Stone Pages Archaeo News: December 2009 Archives

December 2009 index:

3 December 2009: Native American artifacts unearthed in Rhode Island; The discovery of Native American artifacts dating back thousands of years - plus the likelihood that there are many more beneath the streets of neighborhoods - have stalled an effort...
: Prehistoric carvings damaged in Barbados; The lone collection of Prehistoric Amerindian carvings so far discovered on Barbados island has been damaged. "Unfortunately, these have not been looked after awfully well," Archaeologist and Professor at the...
: Duck meals from the Pleistocene; Early modern humans and their predecessors in Europe were mostly big game hunters, but a pile of well-nibbled bird bones suggests that at least some prehistoric European cavemen enjoyed small...
: 10,000-year-old weapon found in Ontario; Archaeologists in Windsor, Ontario (Canada), have discovered a 10,000-year-old stone weapon. Newmarket archaeologist Kim Slocki said she found a single 'projectile point' in her pre-construction survey of the site of...
: British ancient forests were patchy; What were Britain's primordial forests like before humans started tampering with the environment? The latest clues from a study of fossil beetles suggest that the ancient forest was patchy and...
: Ancient camp uncovered in Canada; A team of archeologists working for the City of Ottawa (Canada) has uncovered the oldest aboriginal camp yet found within the city limits, including stone tools and pieces of artfully...
: Bronze Age temple unearthed in Syria; The remains of a Bronze Age temple dedicated to the storm god Adda were discovered beneath Aleppo's Ottoman citadel. A massive citadel built atop a 150-foot-tall hill of solid rock...
: Polar ice cap might have been smaller than thought; The Polar ice cap during the last Ice Age might not have been as extensive as previously thought, according to archaeologists looking at the remains of human settlements in the...
: Iron-age dig hitch for planned 1,200 homes in England; The discovery of a possible Iron Age or Roman settlement could scupper plans on land earmarked for a massive housing estate in England. A 13.5-acre section of land owned by...
: 3-year study reveals Lake Superior's ancient past; Thousands of years of human activity along the Upper Peninsula's Lake Superior shoreline (Michigan, USA) have come into sharper focus after three years of research. Scientists from Northern Michigan University's...
: A lost European Culture, pulled from obscurity; Before the first cities of Mesopotamia or temples along the Nile, there lived in the Lower Danube Valley and the Balkan foothills people who were ahead of their time in...
: Big freeze plunged Europe into Ice Age in months; William Patterson, from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, and his colleagues have shown that switching off the North Atlantic circulation can force the Northern hemisphere into a mini Ice...
8 December 2009: Paleolithic cave painting found in Central India; A group of naturalists from Amravati districts (India) has discovered a set of 17 unique cave paintings in the Satpura range of Madhya Pradesh - which opens up new avenues...
: Britain cut off from Europe by ancient 'super-river'; Researchers have found sediment on the ocean floor off France which originated in the north of the channel which must have been transported by the river originally fed by the...
: Cup-marked boulder dumped because 'awkward to drive around'; Westertown Farm (NJ 58824450) is situated on the A97 road just south of the B9001 junction, about 8km northeast of Huntly (Aberdeenshire, Scotland). This is an area with many ancient...
: Lectures at the Wiltshire Heritage Museum; Among the lectures planned for the next few weeks at the Wiltshire Heritage Museum (Devizes, England) we mention 'Illicit Antiquities: A scandal of our age' by Christopher Chippindale and 'Silbury...
: Sound waves and ancient Maltese temples; Emerging archaeology in a new study highlighted by the Old Temples Study Foundation suggests that sound and a desire to harness its effects may have been equally important as vision...
: Ancient gold unearthed in southern Hungary; Archaeologists have discovered rare gold objects from the time Hungarian tribes first arrived in the Carpathian basin, near Szeged, the head of the excavation said. Tibor Paluch, archaeologist of Szeged's...
: 4,000-year-old grave unearthed in Iraq; An excavation team has unearthed an ancient burial mound dating to the first millennium BCE in Iraq. The Antiquities Department in Arbil said the grave was found in the central...
: Canadian prehistoric site can be saved; A burial ground and archaeological site dating back millennia are at the heart of a long-running saga between a developer and a First Nations community in British Columbia (Canada). Archeological...
: China had bronze early on; ANSTO (Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation) research has shown that an area of desert in north-western China was once a thriving Bronze Age manufacturing and agricultural site. The new...
: French immigrants founded first British farms; Archaeological finds from Britain show that farming was introduced 6000 years ago by immigrants from France, and that the ancient Brits might have continued as hunter-gatherers had it not been...
: Signs of mass cannibalism in the Neolithic; 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...
: Oslo is older than previously thought; Archeologists say Oslo's history will have to be re-written. They have made new escavations east of the capital and largest city in Norway which show that people have lived on...
13 December 2009: Ancient volcano's devastating effects confirmed; A massive volcanic eruption that occurred in the distant past killed off much of central India's forests and may have pushed humans to the brink of extinction, according to a...
: Early Ohioans tracked solstices; On the winter solstice, the sun seems to pause momentarily and then start to come back to peoples living in the Northern emisphere. The winter solstice was an important event...
: No evidence for a meteorite impact 13,000 years ago; An international team of scientists led by researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa have found no evidence supporting an extraterrestrial impact event at the onset of the Younger...
: Ancient artifacts found on University of Washington's greenhouse; Three ancient artifacts - 4,000 to 7,000 years old - have been found by the University of Washington's botany greenhouse, the university announced. One piece is a stone projectile point...
: New study on the diffusion of maize to the USA; An international group of anthropologists offers a new theory about the diffusion of maize to the Southwestern United States and the impact it had. The study, co-authored by Gayle Fritz,...
: Winter soltsice events at Newgrange; Due to budget cuts by the Irish Government, the Winter Solstice illumination at Newgrange will not be streamed live on the internet this year. Access to the chamber at Newgrange...
: The mysterious Plain of Jars; In the northeastern province of Xiang Khouang (Lao People's Democratic Republic). there is a plateau scattered with ancient stone jars. Know as the Plain of Jars, this site is famous...
: Evidence of Australia's first human occupation found; Evidence of what could be Australia's earliest human occupation has been found on the fringe of desert in the country's remote northwest, according to archaeologists. Peter Veth, of the Australian...
: Iron Age dump on Skye threatened by erosion; An ancient rubbish tip - inhabited nearly 2,000 years ago - is disappearing into the Scottish sea, archeologists have warned. The Iron Age midden on Skye's west coast has so...
: A new method for absolute dating of Rock Art; An Italian scientist has developed a method for absolute dating of rock art applied to the sites on marble outcrops surfaces in the Apuane mountain chains in the north-west of...
: Ancient Pacific islanders brought to light; When a team of archaeologists began excavating an old coral reef in Vanuatu in 2008 and 2009, they soon discovered it had served as a cemetery in ancient times. So...
20 December 2009: Mystery of the Narara caves in Fiji; Thirteen stones sit hidden in the dense jungles of the range of mountains that make up Nakauvadra in Ra (Fiji islands). Caves with drawings sit below them. They remain a...
: Modern humans colonized Tibetan plateau 21,000 years ago; Chinese scientists have found through genetic studies that modern humans had successfully colonized the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the Late Paleolithic Age, at least 21,000 years ago. The plateau, with an...
: 4,000-year-old flowers found at Scottish Bronze Age dig; Proof that prehistoric people placed bunches of flowers in the grave when they buried their dead has been found for the first time, experts have said. Archaeologists have discovered a...
: French find puts humans in Europe 200,000 years earlier; Experts on prehistoric man are rethinking their dates after a find in a southern French valley that suggests our ancestors may have reached Europe 1.57 million years ago: 200,000 earlier...
: Astronomers celebrate at Stonehenge; In a fitting finale for the International Year of Astronomy (IYA 2009), astronomers and archaeologists celebrated the five millennia of astronomical heritage at Stonehenge. The attractions included a free public...
: Bronze Age burial discovered alongside new Irish road; Ceramic beads dating back 3,500 years and described as being of great significance have been discovered on the route of the new N9/N10 Athy Link Road (co. Kildare, Ireland). The...
: Submerged man-made structures discovered off Orkney; A unique discovery of submerged man-made structures on the seabed off Orkney (Scotland) could help find solutions to rising sea levels, experts have said. They said the well preserved stone...
: Power work in Yorkshire Dales turns up Iron Age site; Engineers burying power lines in the Yorkshire Dales (England) have unearthed a piece of ancient history which has baffled experts. Along-buried strip of ash and burnt material was discovered in...
: Exploring the Stone Age pantry; The consumption of wild cereals among prehistoric hunters and gatherers appears to be far more ancient than previously thought, according to a University of Calgary archaeologist who has found the...
: Researchers germinate 4,000-year-old seed; A 4,000-year-old lentil seed found during an archeological excavation has germinated, exciting scientists as the event might lead to invaluable data for comparisons between the organic and genetically engineered plants...
: Coso Petroglyphs: a lesser known Californian marvel; Some of the rock paintings at China Lake Naval Air Weapons Center near Death Valley have been dated as far back as 16,000 years ago. Established in the summer of...
: Campaign launched to save ancient Irish monuments; The Save Bremore group launched their campaign at the Martin Brennan conference at Newgrange. The group hope to highlight the threat of major industrial development to the North County Dublin...
29 December 2009: Midwinter's sunrise at Newgrange; Winter solstice sunrise at the famous Neolithic monument at Newgrange, Co Meath (Ireland), is, as always, welcome and rich in symbolism. An attempt to recreate the Solstice phenomenon at Newgrange...
: Modern behavior of early humans found earlier than thought; Recent work at Neanderthal sites has demonstrated that our evolutionary cousins divided up their living spaces into activity areas. New research at rock shelters like Abric Romaní in Spain and...
: Exploring the feasting habits of Stonehenge builders; The team who worked on the Stonehenge Riverside Project in 2009 are to return to their findings to explain the eating habits of the people who built and worshipped at...
: Evidence of first settlers found in the Sierra Helada; An archaeological dig in the Sierra Helada (Spain) has unearthed evidence of what local heritage councillor, Jaime Llinares, has described as Benidorm's first ever hotel. It's in the area known...
: Winter solstice celebrations at Stonehenge; Hundreds of people celebrated the winter solstice at Stonehenge, braving snowy travel conditions and a morning fog. About 700 people saw the sun rise at the ancient site near Salisbury,...
: Bronze Age dagger given to Isle of Wight's museum; A Bronze Age dagger more than 3,000 years old has been donated to the Isle of Wight Council's Museum of Island History. The dagger was found by Dave Clark, a...
: Alcohol's Neolithic origins; Humankind's first encounters with alcohol in the form of fermented fruit probably occurred in just an accidental fashion. But once they were familiar with the effect, archaeologist Patrick McGovern believes,...
: Seventh grave discovered at Skye Bronze Age dig site; A seventh grave has been discovered at a prehistoric burial ground being excavated on Skye (Inner Hebrides, Scotland). The discovery was made by a team of archeologists working close to...
: Madagascar's modern-day megaliths; One of Madagascar's first native-born archaeologists, Ramilisonina's ethnological research on modern Malagasy traditions informs his study of ancient sites on the island. Together with Mike Parker Pearson of the Stonehenge...