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Research led by the University of Leeds has discovered genetic evidence that overturns existing theories about human migration into Island Southeast Asia (covering the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysian Borneo) - taking the timeline back by nearly 10,000 years. Prevailing theory suggests that the present-day populations of Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) originate largely from a Neolithic expansion from Taiwan driven by rice agriculture about 4,000 years ago - the so-called "Out of Taiwan" model. However an international research team, led by the UK’s first Professor of Archaeogenetics, Martin Richards, has shown that a substantial fraction of their mitochondrial DNA lineages (inherited...

Salt men to undergo surgery TEHRAN, Oct. 27 (MNA) -- The Archaeology Research Center of Iran (ARCI) plans to conduct a series of surgical operations on the ancient salt men of Zanjan’s Chehrabad Salt Mine, the Persian service of CHN reported on Saturday. The project is being undertaken to complete archaeological studies and carry out other scientific research on the unique mummies, ARCI director Mohammad-Hassan Fazeli Nashli said. The operations will be performed on the salt men’s soft tissue and entrails, which have remained intact due to the high quality of the mummification, he added. The project will be carried...

Iran, Germany, and Britan to Decide on Fate of Salt Men The fourth Chehrabad salt manA fear for the future of Zanjan’s salt men and in an attempt to find the best approaches for preserving them, the Cultural Heritage and Tourism Department of Zanjan province will organize a conference with attendance of Iranian, German, and British experts. Tehran, 23 July 2007 (CHN Foreign Desk) – In an international conference organized by the Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Department of Zanjan province, the status of Iranian salt men and the existing problems on the way for preserving them will be discussed...

British Experts Started Studies on Zanjan’s Salt Men in Iran Salt Man No. 1 found in Zanjan’s Chehr Abad salt mine in 1993 – Picture Courtesy of CAISTwo archeologists from universities of Oxford and York started their studies on the salt mummies found in western Iran. The salt men’s diet, health and age before death will particularly be studied by these experts. Tehran, 26 November 2006 (CHN Foreign Desk) -- After months of negotiations between Iran’s Archeology Research Center and the British universities of Oxford and York, a team consisting of two archeologists from these universities came to Iran to...

German Archeologists to Excavate Salt Men's Burial Ground in Iran Jun 20, 2006 Following the visit of two Iranian archeologists to Germany and Austria, the condition for a joint cooperation between Iranian and German archeologists was prepared and a team of archeologists of Bochum Mining Museum of Germany is to come to Iran to carry out excavations in Chehr Abad historical salt mine, the burial ground of the discovered famous salt men in Zanjan province. After signing a memorandum of understanding between Iran's Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (ICHTO) and Germany's Bochum Mining Museum and defining the budget for this...

A few years ago, a team of researchers in Poland came across a pair of Neanderthal bones that held a grisly secret: Their owner had been eaten by a giant bird. The two finger bones belonged to a Neanderthal child who had died roughly 115,000 years before, making those bones the oldest known human remains from Poland, according to Science In Poland. Once the bones were analyzed, the scientists concluded that the hand bones were porous because they had passed through the digestive system of a large bird. It is unclear if the bird killed the child and then ate...

Archaeologists in Egypt said today that they had discovered dozens of cat mummies, a rare collection of mummified scarab beetles, as well as an apparently pristine Fifth Dynasty tomb they plan to open in the coming weeks. The mummified beetles - the first ever to be found in the area - were among artefacts found in seven tombs discovered over the past six months on the edge of the King Userkaf pyramid complex at the ancient necropolis of Saqqara, south of Cairo. The burial chambers also contained wooden statues depicting other animals and birds.

Using ancient proteins and DNA recovered from tiny pieces of animal bone, archaeologists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH) and the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography (IAET) at the Russian Academy of Sciences-Siberia have discovered evidence that domestic animals -cattle, sheep, and goat - made their way into the high mountain corridors of southern Kyrgyzstan more than four millennia ago... in many of the most important channels of the Silk Road itself, including Kyrgyzstan's Alay Valley (a large mountain corridor linking northwest China with the oases cities of Bukhara and Samarkand), very little is...

An international team of scientists has completed the first 3D virtual reconstruction of the ribcage of the most complete Neandertal skeleton unearthed to date, potentially shedding new light on how this ancient human moved and breathed. The team, which included researchers from universities in Spain, Israel, and the United States, including the University of Washington, focused on the thorax -- the area of the body containing the rib cage and upper spine, which forms a cavity to house the heart and lungs. Using CT scans of fossils from an approximately 60,000-year-old male skeleton known as Kebara 2, researchers were able...

Abigail Adams, best known for her articulate writing and her involvement in the presidency of her husband, John, is the subject of a yearlong commemoration by the Massachusetts Historical Society that begins Sunday with a walking tour that explores the Adams family’s presence in Boston. “It’s a long walking tour, but it’s a really fun one,” said Nancy Haywood, a lead guide for the two-hour excursion. “It’s a nice way to really explore the city and learn more about this significant family.” The tour, organized by Boston By Foot, runs just two times annually, but this year, with the 200th...

Most murders aren’t that difficult to solve. The husband did it. The wife did it. The boyfriend did it, or the ex-boyfriend did. The crimes fit a pattern, the motives are generally clear.Of course, there are always a handful of cases that don’t fit the template, where the killer is a stranger or the reason for the killing is bizarre. It’s fair to say, however, that nowadays the authorities usually have something to go on. Thanks in part to advances such as DNA technology, the police are seldom baffled anymore.Mortuary photo of the unknown man found dead on Somerton Beach,...

The remains of five people, probably two women and three children, were found in a bedroom in Pompeii on Wednesday. The group probably took refuge in the bedroom in a desperate attempt to escape a shower of volcanic rocks that had filled the house, Pompeii director Massimo Osanna told ANSA. "It's a shocking discovery, but also very important for the history of studies," Osanna said. The skeletons were found in a house where a charcoal inscription was recently found backing the theory that the Mount Vesuvius eruption that destroyed the ancient Roman city took place in October of 79 AD,...

A portion of an ancient Egyptian mummy buried inside a Luxor tomb in 2014 was covered in tattoos — some symbols so well-preserved, that researchers were able to clearly label them. But identifying the person behind the markings proved more difficult. After years of research, Egyptian authorities believe they finally have a clearer picture of who this now 3,000-year-old person was. Remains of the mummy, which had more than 23 different tattoos displayed across various parts of the body, were uncovered by researchers with the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology during an excavation expedition in historical site Deir el-Medina on the...

he remains of the body were uncovered in a water-filled coffin within a tomb at Tieguai Village in China. The skeleton was buried with various other artifacts, such as a model house with miniature furniture inside and a silver pendant decorated with dragons. A sign found on the coffin said the tomb belonged to the "Grand Lady" who lived in "Ankang Commandery." While her actual name was difficult to read on the sign, the archaeologists believe it could be née Jian, LiveScience reports. One indication of the Grand Lady’s age came from the 200 bronze coins located within her coffin...

<p>The bullet probably hit the Union soldier as he was fleeing. It may have struck his cartridge box first, which sent it tumbling through the muscle of his right buttock, broke his right leg and buried itself sideways in his thigh bone just below the hip.</p>

Zanolli and colleagues examined dental remains from the sites of Fontana Fanuccio, located 50km southeast of Rome, and Visogliano, located 18km northwest of Trieste. At around 450,000 years old, these teeth join a very short list of fossil human remains from Middle Pleistocene Europe. Using micro-CT scanning and detailed morphological analyses, the authors examined the shape and arrangement of tooth tissues and compared them with teeth of other human species. They found that the teeth of both sites share similarities with Neanderthals and are distinct from modern humans. There has been much debate over the identities and relationships of Middle...

Talk about a headache. When Mount Vesuvius erupted, the explosion caused such extreme heat that victims' skulls exploded, their blood boiled and their muscles, flesh and brains were replaced with ash, according to a new study. "New investigations on the victims' skeletons unearthed from the ash deposit filling 12 waterfront chambers have now revealed widespread preservation of atypical red and black mineral residues encrusting the bones, which also impregnate the ash filling the intracranial cavity and the ash-bed encasing the skeletons," the study's abstract reads.

The genetic variation within the Scythian nomad group is so broad that it must be explained with the group assimilating people it came in contact with. This is shown in a new study on Bronze and Iron Age genetics of the Pontic-Caspian Steppe, situated in the Black Sea region... This is likely the strategy needed for the group to have been able to grow as fast, expand as vast and to remain established for as long as they did. The findings emphasize the importance of assimilation to maintain Scythian dominance around the Black Sea region... The vast area of the...

On the afternoon of Oct. 4, 2011, a backhoe dug into an excavation pit in Elmhurst, Queens, and struck iron. Construction workers assumed they had hit a pipe. But when the claws of the backhoe emerged from the ground, it was dragging a body clothed in a white gown and knee-high socks. Scott Warnasch, then a New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner forensic archaeologist, initially viewed the finding as a recent homicide. “It was recorded as a crime scene,” Warnasch, 52, told The Post. “A buried body on an abandoned lot sounds pretty straightforward.” It turned out to...

Intact 2,000-year old Etruscan tomb discovered Mon Aug 13, 2007 7:58PM BST By Deepa Babington ROME (Reuters) - Archaeologists have discovered a more than 2,000-year-old Etruscan tomb perfectly preserved in the hills of Tuscany with a treasure trove of artefacts inside, including urns that hold the remains of about 30 people. The tomb, in the Tuscan town of Civitella Paganico, probably dates from between the 1st and 3rd centuries B.C., when Etruscan power was in decline, Andrea Marcocci, who led digging at the site, told Reuters. "It's quite rare to find a tomb intact like this," said Marcocci, who had...