Stone Pages Archaeo News: September 2008 Archives

September 2008 index:

7 September 2008: Archaeology courses at Liverpool University; Liverpool University's Continuing Education department's Autumn course programme contains a series of items of interest: The great stone circles of the north west 10 weekly meetings from Mon 6 October...
: Cemetery expansion finds Bronze Age remains in Malta; A cluster of five silos dating back to the Bronze Age period were recently discovered when excavation work, forming part of a project to extend the Luqa cemetery (Malta), was...
: Prehistoric site discovered in Vermont; One of Colchester's (Vermont, USA) newest housing developments is slated to be built on land known to contain American Indian artifacts. Charles Knight, a professor of anthropology at the University...
: Novices dig up rare bronze bowl in Sweden; Amateur archeologists digging near Skrea hill outside Falkenberg have unearthed a unique artifact. The find, a 2000-year-old bronze vessel, was uncovered at a Bronze Age grave site by members of...
: 6,500-year-old skeleton unearthed in Poland; The remains of a 30-year-old woman were found at an archeological excavation in Pinczow, in the Swietokrzyska region, southern Poland. The body, identified as female, dates back 6,500 years. The...
: Prehistoric graves with phallic figurines found in Israel; Prehistoric graves with an unusual abundance of phallic figurines and oddly arranged human remains have been found in Israel, archaeologists announced recently. Near Nazerat (Nazareth), the The Pre-Pottery Neolithic B...
: Oldest skeleton in Americas found in underwater cave?; Deep inside an underwater cave in Mexico, archaeologists may have discovered the oldest human skeleton ever found in the Americas. Dubbed Eva de Naharon, or Eve of Naharon, the female...
: Archaeologists shed light on ancient Canaanite burial rituals; The British Museum's excavation team in Sidon (Lebanon) declared the end of its mission for 2008 at the 'Freres' excavation site near the southern port city's fortress. "Sidon is a...
: Bronze Age mouse offers clues to royal shipwreck; Remains of a long dead house mouse have been found in the wreck of a Bronze Age royal ship. That makes it the earliest rodent stowaway ever recorded, and proof...
: Czech archaeologists find unique 7000-year-old statue; Czech archaeologists have uncovered a torso of a unique female statue created about 7,000 years ago near Masovice (Czech Republic), which is the second similar find in this locality. The...
: British Minister critical of Stonehenge facilities; Facilities at Stonehenge have come under fire from Margaret Hodge, Britain's tourism minister. She criticised hotels across the country saying they are of 'worrying' quality and she said in particular...
: Walks will 'unearth Scotland's hidden past'; Archaeology Month is being marked across the north-east of Scotland over the coming weeks with events retracing the footsteps of the area's earliest inhabitants. On Saturday, September 13, and again...
: Cypriot plateau could be an ancient gateway; For over a millennium, a fortified settlement with a shrine stood on a plateau near the eastern Larnaca coast (Cyprus) ringed with a defensive wall, archaeologists believe. Earlier theories about...
14 September 2008: Cash to reveal moors ancient secrets; A £27,000 funding boost is to be used to help document the archaeological recording and research of sites unearthed following the Fylingdales Moor (North Yorkshire, England) fire in September 2003....
: Pursuing US Southwest's prehistoric rock art; In his mid-60s, Ekkehart Malotki, a retired linguistics professor, willingly dangled from a rope tied to a car that was backed to the edge of a cliff. He was documenting...
: Bones reveal final moments of ancient Australian man; He was killed by a barrage of spear thrusts and an axe blow to the head - a payback punishment. That is how Sydney's oldest known ex-resident - Narrabeen Man...
: New insights into Neanderthals; They may have been stronger, but Neanderthals looked, ate and may have even thought much like modern humans do, suggest several new studies that could help explain new evidence that...
: Aboriginal relics destroyed by all-terrain vehicles; Dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles are grinding away ancient First Nations artifacts in the Nanaimo area (British Columbia, Canada). Geraldine Manson, with the Snuneymuxw First Nation, said several petroglyphs located...
: Remains from 2500 BCE found in Ireland; The partial remains of a young person, probably female, which could date back to between 2500-2000 BCE, have been uncovered during an archaeological dig in the Burren, Co Clare (Ireland)....
: Ancient figs may be first cultivated crops; The discovery of figs in an 11,400-year-old house near the ancient city of Jericho (West Bank of the Palestinian territories) may be evidence that cultivated crops came centuries before the...
: Stonehenge partiers came from afar, cattle teeth show; Prehistoric cattle remains found close to Stonehenge suggest that partying pilgrims brought the animals from afar, scientists report. The remains support a theory that the megalithic monument near Salisbury, in...
: M3 motorway through Tara may open early; The controversial M3 motorway in Ireland is understood to be nearly a year ahead of schedule and it is hoped it may open to traffic in advance of the official...
21 September 2008: 7000 years of Iranian history turned to bricks; The 7000-year-old mound of Pardis in the Qarchak region (Iran) is currently being bulldozed by a factory for brick production. The mound is located in an area owned by individuals...
: Discovery of Bronze-Age 'Refrigerators' Expands Homer's Troy; The remains of two outsized earthenware pots, a ditch and evidence of a gate dating back more than 3,000 years are changing scholars' perceptions about the city of Troy at...
: Early Paleoindians hunters may have relied on rabbits; Clovis points are the hallmark of one of America's earliest cultures: the Paleoindians. Since archaeologists found Clovis points lodged in the skeleton of a mammoth, they have viewed Paleoindians as...
: Cerne Abbas giant restored by volunteers; The Cerne Abbas giant in verdant Dorset (England) is club-wielding figure, which is 180ft from head to toe and is administered by the National Trust, is carved into the hillside....
: Prehistoric agriculture in Spain was unsustainable; A team of Catalan and Andalusian researchers has proved that the first agricultural systems on the Iberian Peninsula became ever more unsustainable with the passage of time. The study involved...
: 7,000-eyar-old human skeleton found in Sri Lanka; A human skeleton was found in Ambalantota (Sri Lanka). The skeleton, estimated to be more than 7,000 years old, several other prehistoric stone tools including animal remains have been unearthed...
: Megalithic site in India being destroyed; An Iron Age burial site dotted with cairn circles, standing stones and cist-slabs, near Vellaripatti village near Madurai on the Madurai-Tiruchi highway (India), is being destroyed. Archaeologists date the megalithic...
: Neolithic skeletons discovered in Malaysia; Archaeologists have stumbled upon eight human skeletal remains, believed to be from the Neolithic period between 2,000 and 3,000 years ago, at an ancient burial site at Gua Kain Hitam...
: New study of a Maltese stone circle; Archaeologists from Queen's University in Belfast and from Cambridge University are currently in Gozo (Malta) carrying out archaeological work in connection with excavations carried out between 1987 and 1994 on...
: Devil's Quoits stone circle restored; The Devil's Quoits (Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire) would have been one of the most important standing stone circle sites in Britain. By the end of the 19th century only three of the...
: Ancient settlement unearthed in eastern Turkey; A settlement dating back to Early Bronze Age, and remains of a building dating to Hittite era were recovered during excavations in Aslantepe, Malatya (Turkey), professor Marcella Frangipane, the head...
: Research pushes back crop development 10,000 years; Until recently researchers believed the story of the origin of agriculture was one of a relatively sudden appearance of plant cultivation in the Near East around 10,000 years ago spreading...
: Important finds in Bronze Age settlement in Cyprus; Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of an unusual 1.2 metre high wall with once curved end and one straight end during continued excavations at Kissonerga-Skalia in Paphos (Cyprus). They believe...
29 September 2008: Neanderthals had a broad diet; Neanderthals clubbed seals and ate dolphins and other seafood to survive in what was thought to be their last holdout before they were driven to extinction. The evidence that they...
: Mysterious Neolithic people made optical art; An egalitarian Neolithic Eden filled with unique, geometric art flourished some 7,000 years ago in Eastern Europe, according to hundreds of artifacts on display at the Vatican. Running until the...
: Ancient axe heads donated to Manx Museum; Artefacts believed to be 4,000-years-old discovered at Isle of Man Transport Minister David Anderson's farm in Patrick have been donated to the national museum collection. The two copper axeheads and...
: Prehistoric remains unearthed in Vietnam; A press conference was held in Gia Lai province (Vietnam) to announce the results of an excavation at the Ia Mor archeological site in Chu Prong District. The site was...
: Ancient petroglyph chiseled from Arizona cliff; The US federal Bureau of Land Management says an ancient petroglyph has been chiseled from the face of a sandstone cliff in northern Arizona (USA). BLM officials announced a $5,000...
: More natural setting for Calanais stones; Some of the modern footpaths at the Calanais standing stones (Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland) are to be removed to create a more natural setting and allow...
: Dig starts for Channel island's secrets; An archaeological dig has begun on Herm - the smallest of the Channel Islands that is open to the public - which could uncover secrets dating back 5,000 years. A...
: Rare Bronze Age knife uncovered from Swedish tomb; Swedish archaeologists have been captivated by a Bronze Age knife which was uncovered along with other artifacts from an excavation site near Falbygden in central Sweden. The knife was discovered...
: Ancient metal workshop found in Iran; Archeological studies in the city of Bam have led to the discovery of a metal production center in Iran's southeastern Kerman Province. Excavations in the Darestan region, located some 22...
: Iron Age finds in the Outer Hebrides; A cremation pit containing a human jaw bone mixed with animal bones is one of a treasure trove of finds currently coming to light in an archaeological dig at Baleshare,...
: Dig pinpoints Stonehenge origins; Archaeologists have discovered Stonehenge's birthdate, solving one of the historic site's longstanding mysteries. The monument's original stones were erected in about 2300 BCE, it has been discovered - 300 years...