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In October 2011, specialists from the Archaeological Service of the Canton of Bern began investigation of the large granite slab weighing in at 7 tonnes. The glacial erratic measured 3 metres long, 2 metres wide and was nearly 1 metre thick – what they did not realise at first was that it still covered a grave belonging to a Neolithic community.The site was originally found when a farmer decided to try and remove the glacial boulder that he had to mow around when cutting grass in his field.The boulder is from the last glacial maximum – some 20,000 years ago...

Koutroulou Magoula is located near the Greek village of Neo Monastiri, some 160 miles from Athens. The site was occupied from 5,800 to 5,300 BC by a community of a few hundred people. The archaeologists found clay figurines all over the site, with some located on wall foundations. They believe their purpose was to convey and reflect ideas about a community’s culture, society and identity. “Figurines were thought to typically depict the female form, but our find is not only extraordinary in terms of quantity, but also quite diverse – male, female and non-gender specific ones have been found and...

Traces of dairy fat in ancient ceramic fragments suggest that people have been making cheese in Europe for up to 7,500 years. In the tough days before refrigerators, early dairy farmers probably devised cheese-making as a way to preserve, and get the best use out of, milk from the cattle that they had begun to herd. Peter Bogucki, an archaeologist at Princeton University in New Jersey, was in the 1980s among the first to suspect that cheese-making might have been afoot in Europe as early as 5,500 bc. He noticed that archaeologists working at ancient cattle-rearing sites in what is...

Daniel Antoine, the museum's expert on human remains, told The Times: ..."The force is such that the blade would have penetrated through his lung." ...Examinations also showed he was a young man, aged between just 18 and 20 when he was killed, and impressively muscled. Mr Antoine said he believes a lack of defensive wounds suggest Ginger was the victim of a surprise attack. A blade of copper or sharpened flint at least 5in long and 0.7in wide made the injury, he said... Professor Anders Persson of the Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization (CMIV), a Forensic Radiology expert,...

Drive west from Orkney's capital, Kirkwall, and then head north on the narrow B9055 and you will reach a single stone monolith that guards the entrance to a spit of land known as the Ness of Brodgar. The promontory separates the island's two largest bodies of freshwater, the Loch of Stenness and the Loch of Harray. At their furthest edges, the lochs' peaty brown water laps against fields and hills that form a natural amphitheatre; a landscape peppered with giant rings of stone, chambered cairns, ancient villages and other archaeological riches. This is the heartland of the Neolithic North, a...

200 colored beads found in a bowl, and ostrich figures carved on a stone plate alongside animal figurines have been discovered on Sunday at the Ein Zippori national park, located in the Lower Galilee. Ahead of the widening of Highway 79, extensive archaeological excavations have been conducted by the Antiquities Authority. During the excavations, a variety of impressive prehistoric artifacts have been uncovered. Prehistoric settlement remains that range in date from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period (c. 10,000 years ago) to the Early Bronze Age (c. 5,000 years ago) are at the Ein Zippori site, which extends south of Ein Zippori...

The use of functional tools in relation to woodworking over the course of the Neolithic period has not been studied in detail until now. Through their work at the archaeological site of Motza, a neighbourhood in the Judean Hills, Dr. Barkai and his fellow researchers, Prof. Rick Yerkes of Ohio State University and Dr. Hamudi Khalaily of the Israel Antiquity Authority, have unearthed evidence that increasing sophistication in terms of carpentry tools corresponds with increased agriculture and permanent settlements. The early part of the Neolithic age is divided into two distinct eras - Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) and Pre-Pottery Neolithic...

Beer enthusiasts are using a barn in Norway’s Akershus County to brew a special ale which has scientific pretensions and roots back to the dawn of human culture. The beer is made from einkorn wheat, a single-grain species that has followed humankind since we first started tilling the soil, but which has been neglected for the last 2,500 years. “This is fun − really thrilling. It’s hard to say whether this has ever been tried before in Norway,” says Jørn Kragtorp. He started brewing as a hobby four years ago. He represents the fourth generation on the family farm of...

Hereditary inequality began over 7,000 years ago in the early Neolithic era, with new evidence showing that farmers buried with tools had access to better land than those buried without.

By comparing DNA from ancient bone specimens to DNA obtained from modern animals, the researchers discovered that the Kerry red deer are the direct descendants of deer present in Ireland 5000 years ago. Further analysis using DNA from European deer proves that Neolithic people from Britain first brought the species to Ireland. Although proving the red deer is not native to Ireland, researchers believe that the Kerry population is unique as it is directly related to the original herd and are worthy of special conservation status. Fossil bone samples from the National Museum of Ireland, some up to 30,000 years...

How the cavemen ate: Cookbook reveals 77 recipes stretching right back to the Stone Age (and they taste surprisingly good!) Fancy something new for dinner tonight? Well if you don't fancy a Chinese or a Thai, researchers have pulled together 77 recipes which were eaten during the Stone Ages. And the surprise is how delicious the recipes, some of them 16,000 years old, sound - with your typical Neolithic families spicing up their meals and using plenty of fresh fruit and herbs along with the simmering main dishes of game. A Culinary Journey Through Time can join Jamie Oliver and...

A composite photograph of the front and back of the jade gouge shown with a centimeter scale. CREDIT: Les O’Neil, University of Otago The discovery of a 3,300-year-old tool has led researchers to the rediscovery of a "lost" 20th-century manuscript and a "geochemically extraordinary" bit of earth. Discovered on Emirau Island in the Bismark Archipelago (a group of islands off the coast of New Guinea), the 2-inch (5-centimeters) stone tool was probably used to carve, or gouge, wood. It seems to have fallen from a stilted house, landing in a tangle of coral reef that was eventually covered over...

An international team of archeologists, led by Ignacio Clemente, a researcher with the Spanish National Research Council, has discovered and documented an assemblage of fish seines and traps in the Dubna Basin near Moscow that are dated to be more than 7,500 years old. They say that the equipment, among the oldest found in Europe, displays a surprisingly advanced technical complexity. The finds illuminate the role of fishing among European settlements of the early Holocene (about 10,000 years ago), particularly where people did not practice agriculture until just before the advent of the Iron Age. Says Clemente: "Until now, it...

Shortly after 6 p.m. on a drizzling, dreary November day in 2010, two men dressed in green surgical scrubs opened the door of the Iceman's chamber in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy. They slid the frozen body onto a stainless steel gurney. One of the men was a young scientist named Marco Samadelli. Normally, it was his job to keep the famous Neolithic mummy frozen under the precise conditions that had preserved it for 5,300 years, following an attack that had left the Iceman dead, high on a nearby mountain. On this day, however, Samadelli had...

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...

Many archaeologists have argued that women have long motivated cycles of violence and blood feuds throughout history but there has really been no solid archaeological evidence to support this view. Now a relatively new method has been used to work out the origins of the victims tossed into a mass grave of skeletons, and so distinguish one tribe from another, revealing that neighbouring tribes were prepared to kill their male rivals to secure their women some 7000 years ago. .......

Archaeologists in Zurich have unearthed a 5,000-year-old door that may be one of the oldest ever found in Europe. The ancient poplar wood door is "solid and elegant" with well-preserved hinges and a "remarkable" design for holding the boards together, archaeologist Niels Bleicher said today.

New research has revealed that agriculture came to Europe amid a wave of immigration from the Middle East during the Neolithic period. The newcomers won out over the locals because of their sophisticated culture, mastery of agriculture -- and their miracle food, milk. Wedged in between dump trucks and excavators, archeologist Birgit Srock is drawing the outline of a 7,200-year-old posthole. A concrete mixing plant is visible on the horizon. She is here because, during the construction of a high-speed rail line between the German cities of Nuremberg and Berlin, workers happened upon a large Neolithic settlement in the Upper...

The Egtved Girl In 1921 a burial mound at Egtved was excavated. In it was found a completely preserved coffin, and inside it lay a 16-18 year old girl about 160cm (5’4”) tall, slim, with long, loose blonde hair and carefully trimmed nails. For burial she had been laid in the coffin, fully dressed, on top of a cow-skin. Her upper body was clad in a loose bodice with elbow length sleeves and around her hips she wore a knee length skirt of string. On her braided woollen belt were a large, spiral-decorated bronze disk with a spike and a...

At a settlement in what is now southern Germany, the menu turned gruesome 7,000 years ago. Over a period of perhaps a few decades, hundreds of people were butchered and eaten before parts of their bodies were thrown into oval pits, a new study suggests. Cannibalism at the village, now called Herxheim, may have occurred during ceremonies in which people from near and far brought slaves, war prisoners or other dependents for ritual sacrifice, propose anthropologist Bruno Boulestin of the University of Bordeaux... A social and political crisis in central Europe at that time triggered various forms of violence, the...

NICOSIA, Cyprus — Archeologists have discovered a water well in Cyprus that was built as long as 10,500 years ago, and the skeleton of a young woman at the bottom of it, an official said Wednesday. Pavlos Flourentzos, the nation's top antiquities official, said the 16-foot (5-meter) deep cylindrical shaft was found last month at a construction site in Kissonerga, a village near the Mediterranean island nation's southwestern coast. After the well dried up it apparently was used to dispose trash, and the items found in it included the poorly preserved skeleton of the young woman, animal bone fragments, worked...

Matt Ford scours the countryside for enigmatic rock carvings left by our ancestors. While some people dream of the warm sun of southern Spain for their retirement, David Jones chose high fells, the sharp teeth of a gale and the quest to find 5,000-year-old artwork. "I decided to build a new life when I retired," says the former IT marketing specialist, as a bitter wind whips through his hair. "I wanted the last third to be quite different from the first two thirds. I walk a lot, I work with charities, and I do this." "This" is joining more than...

A new figure in humanity's history emerged last week when archaeologists announced the discovery of what could be one of the world's oldest known spiritual figures. After years of meticulous excavation just miles from Israel's Mediterranean coast, scientists from the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem unearthed a 12,000-year-old grave that held the remains of a diminutive "shaman" woman.

Volunteers working in Northumberland and Durham have unearthed a remarkable collection of intricate rock art formations dating back 5,000 years. Over 100 of the extraordinary Neolithic carvings of concentric circles, interlocking rings and hollowed cups were uncovered in the region by a team of specially trained volunteers working on a four-year English Heritage backed project called the Northumberland and Durham Rock Art Project (NADRAP). Their findings have now been recorded and published online via a website called England’s Rock Art (ERA), which was launched today, Thursday July 3 2008, athttp://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/era. © English Heritage (Above) Barningham Moor County Durham: Photographer R....

Neolithic men were prepared to fight for their women By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 1:49AM BST 03/06/2008 Neolithic age men fought over women too, according to a study that provides the most ancient evidence of the lengths men will go to in the hunt for partners. Many archaeologists have argued that women have long motivated cycles of violence and blood feuds throughout history but there has really been no solid archaeological evidence to support this view. Now a relatively new method has been used to work out the origins of the victims tossed into a mass grave of...

Turkish site a Neolithic 'supernova' By Nicholas Birch April 21, 2008 Archaeologist Klaus Schmidt was among the first to realize the significance of the Gobekli Tepe site, which is 7,000 years older than Stonehenge. URFA, Turkey - As a child, Klaus Schmidt used to grub around in caves in his native Germany in the hope of finding prehistoric paintings. Thirty years later, as a member of the German Archaeological Institute, he found something infinitely more important: a temple complex almost twice as old as anything comparable. "This place is a supernova," said Mr. Schmidt, standing under a lone tree on...

Archaeologists uncover unique cremation graves By ÄŒTK / Published 20 March 2008 Prostejov, South Moravia, March 19 (CTK) - Czech archaeologists have uncovered unique cremation graves in Prostejov that date back to the Neolithic period of the Linear Pottery culture and that indicate that people believed in human soul's existence 7,000 years ago already, daily Mlada fronta Dnes wrote Wednesday. The graves were uncovered during construction of a new industrial zone on the eastern edge of the town. "This is the first cremation burial site of the Linear-Pottery-culture to be uncovered on Czech soil. Below it there are skeleton graves...

Older than the pyramids, buried for centuries – found by an Orkney plumber Tristan Stewart-Robertson A RARE piece of Neolithic art has been discovered on a beach in Orkney. The 6,000-year-old relic, thought to be a fragment from a larger piece, was left exposed by storms which swept across the country last week. Local plumber David Barnes, who found the stone on the beach in Sandwick Bay, South Ronaldsay, said circular markings had shown up in the late-afternoon winter sun, drawing his attention to the piece. Archeologists last night heralded the discovery as a "once-in- 50-years event". But they warned...

Withdraw from Iraq immediately. Eliminate the No Child Left Behind law. Legalize marijuana. Those were just some of the goals stated by candidates at the Green Party presidential debate Sunday in San Francisco. About 800 people of varying ages, economic backgrounds and political parties attended the "Presidential Debate that Matters" at the Herbst Theatre, where the five Green presidential hopefuls spent more time agreeing with one another than actually debating. "We're not so much against each other as we are for each other," said one of the candidates, Kent Mesplay, an environmental engineer who also ran for the Green Party...

Archaeologists working near Stonehenge have uncovered what they believe is the largest Neolithic settlement ever discovered in Northern Europe. Remains of an estimated 300 houses are thought to survive under earthworks 3km (2 miles) from the famous stone rings, and 10 have been excavated so far. But there could have been double that total according to the archaeologist leading the work. "What is really exciting is realising just how big the village for the Stonehenge builders was," says Professor Mike Parker Pearson of Sheffield University. Allowing four per house, he estimates there could have been room for more than 2,000...

Archaeologist uncovers 11,000-year-old artefacts in SyriaLatest discoveries in Syria date back to start of Neolithic era in Epipalaeolithic period. By Talal el-Atrache - DAMASCUSA small stone anthropomorphic Neolithic figurine Deep in the heart of northern Syria, close to the banks of the Euphrates River, archaeologists have uncovered a series of startling 11,000-year-old wall paintings and artefacts. "The wall paintings date back to the 9th millennium BC. They were discovered last month on the wall of a house standing two metres (6.6 feet) high at Dja'de," said Frenchman Eric Coqueugniot, who has been leading the excavations on the west bank of...

THEY may look like just a collection of broken stones, but the finds made in a field in Orkney might be evidence of the earliest settlement in Scotland. Two flint "tanged points" or arrowheads found on the island of Stronsay are thought to have been used by hunters between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago, just after the Ice Age. The arrowheads were found among a collection of scattered artefacts, including bladed tools, on a farm by Naomi Woodward and a team of MA students on an archaeology course at Orkney College. The discoveries were made during a two-week research trip...

Clava Burial chambers of the Neolithic In the Neolithic - the New Stone Age - the older you were, the more important you were, and thus logically the dead were the most important of all. Ancestor worship became the centre of people's lives, and great emphasis was placed on the burial of the dead. Magnificent tombs where therefore built as houses for the dead. Some of the finest of these are the Clava cairns, in North East Scotland, near Inverness. Here stone chambers were built, and then stones were built up around them to form a mound, and a long...

A devon archaeologist believes he has found the Lost City of Apollo.Dennis Price, who shot to prominence after finding a missing altar stone from Stonehenge, is the man behind what could be an amazing discovery. Mr Price, a father-of-two who lives in Broadclyst, has undertaken years of research on the stone circle. With the help of language experts from Exeter University, Mr Price has translated the early works of the Greek mariner Pytheas of Massilia, who was one of the earliest visitors to Britain, in around 325BC, and who wrote of the City of Apollo. Now, after dedicated work, Mr...

Neolithic village found in Orkney sheds new light on Stone Age life August 14, 2007 David Lister The remains of a Neolithic settlement discovered in Orkney were hailed yesterday as potentially as important as the Skara Brae village on the islands. The 2.5 hectare site is believed to date back nearly 5,000 years and to include a complex system of temples and dwellings spread over two fields. The find, at Ness of Brodgar, between the Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stenness, will add to the area’s reputation as home to some of the most remarkable archaeological monuments in...

Neolithic burial site yields unique archaeological find Budapest, April 23 (MTI) - Archaeologists exploring a Neolithic burial site in Tolna County, S Hungary, have discovered what may easily be the most exciting tomb ever unearthed in Europe, Professor Istvan Zalai-Gaal, who has been leading the diggings, reported on Monday. The tomb is seven thousand years old and was the burial chamber of a tribal chieftain. There is a heavy upright log in each corner, believed to have originally held an above ground structure over the two-metre by two-metre tomb. Inside, said Zalai-Gaal, archaeologists found polished stone axes and other stone...

Emergence of a new picture of the Maltese holocene environment A new picture of the Maltese holocene environment is emerging through Katrin Fenech’s recent Ph.D. thesis entitled “Human-induced changes in the environment and landscape of the Maltese Islands from the Neolithic to the 15th century AD, as inferred from a scientific study of sediments from Marsa, Malta”. The thesis investigates current theories through scientific analyses of sediment. For this purpose, an 11.2m long sediment core was retrieved from the Marsa Sports Ground, with the help of a mechanical corer, in June 2002, financed by Linda Eneix of the OTS Foundation....

English Heritage is conducting stabilisation work at the site Archaeologists have found traces of a Roman settlement at a 5,000-year-old landmark man-made hill in Wiltshire.English Heritage believes there was a Roman community at Silbury Hill about 2,000 years ago. The 130ft Neolithic mound near Avebury - one of Europe's largest prehistoric monuments - is thought to have been created some 3,000 years earlier. Experts carrying out a project to stabilise the hill say the site may have been a sacred place of pilgrimage. Human activity English Heritage geophysicist Dr Neil Linford said: "We are really excited by this discovery...

Winds ravage Neolithic village in Chile February 12, 2007 - 12:39PM Deep within the wind-swept Atacama desert in northern Chile, the remnants of a forgotten civilisation rise from the sand. At first the ruins are barely visible, just small ridges that cast short shadows. But where the sand has been stripped away, circular clay structures can be clearly seen. These are the 3,000-year-old remains of Tulor, one of the oldest and best-preserved Neolithic villages in South America. The ruins consist of low two-room houses, a cemetery and stables. They were inhabited as far back as 800 BC, more than 2,000...

A SMALL building project in Brittany has hit the buffers with the discovery of a buried "menhir" or Neolithic standing stone. A little more digging by archaeologists uncovered around 50 other stones that date from between the 5th and 3rd Century BC. The site is near the village of Belz, in the south of Brittany, and the area is known for other standing stone formations, but this one is already being heralded as the most interesting ever discovered in France. A team from the Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques (Inrap) is slowly revealing a large quantity of remains such as...

Neolithic stone carving of Big Dipper discovered in northwest China A neolithic stone carving of the Big Dipper star formation has been found on Baimiaozi Mountain near Chifeng City in northwest China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, according to experts. The stone carving was discovered by Wu Jiacai, a 50-year-old researcher in literature and history with Wongniute Banner of Inner Mongolia. Wu found a large yam-shaped stone, 310 centimeters long, onto which 19 stars had been carved. The representation of the Big Dipper is on the north face of the stone. The stars are represented by indentations in the stone. The...

PARIS -- Cave drawings thought to be older than those in the famed caves of Lascaux have been discovered in a grotto in western France, officials from the Charente region said Sunday. A first analysis by officials from the office of cultural affairs suggests the drawings were made some 25,000 years ago, Henri de Marcellus, mayor of the town of Vilhonneur where the cave is located, told France-Info radio. He said, however, that the date could only be confirmed by further investigations. Cavers exploring a part of a grotto in the Vilhonneur forest made the discovery in December, the local...

Maeshowe winter solstice as viewed by Neolithic man CAROLINE WICKHAM-JONESMaeshowe winter solstice as viewed by Neolithic manMaeshowe is managed by Historic Scotland. Picture: Charles Tait Photographic THE GREAT mound of Maeshowe has dominated the skyline of Orkney for almost 5,000 years. It is a spectacular sight and a visit to the chambered tomb provides one of the highlights for visitors to the Orkney islands. Today, as we stoop to enter and walk down the low 11 metre passage to the chamber with its massive stonework, we are reminded of the ingenuity of those original builders. Its apparent uniformity masks a...

Excitement at Neolithic site find Archaeologists say it will improve understanding of the Neolithic period Archaeologists have unearthed what is thought to be one of the largest Neolithic settlements in Britain. The discovery, which includes buildings, a human burial pit, tools, pottery and ritual objects, was uncovered at a Northumberland quarry. It is hoped it will boost understanding of the period, which dates back thousands of years. The discovery was made during routine archaeological investigation of the quarry, which is run by Tarmac. The settlement, near Milfield Village, Northumberland, includes at least three buildings dating to the 4000 BC Early...

Neolithic agricultural community’s daily life shown in amazing detail in dig at ancient site Well-preserved settlement in Kastoria, northern Greece, dating 7,500 years ago illuminates the characteristics of rural life of the times Remains of buildings (trenches for foundations, poles, wall coating, floorings) in the western section of the excavation. By Iota Sykka - Kathimerini The finds at Avgi in Kastoria are far from common. At a site of 3.5 hectares near the Aghia Triada municipality, a 7,500-year-old rural community has been unearthed. Rare miniature vessels the size of a ring, nine fine impressive stamps, 20 human and animal-shaped idols,...

'Lost river' could rewrite history books February 19 2002 at 08:33AM Madras India, - The discovery of an ancient city on the seabed off India's western coast has scientists salivating at the prospect of a fundamental rewrite in the chronology of ancient human society. Preliminary tests have suggested the site in the Gulf of Cambay off Gujarat state could date as far back as 7 500 BC, several thousand years older than what were previously known to be the first significant urban settlements. The discovery was made purely by chance last year as oceanographers from the National Institute of ...

Inner Mongolia Yields New Discoveries More than 80 leading archeological experts are participating in an international conference in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, to exchange the latest information on Hongshan, a prehistoric relics site. Relics excavated at the Hongshan ("Red Mountain") site originated around 5000 BC to 6500 BC. Now a part of Chifeng City, the site was discovered in 1935. Some of the relics found at Hongshan have led archeologists to conclude that the heads of Chinese dragons may have been inspired by boars in addition to horses and cattle. Primitive people who struggled to survive by fishing and...

AN ARCHAEOLOGIST recently recreated a neolithic brew based on ingredients excavated in Perthshire. The resulting ale tasted unpleasant, but clearly those who drank it originally were not put off. Ever since, the production and consumption of alcohol has been central to Scotland?s culture. It wasn?t just home-produced brew for which Scots developed a taste. Scotland did brisk international trade exporting a wide range of goods in exchange for claret, imported from France to Leith as early as the 12th century. Subsequently, wines from Spain were landed in Dumbarton, bound for Glasgow. In the other direction, export ales were developed from...

Italian Stonehenge found on a mountain By Bruce Johnston in Rome (Filed: 22/10/2002) A series of prehistoric stone structures, reminiscent of Stonehenge but taller and possibly earlier, have been located 3,500ft above sea level on a mountain in Calabria, southern Italy. The structures - now largely in ruins as a result of earthquakes - are mainly made up of two columns of large, square granite blocks, topped by a lintel. Measuring up to 33ft tall and 60ft wide, traces of them have been found over an area described as extending for "many square miles". They are believed to be the...

Source: Stanford University Medical Center (http://www-med.stanford.edu/school/)..... Date: Posted 9/11/2002 Overlapping Genetic And Archaeological Evidence Suggests Neolithic Migration STANFORD, Calif. - For the first time, Stanford researchers have compared genetic patterns with archeological findings to discover that genetics can help predict with a high degree of accuracy the presence of certain artifacts. And they say the strength of this link adds credence to theories that prehistoric people migrated from the Middle East to Europe, taking both their ideas and their way of life with them. "The recovery of history is really a jigsaw puzzle," said Peter Underhill, PhD, senior research scientist...