Stone Pages Archaeo News: October 2006 Archives

October 2006 index:

1 October 2006: 3D rock carvings recorded with simple equipment; A method of imaging rock carvings in 3D using everyday electronic equipment could help document decaying carvings before they disappear forever, researchers say. Archaeologists are struggling to document many rock...
: Grianan fort restoration an 'act of cultural vandalism'; Internationally-acclaimed sculptor, Maurice Harron, has branded restoration work at Grianan Fort (Co. Donegal, Ireland) as "a gross act of cultural vandalism". Mr. Harron says that, as a result of the...
: Bulgaria fights to save its past from gangsters; Luck is only sometimes on the side of Bulgaria's archaeologists, as they race gangsters to unearth the treasure of the ancient Thracians. It was with Daniela Agre last month when...
: Priests may have designed Nazca lines, expert says; High priests at an ancient religious compound in southern Peru may have designed the mysterious Nazca lines, a set of huge geometric patterns, animal figures and long lines etched in...
: Prehistoric enclosure discovered at Brodgar; Workmen building a new visitor car park for the Ring o' Brodgar (Orkney, Scotland) have unearthed what could be the remains of a huge prehistoric walled enclosure between the Stenness...
: Archaeologists study ancient people in Ohio; For the past three summers, a team of Cleveland Museum of Natural History archaeologists and volunteers has teased the secrets of what's called the Danbury site (Ohio, USA) from its...
: Iron Age settlement in Somerset is about to be unearthed; Archaeologists will soon be uncovering a rare Iron Age settlement in a North Somerset (England) village. The ancient site at Goblin Combe Environmental Centre in Cleeve is the only known...
: Ancient burial urns found in central Vietnam; Archaeologists have discovered 30 burial jars belonging to the 2,500-year-old Sa Huynh civilization in central Vietnam. The graves together with many artifacts were unearthed at the Con Dai archaeological site...
: Cash to get answers from Scottish prehistoric graves; Research is to be carried out which will shed new light on the 'Beaker People' - those buried in the prehistoric graves of the north-east of Scotland. Aberdeen University has...
: Neolithic temple discovered in northern Syria; A team of Syrian and French archaeologists has discovered a Neolithic temple in northern Syria that could be the oldest in the Middle East. The discovery of the temple, dating...
8 October 2006: Tibetan Ice Age foragers; Recent exploration in Tibet has shown that humans penetrated the region between 13,000 and 15,000 years ago, and may have been there ten millennia before that. These foragers occupied short-term...
: 4,000-year-old hand mills unearthed in Turkey; This year's excavations in Kayseri's Kültepe district (Turkey), conducted annually for the last 59 years, uncovered a couple of small, 4,000-year-old hand mills. Archaeologist and head of the excavation team...
: 3000-year-old skeleton found in Iran; Archaeologists have discovered a goat statuette and a bas-relief of a lizard buried with the skeleton of a woman in the cemetery of the Narges Tappeh ancient site near Gorgan,...
: Ancient canoe joins Newport ship; A 3,400-year-old hollowed out log which is thought to be a Bronze Age canoe has been moved to a storage unit developed for Newport's medieval ship. The oak relic was...
: Australian energy company to fund rock art scholarship; One of Australia's largest energy companies will fund a three-year postgraduate scholarship for research into a collection of Aboriginal rock art on WA's Burrup Peninsula. The carvings currently are at...
: Remains of 6,000-year-old house discovered in Shaanxi; Chinese archaeologists have discovered the remains of houses dating back 6,000 years in northwest China's Shaanxi Province. The remains were located on a section of a farming terrace in Linglong...
: Ebay to help stop illegal British antiquities auctions; Ebay has agreed to help prevent illegal sales of treasures on the auction site to preserve Britain's heritage. It will now work with the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), which is...
: Is the 'Battle of Tara' over?; The last legal obstacle to the long-delayed M3 motorway in Ireland has been removed and work on the project will start in June of next year following an agreement by...
: Radical solution proposed for Stonehenge; After over 20 years of argument and countless millions spent on consultants and planning inquiries over the state of Stonehenge, a leading expert last night proposed a radical solution: do...
: Early humans followed the coast; Learning how to live off the sea may have played a key role in the expansion of early humans around the globe. After leaving Africa, human groups probably followed coastal...
15 October 2006: Macedonian lake reveals prehistoric artifacts; For decades now, the Cultural Center in Resen (southwest Macedonia) has housed boats, some 4,000 years old. They were discovered on the shores of Lake Prespa. "I know of foreign archeologists...
: 3000-year-old cobblestoned lane unearthed in Iran; A team of archaeologists unearthed a cobblestoned lane at the 3000-year-old site of Gohar-Tappeh in Iran’s northern province of Mazandaran during the fifth phase of excavations, which have been underway...
: Evidence demonstrates that 'Hobbit' is not a new species; What may well turn out to be the definitive work in a debate that has been raging in palaeoanthropology for two years will be published in the November 2006 issue...
: Bronze Age Remains Found in Russia; Bronze Age archeological monuments have been found at one of the road construction sites near the town of Vladimir (Russia). The builders reported about the finding to archeologists of the...
: Ancient brain surgery in Bulgaria; Bulgarian archaeologists claim to have unearthed evidence that brain surgery was carried out more than 4,000 years ago. Georgi Nehrizov, heading a team digging near the city of Svilengrad, said...
: Silbury Hill latest work; The civil engineering firm Skanska is undertaking further work for English Heritage on the lower side of Silbury Hill (Wiltshire, England). This is part of a process to attempt to...
: Early Brits boiled milk and processed it to make foods; New evidence shows that people have been slurping up yogurt since at least as far back as the Neolithic. Food particles found embedded in ancient cooking pots reveal that Britain’s...
: Goats key to spread of farming, gene study suggests; Goats accompanied the earliest farmers into Europe some 7,500 years ago, helping to revolutionize Stone Age society, a new study suggests. The trailblazing farm animals were hardy and highly mobile...
: Bering Strait appeared earlier than believed; A land bridge between Alaska and Siberia flooded to make the Bering Strait 11,000 years ago, more than 1,000 years earlier than previously thought, U.S. researchers reported. This would have...
: Reliefs unearthed in 11,000-year-old Göbeklitepe tumulus; A team of archaeologists working at the Göbeklitepe tumulus in the southeastern city of Şanlıurfa (Turkey) came across human figures without heads as well as reliefs of scorpions, snakes and wild...
: Trippet Stones stone circle undergoing repairs; One of Bodmin Moor's most attractive and accessible stone circles is to undergo repairs. The Trippet Stones stand on Manor Common, between Bodmin and Blisland (Cornwall, England). The circle, which...
: Ancient skeleton to return home; The 26,000-year-old skeleton discovered in the Paviland cave on Gower is set to return to Wales. The skeleton known as the Red Lady of Paviland, was discovered in the 1820s...
: Complaints about bad behaviour at Avebury; An enforcement notice has been served on the National Trust by a local council because of ongoing problems with travellers and pagans. Kennet District Council issued the planning enforcement notice...
: Ancient warriors cemetery discovered in China; Chinese archaeologists have discovered a warriors cemetery dating back to the Warring State (475-221 BCE) in central China's Henan Province. The graveyard was found during implementation of a culture relics...
: Council intent on destruction of Yorkshire's archaeology; Angry campaign groups have accused North Yorkshire County Council of encouraging the destruction of one of the area’s most important ancient sites. Campaigners from Heritage Action and TimeWatch have claimed...
: Irish passage tombs explored in a new documentary; The Boyne Valley passage tombs are to feature in a special film by the documentary-maker Roel Oostra. Oostra was in Ireland to film part of a documentary about how ancient...
: Ancient stone axe found in Australia; An astonishing artefact of Stone Age has been discovered less than 100 kilometres from Sydney. A team of archaeologists and bushwalkers on an expedition in the Wollemi National Park discovered...
19 October 2006: Ancient Stonehenge houses unearthed; Nine Neolithic-era buildings have been excavated in the Stonehenge world heritage site, according to a report in the journal British Archaeology. The structures, which appear to have been homes, date...
: Bronze Age cup returns to county; A Bronze Age artefact found on a Kent farm (England) five years ago, and acquired by the British Museum, has returned to the area for a special exhibition. Declared a...
: Ancient stamp dating to 5,000 BCE unearthed in Turkey; Excavations in the Harran district of Şanlıurfa have uncovered a stamp dating back to 4,000-5,000 BCE, said the excavation leader, Nurettin Yardımcı. The excavations have been ongoing since 1983 and that...
: Funding rejection 'threatens' Wollemi art research; Fieldwork in what is believed to be one of the most significant rock art sites in Australia has stalled after the Federal Government declined to fund further research, archaeologists say....
: How did the first farmers live in Austria?; The living conditions of the first farmers from the early Stone Age are being comprehensively reconstructed for the first time ever in Austria. This has been made possible by an...
: Iron Age city discovered under Inverness; The remains of a 2000-year-old city have been discovered under Inverness and it is being hailed as one of the most important recent discoveries in Scotland. The find near Inverness...
: Archaeologists find Bronze Age anchors in Cyprus; A team of maritime archeologists from the UK has uncovered 120 stone anchors off the coast of Paphos. The anchors, some of which date back to the Bronze Age (2500-1125...
: 'It's a wonderful world: Lost civilisations' lecture; Bournemouth University is organizing 'It's a wonderful world: Lost civilisations': a public lecture series, open to all. Among the subjects, worth mentioning is 'Beyond Stonehenge: Carn Meini and the Preseli...
: Symposium on Monument Preservation in Europe; On the occasion of the Leipzig Monument Fair (October 25 - 28, 2006), a symposium devoted to "Monument Preservation in Europe. Current trends in dealing with our historical Heritage" will...
21 October 2006: 'Earliest chinese characters' Unearthed; Archaeologists have discovered pottery bearing inscriptions dating back 4,500 years, which could prove to be China's earliest example of written language. These pottery fragments, found in the ruins of an...
: Smugglers entice archaeologists to excavate Iranian mound; Illicit excavations by smugglers at the 3000-year-old Babajian mound in Lorestan Province (Iran) have drawn a team of archaeologists to the site to save the rest of the artifacts. "The...
: 'Time team' return in search of Iron Age roundhouse; Fields near Forfar (Angus, Scotland) are slowly giving up some of the secrets of the past—but with this harvest comes new mysteries. Amateur archaeologists will be back there as part...
: Prehistoric weapons and tools discovered in Romania; Bronze weapons and tools, dating back to the 3rd millennium BCE, were discovered in Pir, Satu Mare County, in northern Romania. Archaeologist Liviu Marta said it was the biggest collection...
: 5,000-year-old graffiti at Tarxien Temples to be saved; Heritage Malta is currently undertaking the preservation of two unique megaliths at Tarxien Temples as part of the BOV Tarxien Temples Project. These megaliths are significant because they bear witness...
29 October 2006: 2700-year-old family tomb discovered in Iran; Discovery of the remains of an old construction in Abu-Fondova historical hill (Iran) led to the discovery of a family tomb dating back to the New Elamite period (around 750...
: New evidence of early horse domestication; Soil from a Copper Age site in northern Kazakhstan has yielded new evidence for domesticated horses up to 5,600 years ago. The discovery, consisting of phosphorus-enriched soils inside what appear...
: Artifacts in Syria hint at ancient burial rituals; Six years ago, archaeologists uncovered a solitary, undisturbed tomb in the ruins of an ancient city in northern Syria. Now, in subsequent excavations, they have exposed seven more tombs at...
: Northumberland Lights - The Deugar on Simonside; It is well documented in English folklore through the mists of time that the lights of the Deugar - a yeti-like creature - would lure walkers on Simonside. In 2006...
: Teen hideout may be archeologically signficant; Teens on Skidaway Island (Georgia, USA) have apparently picked the wrong spot for a hideout, said Russ Wigh, a Skidaway resident and naturalist. They've built a makeshift tree house above...
: Ancient footprints found in Mexico valley; A trail of 13 fossilized footprints running through a valley in a desert in northern Mexico could be among the oldest in the Americas, Mexican archeologists said. The footprints were...
: Europe's oldest child skeleton unearthed in Bulgaria; Archaeologists have unearthed an 8,000 year old skeleton of a child in the village of Ohoden, northwestern Bulgaria. Archaeologist Georgi Ganetsovski, the leader of the excavation, said the finding had...
: Ancient rock art in Utah vandalised; Vandals defaced an ancient rock art panel near Vernal (Utah, USA) sometime in the last 10 days, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management said. "They engraved names and dates" across...