Stone Pages Archaeo News: October 2011 Archives

October 2011 index:

1 October 2011: Ancient New Mexican sites reopen after fire, flooding; Prehistoric archaeological sites of northern New Mexico's Bandelier National Monument (USA) have reopened to visitors, three months after the largest wildfire in the state's recorded history sent employees scrambling to...
: Israel returns Bronze Age pottery to Jordan; Jordan says that Israel has returned 620 Early Bronze Age pottery items taken in the 1960s by a US archaeologist for research at a Jerusalem-based institute. "Israel returned the items,...
4 October 2011: New conservation efforts at Gobekli Tepe; More than 10,000 years ago, before settled agriculture and the rise of civilizations, hunter-gatherers were erecting and carving T-shaped monolithic pillars weighing as much as 20 metric tons atop a...
: Dropping lake levels expose ancient Texan artifacts; Looters are taking advantage of dropping area lake levels in Texas (USA) to find long hidden artifacts are that's creating big problems for authorities. Since Lake Whitney's water level dropped,...
: Children learned to finger-paint in Palaeolithic Age; Stone age toddlers may have attended a form of prehistoric nursery where they were encouraged to develop their creative skills in cave art, say archaeologists. Research indicates young children expressed...
5 October 2011: Palaeolithic stone weapons found in Sri Lanka; A series of stone weapons dating back to the Palaeolithic period have been unearthed in the Jaffna peninsula (Sri Lanka). The discovery has been confirmed by Dr Shiran Deraniyagale, an...
: A massive prehistoric monument under the Loch of Stenness?; Survey work in the Loch of Stenness (Ortkney, Scotland) has revealed what could be a massive prehistoric monument lying underwater to the south of the Ring of Brodgar. The underwater...
: Unexpected trove of artifacts discovered near Stonehenge; An archeological treasure trove unearthed by a team from the Open University could transform our understanding of Stonehenge. The most significant artifacts uncovered are two carved ducks, the first of...
7 October 2011: Continents' orientation hindered ancient settlement of the Americas; In an intriguing original look at the history of the first Americans, a new study finds evidence that the north-south orientation of the American continents slowed the spread of populations...
: Bulgarian man stumbles across ancient treasure; A jobless Bulgarian man scraping a living by hunting for scrap metal has uncovered a haul of Bronze Age treasure worth 1.5 million euros, about $2 million. The 42-year-old discovered...
: Australia's rock art in a hard place; It takes a moment to get our eyes in, and then, leaping out of the sun-baked rocks, we spot engravings of kangaroos, dugongs and emus; turtles, birds and mythical beasts;...
8 October 2011: Evidence of earliest mass production found in Israel; If someone described to you that a factory had been set up to mass produce tools and weapons and that, attached to the factory there was a kitchen and a...
9 October 2011: Found Amsicora: the oldest Sardinian; Ancient human remains have been discovered at Pistoccu, in Marina di Arbus, a few meters from the shoreline of the Costa Verde, in south-western Sardinia (Italy). Professor Rita Melis, geoarchaeologist...
10 October 2011: Iranian artefact confirmed as ancient musical instrument; Experts have proven that the artefact unearthed at the Gohar-Tappeh prehistoric mound in Mazandaran Province in 2005 is a clarinet. The musical instrument, which was very common in Mazandaran, had...
: Alaskan archaeology project raises prehistoric questions; While the ocean is about 1600 metres away from the site today, 3000 years ago Womens Bay (Alaska, USA) extended farther inland. The Amak site would have been overlooking a...
: Ancient alignment revealed at Bluestonehenge; When digital archaeologist Henry Rothwell was working on graphics for a smartphone application about Stonehenge and the wider landscape, he required imagery for Bluestonehenge, a prehistoric henge and stone circle...
: One of the oldest handles in the history of archaeology; A team from IPHES (the Catalan 'Institute of Human Palaeo-ecology and Social Evolution', in northeast Spain) found the imprint of the oldest wooden handle on record in the history of...
11 October 2011: Tar shrank heads of prehistoric californians over time; A long-term health decline among prehistoric Indians in California (USA) may be linked to their everyday use of tar, which served as glue, waterproofing, and even chewing gum. The Chumash...
13 October 2011: Burials found near prehistoric ringed ditch in Kent; A prehistoric teen girl was found buried near an apparent henge, along with two other women. The graves were found inside a ringed ditch in Kent (England). The newly found...
: Micro-copter reveals ancient burial mound in Russia; A miniature airborne drone has helped archaeologists capture images for creating a 3D model of an ancient burial mound in Russia, scientists say. Archaeologists are now using drones to extend...
: An early Celtic calendar discovered in the Black Forest; Researchers at the Römisch-GermanischesPress Zentralmuseum at Mainz in Germany report that the huge early Celtic mound of Magdalenenberg, located nearby Villingen-Schwenningen in the Black Forest, may be an ancient calendar....
14 October 2011: Tombs with rays of stones discovered on Pamir Plateau; Chinese archaeologists have discovered an unidentified cluster of tombs on the Pamir Plateau, the mountain range formed by the junction or knot of the Himalayas, Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, and...
: Dragonfly-eye-shaped bead found in ancient Chinese tomb; A West Asian dragonfly-eye-shaped bead was found in an ancient Chinese tomb in Dangtu, Anhui province, indicating noblemen living in China's Warring States period (475 BCE-221 BCE) did have contacts...
: Ancient Welsh standing stone crashes to the ground; An ancient stone in Wales has crashed to the ground after standing for more than 4,000 years as an important landmark. The famous standing stone at Bedd Morris, on Newport...
: Paleolithic art workshop discovered in South African cave; Within the darkness of Blombos Cave near Cape Town, South Africa, archaeologists have uncovered an assemblage of tools and remains of what appears to be a workshop or work area...
17 October 2011: Volunteers help preserve ancient sites in Shropshire; Restoration teams have spent the past few days working to protect the remains of a Bronze Age barrow and Iron Age fort, 400 metres above the Shropshire plain, in the...
: Saving Altamira cave; Scientists and managers of the World Heritage Site of Altamira Cave in the Cantabria region of Spain are deeply concerned that recent calls to reopen the cave, closed to mass...
: Stanton Drew - new features discovered; New evidence of features in and around the three prehistoric stone circles at Stanton Drew (southwest England) has been revealed. Results of a 2010 geophysical survey show evidence of below-ground...
20 October 2011: Earliest evidence of chickens domestication in China; Chickens began being domesticated in China about 8,000 years ago, far earlier than in the rest of the world, according to a recent study on findings uncovered in north China's...
: Possible Iron Age find in central England; Iron Age remains may have been found in a Harborough field (England) earmarked for possible housing development. Archaeological experts have dug trenches at the site, off Lubenham Hill, to investigate...
: 10 prehistoric sites discovered in Mongolian desert; Archeologists have discovered 10 prehistoric sites in the Badain Jaran Desert, China's third largest desert located in northern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. An archeological team composed of 11 experts from...
: In search of a second passage at Newgrange; Archaeologists are examining whether one of the most popular ancient sites of Ireland may have more to it than meets the eye. Using technology that has proven successful at the...
21 October 2011: Reconstruction of one of the earliest Norwegians; A reconstruction based on the skull of Norway's best-preserved Stone Age skeleton makes it possible to study the features of a boy who lived outside Stavanger 7,500 years ago. Jenny...
: New evidence for earliest North Americans; A spear tip embedded in a mastodon bone found in Washington state (USA) indicates that humans were hunting in North America 13,800 years ago - 800 years earlier than previously...
: 9,000-year-old tools found in Mexico; A team of Mexican archaeologists has discovered hundreds of rudimentary man-made tools and artefacts that date back between 8,000-11,000 years in the northwestern state of Baja California Sur. The objects...
24 October 2011: Sophisticated blades produced earlier than previously thought; Archaeology has long associated advanced blade production with the Upper Palaeolithic, about 30,000 to 40,000 years ago - linked with the emergence of Homo Sapiens, and features such as cave...
: Neolithic tombs in China yield finely crafted jades; In 2006, archaeological excavations south of the Yangtze river near Hangzhou uncovered one of the earliest and largest walled cities of ancient China. The city was named Liangzhu, after a...
: Prehistoric bones discovered at Spring Lake, USA; Construction at the former Aquarena Springs amusement park in Texas has unearthed human remains believed to have been buried at the headwaters of the San Marcos River long before the...
29 October 2011: Prehistoric site found near Belfast; Archaeologists have discovered what is believed to be a prehistoric ceremonial site on Cave Hill in north Belfast (Northern Ireland).It follows a community excavation involving more than 400 people at...
: Ness of Brodgar site was in use for a millennium; The site of the prehistoric complex on the Ness of Brodgar (Orkney, Scotland) was in use for around 1,000 years. New radiocarbon dates from two areas of the ongoing excavations...
30 October 2011: Bronze Age hoard declared treasure in Wales; A Bronze Age hoard around 3,000 years old discovered in a field in Manorbier (Pembrokeshire, Wales) was declared treasure by Coroner Mark Layton. The 19 bronze and copper artefacts, including...
31 October 2011: Ancient pots show transition to agriculture; Based on a recent study, hunter-gatherer humans in what are now the Western Baltic regions of Northern Europe experienced a gradual transition to agriculture. The team of researchers analysed...