Stone Pages Archaeo News: February 2011 Archives

February 2011 index:

1 February 2011: Canadian Arctic sites face climate threat; Archaeological sites in Northern Canada are threatened by climate change, but they may be saved thanks to new high-tech equipment, said Doug Stenton, director of culture and heritage for Nunavut...
: Bronze Age petroglyphs found beneath burial mound in Norway; It looked to be a routine excavation of what was thought to be a burial mound. But beneath the mound, archaeologists from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's Museum...
: Family Day: Ancient Britons; 'A History of Ancient Britain' is a forthcoming BBC series that will see Scottish archaeologist Neil Oliver telling the epic story of how Britain and its people came to be...
11 February 2011: The earliest cemetery in the Middle East?; Until now it was believed that the oldest known cemetery in the Middle East was 15,000 to 12,000 years old, but anthropologists from the University of Toronto (Canada) and Cambridge...
: Scottish standing stone falls over; A 4000-year-old standing stone in Angus (Scotland) has fallen over due to severe winter weather. The Carlinwell stone at Airlie, near Kirriemuir, toppled over as the snow, ice and frost...
: Vikings revered Stone Age objects; New archaeological findings suggest that the Vikings considered Stone Age objects to have magical qualities, and that such objects were more important in Viking culture than previously understood. Examinations of...
: 10,000-year-old stone carvings discovered in Timor; Ancient stone carvings dating back at least 10,000 years have been found by team of Australian scientists in a cave on East Timor - an island at the southern end...
: Mesolithic beads found at Welsh dolmen site; A recent excavation led by archaeologist George Nash in November 2010 at the Trefael Stone in south-west Wales - originally a portal dolmen transformed in later times in a standing...
12 February 2011: Ancient nomadic camps discovered in Mexico; Eight archaeological sites, some of them occupied 8,000 years ago by nomadic groups, were discovered by archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) in the municipality of...
: Northern hunters slowed down advance of Neolithic farmers; One of the most significant socioeconomic changes in the history of humanity took place around 10,000 years ago, when the Near East went from an economy based on hunting and...
: Stone Age ritual object found in Poland; A Stone Age-era artifact carved with multiple zigzags and what is likely a woman with spread legs suggests that fertility rituals may have been important to early Europeans, according to...
: Stone ring may prove early Aborigines were astronomers; Is it just a pile of rocks placed in a semicircle, or proof that Aborigines were astronomers since ancient times? After years of meticulous examination, a group of Australia's most...
: Significance of play in the Bronze Age Indus Valley; Play was a central element of people's lives as far back as 4,000 years ago. This has been revealed by an archaeology thesis from the University of Gothenburg (Sweden), which...
: The earliest rock art engraving of an American mammoth?; On a cliff overlooking the floodplain of the San Juan River (Utah, USA), rock art specialists Ekkehart Malotki and Henry Wallace have examined several highly stylized images carved into the...
13 February 2011: Legislation forces British archaeologists to rebury finds; British archaeologists have expressed their concerns about legislation that requires human remains discovered in ancient settlements to be reburied within two years. In a series of letters to UK justice...
: Genetic study uncovers new path to Polynesia; The islands of Polynesia were first inhabited around 3,000 years ago, but where these people came from has long been a hot topic of debate amongst scientists. The most commonly...
: Inflatable Stonehenge road show; To celebrate the new BBC Two series on the Ancient Britons, a Stonehenge model is touring the UK. English Heritage experts are helping BBC Hands on History make the most...
: English Heritage steps in to rescue prehistoric earthwork; English Heritage has come to the rescue of a prehistoric earthwork in a Rotherham wood (South Yorkshire, England) after it was damaged by mountain bikers who used parts of it...
: Evidence of clan-based societies in ancient Kerala; 'Nannangadies' (earthen burial urns) unearthed at many places in Kerala (India) throw light on the rich heritage of clan-based societies in the Megalithic period. However, serious archaeological studies have not...
14 February 2011: 'Heritage police' will guard British archaeological sites; Britain's first 'heritage police' force has been launched to protect under-threat landmarks across the West of the Country. English Heritage has teamed up with police chiefs in Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and...
: Probable Neolithic sauna unearthed at Marden Henge; A building whose foundations were unearthed during an excavation at Marden Henge (Wiltshire, England) last summer could have been a Neolithic sauna. Archaeologist Jim Leary said that the chalk foundations...
16 February 2011: BBC launches 'Hands on History'; The BBC in the UK has embarked on a mammoth enterprise to try and make history come alive. A section of their website has been dedicated to this, with internal...
17 February 2011: Prehistoric cave art under threat in Somaliland; Prehistoric paintings in Somaliland - a state that previously was a region of Somalia - have come under threat from the elements as well as looting. The paintings, first discovered...
: Ancient Brits used human skull-cups; Silvia Bello, Simon Parfitt and Chris Stringer from the Department of Paleontology, The National History Museum (London, UK) recently reported the discovery of the earliest Ice Age cups made from...
: 3D movie portrays the rock art of the Chauvet Cave; Werner Herzog's new film 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams' is a stunning 3D documentary about a cave in France that is home to the world's oldest known human art. The legendary...
18 February 2011: The Solent's submerged ancient village; In the summer of 2000, archaeologists discovered an 8,000-year-old village in the Solent, on the sea bed near the Isle of Wight (England). The settlement is the oldest site of...
: Ancient sculpture discovered in southern Mexico; A recently discovered 3000-year-old Olmec-style carved stone monument from Ojo de Agua - the site of an early planned settlement along the Pacific coast in what is now the southern...
: Neolithic axe head unearthed in Perth; Among hundreds of rare artefacts unearthed by treasure hunters in Scotland last year and handed to the Crown Office as part of Scotland's annual Treasure Trove, one of the most...
: New Oetzi model for 20th anniversary of his discovery; Iceman Oetzi, whose mummified body was famously found frozen in the Italian Alps in 1991, will get a new face for the 20th anniversary of his discovery. As part of...
: Bronze Age settlement found in Hungary; Remains of a Bronze Age settlement and a former Sarmatian burial ground have been found at a construction site in the city of Nyiregyhaza in northeast Hungary. Several thousand metal...
19 February 2011: New Rock Art book due out soon; If you are a fan of Alan walker and Brian Smith, then you probably already have a copy of their book 'Rock Art and Ritual Volume 1: Interpreting the Prehistoric...
: Climate change in Jordan, circa 2,200 BCE; Approximately 4,200 years ago a climate change phenomenon is believed to have triggered major upheavals in the governance of several Middle Eastern states. At that time paleoclimatic data has confirmed...
24 February 2011: Prehistoric carvings survey begins in England; Hundreds of carved stone panels dot the windy landscape of the moors in this north-central area of England west of York. It is the aim of 'CSI' (Carved Stone Investigation)...
: Early Iron Age tomb complex discovered in China; The remains of a large and densely distributed early Iron Age burial site have been unearthed in eastern Xinjiang/Uyghur Autonomous Region (China). The cluster of tombs covers more than 10,000...
25 February 2011: New maps show how ice sheets shrank during Ice Age; Scientists from the University of Sheffield in England have for the first time brought to life through illustrated maps the shrinkage of the last British ice sheet as it shrunk...
: Did Neanderthals use feathers for fashion?; A team of Italian archaeologists has found evidence that Neanderthals were using feathers as ornaments 44,000 years ago. The claim adds fuel to the debate over whether our distant cousins...
: Confirmed: Stonehenge rocks came from Wales. But how?; New research has cast doubt on the journey which the Stonehenge Bluestones - the famous stones formimg the distinctive inner circle and horseshoe of the ancient monument - took from...
: Oldest subarctic North American human remains found; Some 11,500 years ago one of America's earliest families laid the remains of a 3-year-old child to rest in their home in what is now Alaska. The discovery of that...
: Bronze Age skeleton found in Irish garden; An Irish archaeology enthusiast in Co Westmeath has unearthed human remains dating back more than 4,000 years in his back garden. The National Museum of Ireland has described as 'significant'...
26 February 2011: Decorated stones discovered near an Orcadian tomb; What could be examples of Neolithic art have been discovered on a number of stones in the vicinity of the Banks Chambered Tomb, in South Ronaldsay (Orkney, Scotland). The burial...
: Bukit Bunuh: a major Palaeolithic site in Malaysia; Archaeologists recently announced that a 4 km square Palaeolithic complex in Bukit Bunuh (Malaysia) is in fact one of the oldest geochronologically dated sites outside Africa, with occupations dating back...
27 February 2011: Iron Age rock-cut tomb discovered in Kerala; A rock-cut tomb dating back to the Indian Megalithic period (Early Iron Age) has been found at Kodiyeri, Kerala, India. The tomb, cut in laterite - a local argillaceous red...