLPH E. SCHMID
    WASHINGTON (AP) — Some of the earliest Americans turn out to have been artists. A bone fragment at least 13,000 years old, with the carved image of a mammoth or mastodon, has been discovered in Florida, a new study reports. While prehistoric art depicting animals with trunks has been found in Europe, this may be the first in the Western Hemisphere, researchers report Wednesday in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
  • Scientists finally determine iceman Otzi's last meal [Ice Man]

    06/22/2011 8:07:21 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 38 replies
    PhysOrg.com ^ | June 22, 2011 | by Deborah Braconnier
    In a presentation at the Seventh World Congress on Mummy Studies, researchers from the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman revealed that they had finally located the iceman known as Otzi’s stomach and determined his last meal. They were also able to successfully sequence his entire genome. Researchers from the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman in Italy divided the presentation into three different topics. The first part of the presentation was given by microbiologist Frank Maixner. He had recently examined old tomography scans taken of Otzi back in 2005 and was able to finally locate the stomach which was...
  • Archaeologist thinks structure beneath Jerusalem is 2nd Jewish Temple

    06/09/2011 8:51:29 AM PDT · by Renfield · 22 replies
    Huliq.com ^ | 06-06-2011 | Mechele R. Dillard
    Dr. Eilat Mazar of Hebrew University, one of the most prominent Israeli archaeologists, believes that remains from the First and Second Jewish Temple periods are currently below the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Mazar believes that the remains do include the Second Temple itself, in fact, and that with the technology available today, archaeologists can, at minimum, ensure that artifacts are not disturbed until a future excavation can be safely conducted. "I am absolutely sure,” said Mazar in an interview with “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on New York’s ABC Radio, “in light of my very rich experience excavating Jerusalem for 30...
  • Tunnel found under temple in Mexico

    05/31/2011 11:38:37 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 37 replies
    www.physorg.com ^ | May 30, 2011 | Staff
    Researchers found a tunnel under the Temple of the Snake in the pre-Hispanic city of Teotihuacan, about 28 miles northeast of Mexico City. The tunnel had apparently been sealed off around 1,800 years ago. Researchers of Mexico's National University made the finding with a radar device. Closer study revealed a "representation of the underworld," in the words of archaeologist Sergio Gomez Chavez, of Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History. Experts found "a route of symbols, whose conclusion appears to lie in the funeral chambers at the end of the tunnel." The structure is 15 yards beneath the ground, and...
  • Egyptian pyramids found by infra-red satellite images (17!)

    05/25/2011 5:56:52 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 30 replies
    BBC News ^ | 24 May 2011 Last updated at 19:32 ET | By Frances Cronin
    Seventeen lost pyramids are among the buildings identified in a new satellite survey of Egypt. More than 1,000 tombs and 3,000 ancient settlements were also revealed by looking at infra-red images which show up underground buildings. Initial excavations have already confirmed some of the findings, including two suspected pyramids. The work has been pioneered at the University of Alabama in Birmingham by US Egyptologist Dr Sarah Parcak. She says she was amazed at how much she and her team has found. "We were very intensely doing this research for over a year. I could see the data as it was...
  • NOAA and partners explore the hidden world of the maritime Maya

    05/24/2011 4:30:37 AM PDT · by Renfield · 7 replies
    NOAA-sponsored explorers are searching a wild, largely unexplored and forgotten coastline for evidence and artifacts of one of the greatest seafaring traditions of the ancient New World, where Maya traders once paddled massive dugout canoes filled with trade goods from across Mexico and Central America. One exploration goal is to discover the remains of a Maya trading canoe, described in A.D. 1502 by Christopher Columbus’ son Ferdinand, as holding 25 paddlers plus cargo and passengers. Through the end of May, the team is exploring the remote jungle, mangrove forests and lagoons at the ancient port site of Vista Alegre (“happy...
  • The Birth & Death of Biblical Minimalism

    05/09/2011 7:18:22 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 33 replies
    Biblical Archaeology Review ^ | BAR 37:03, May/Jun 2011 | Yosef Garfinkel
    Hardly had the minimalist argument been developed than it was profoundly undermined by an archaeological discovery. In 1993 and 1994, several fragments of an Aramaic stela were found at the long-running excavation of Tel Dan led by Avraham Biran of Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. The historical references in the inscription and the paleography of the writing make it clear that it dates to the ninth century B.C.E. Moreover, the text specifically mentions a king of Israel and a king of the "House of David" (Hebrew, bytdwd ), that is, a king of the dynasty of David. This discovery led...
  • Princess sheds new light on early Celts

    05/02/2011 6:10:19 PM PDT · by decimon · 37 replies
    BBC ^ | May 1, 2011 | Stephen Evans
    German experts are carefully taking apart a complete Celtic grave in the hope of finding out more about the Celts' way of life, 2,600 years ago, in their Danube heartland. > We usually think of the Celtic heartland as the western edges of Europe - Wales, Scotland and Ireland and Brittany in France. But Dr Krausse says the real Celtic heartland was actually in the region in the upper reaches of the Danube, from where the Celts could trade. "Celtic art and Celtic culture have their origins in south-western Germany, eastern France and Switzerland and spread from there to other...
  • History lost to gas drilling

    05/09/2011 6:19:27 AM PDT · by Gondring · 21 replies
    The Philadelphia Inquirer ^ | Mon, May. 9, 2011 | David Templeton, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
    Amid shale boom, Pa. law offers little protection to archaeological sites. An excavation at a Westmoreland County site once occupied by Monongahela Indians produced abundant evidence of two villages and allowed researchers to piece together the violent end of the later settlement at the hands of invaders who sacked it, massacred its inhabitants, and burned houses and food stores, said William C. Johnson, an adviser to the project. But when Johnson returned last year to the dig, called the Kirshner site, he was stunned. "There is a drill rig and catchment basin sitting on half the village," said Johnson, who...
  • Are these the nails used to crucify Jesus?

    04/12/2011 2:48:23 PM PDT · by afraidfortherepublic · 52 replies
    Haaretz.com ^ | 4-12-11 | Nir Hasson
    Journalist Simcha Jacobovici believes that the nails discovered in a Jerusalem cave are revolutionary in their implications regarding the birth of Christianity. The Peace Forest is a small grove of pines sandwiched between the Abu Tor neighborhood and main promenade in Jerusalem. Anyone walking along the road that snakes through the grove can see a green pipe rising from the ground and reaching a height of several meters. This pipe, if journalist Simcha Jacobovici is to be believed, this is the physical tip of an archaeological detective story in the style of the Da Vinci Code. And this pipe is...
  • First Homosexual Caveman Found

    04/10/2011 5:26:30 AM PDT · by Scoutmaster · 55 replies
    The Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | April 6, 2011 | None Listed
    First Homosexual Caveman FoundArchaeologists have unearthed the 5,000-year-old remains of what they believe may have been the world's oldest known gay caveman. Archeologists believe they have discovered a 'transsexual' or 'third gender grave' in the Czech Republic.The male body – said to date back to between 2900-2500BC – was discovered buried in a way normally reserved only for women of the Corded Ware culture in the Copper Age.The skeleton was found in a Prague suburb in the Czech Republic with its head pointing eastwards and surrounded by domestic jugs, rituals only previously seen in female graves."From history and ethnology, we...
  • Discovery in Guatemala finds oldest royal Mayan tomb

    04/06/2011 11:37:16 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 10 replies
    www.physorg.com ^ | 04-06-2011 | Staff
    At the recent Society for American Archaeology meeting in Sacramento, California, archaeologist Michael Callaghan from the University of Texas presented his team's findings from the ancient site of K'o (now modern-day Guatemala) and what they believe to be the oldest known royal Mayan tomb. Excavating under a wealthy home, they discovered a lid leading to a tunnel of about 16 inches wide. Following the tunnel, they discovered a chultan, or storage chamber, where a burial was performed. Within this storage chamber they discovered a body they believe to have been a man in his fifties who was reasonably healthy when...