Stone Pages Archaeo News: November 2011 Archives

November 2011 index:

1 November 2011: Prehistoric man emerges in Sri Lanka; A team led by Professor Raj Somadeva has recently made finds supporting the theory that Sri Lankan Culture is not borrowed from any other country or region, as has long...
3 November 2011: Oetzi's state of health and death are no more a mystery; There is now broad agreement on the circumstances of Oetzi's death. Around 100 experts on mummies from nearly every single continent gathered recently for the '2nd Bolzano Mummy Congress' held...
: Bronze Age finds in Norfolk; Archaeologists have unearthed Bronze Age treasure during a dig at the site of a planned new hospice in Gorleston (Norfolk, England). The team from Hertfordshire-based Archaeological Solutions found two quoit-headed...
: Stonehenge road closure approved; English Heritage wanted to stop traffic from travelling close to Stonehenge and 'restore the dignity' of the World Heritage Site by closing the A344 road. Following a public inquiry, an...
5 November 2011: Bronze Age artefacts unearthed in Wiltshire; A metal detector enthusiast located more than 100 bronze items, thought to be about 2,700 years old, on a farmland site near Tisbury (Wiltshire, England). Having first found a spearhead,...
: Excavations in Cyprus reveal Neolithic finds; Neolithic remains and elements of bronze and iron weaponry from the more recent Cypro-Classical period (ca. 480-310 BCE), were found during the excavations that were completed at the site of...
: Iron and Bronze Age finds in Argyll; A routine archaeological survey has uncovered a treasure trove of Iron and Bronze Age artefacts on a hillside near Oban (Argyll, Scotland), including a Neolithic axe-head dating back 5,000 to...
7 November 2011: Ancient 'takeout' window discovered in Iran; Some 5,200 years ago, in the mountains of western Iran, people may have used takeout windows to get food and weapons, newly presented research suggests. The find was made at...
: Modern humans interbred with archaic humans in East Asia; It is well-known today that some of the ancestors of modern humans interbred with Neanderthals, a closely-related human species or sub-species that lived 130,000 to 30,000 years ago in Eurasia....
: Earliest known modern human in Northwest Europe; A tiny piece of upper jaw was excavated from Kents Cave, near Torquay, in the southwest of England in 1927, but its significance was not fully realised until scientists recently...
9 November 2011: Was Holy Land prehistoric site used for 'sky burials'?; A new interpretation has been postulated for a prehistoric site, known in Arabic as Rujm Al-Hiri. The site is located in the Golan Heights, between Israel and Syria, and only...
11 November 2011: Qatar's earliest human settlement found; Environmental archaeologist Dr Emma Tetlow of the Qatar National Environment Record (QNER) recently revealed that carbon dating of organic remains from Wadi Debay'an, a site a few kilometres south of...
: Mesolithic remains discovered in the port of Rotterdam; The site of what is now Yangtzehaven - Rotterdam's seaport currently under construction - was inhabited by humans in the Mesolithic. At a depth of 20 metres, in the sea...
: No sign of a second chamber at Newgrange; The technology used in an attempt to find out whether a second passage tomb, which may also be aligned with a solstice event, exists at Newgrange had proved its worth...
: Central Europe's oldest artwork found in Germany; Archaeologists have found cave paintings thought to be Central Europe's oldest such artwork in Baden-Württemberg's Swabian Alps (southern Germany). They found four painted stones from the cave Hohle Fels near...
13 November 2011: Art hints prehistoric men pierced their privates; Paleolithic phallic art suggests that many early European men scarred, pierced and tattooed their penises. The practice appears to have been most common in France and Spain around 12,000 years...
14 November 2011: Prehistoric cave paintings of horses were spot-on; Long thought by many as possible abstract or symbolic expressions as opposed to representations of real animals, the famous palaeolithic horse paintings found in caves such as Lascaux and Chauvet...
: Northwest USA natives were fishers, not hunter-gatherers; In two new books, the University of Oregon's Madonna Moss challenges conventional thinking about the region's early inhabitants, pointing to cultures built around fishing, fish processing and fish resource management....
: Ancient sites discovered in Missouri; What started as a routine survey of the land surrounding a historic bridge has ended up unearthing two significant sites in Missouri, USA. Larry Grantham, an archaeologist with the Missouri...
15 November 2011: Twigs help identifying a 'genuine Iron Age broch'; Radiocarbon dating of burnt twigs found inside a broch at Clachtoll in Assynt (Highland, Scotland) suggest its interior remained untouched after it was built in the Iron Age. Brochs were...
: Early Bronze Age cist excavated on Dartmoor; An early Bronze Age burial cist containing cremated bones and material dating back 4,000 years has been excavated on Dartmoor (Devon, England). Archaeologists uncovered items from the site on Whitehorse...
16 November 2011: Ancient Bulgarian settlement destroyed by bulldozers; An archaeological site in Bulgaria, including remnants of a village said to date back 8000 years, has been destroyed by bulldozers, allegedly the work of a construction company building part...
19 November 2011: Soybean adoption came early by many cultures; Human domestication of soybeans is thought to have first occurred in central China some 3,000 years ago, but archaeologists now suggest that cultures in even earlier times and in other...
20 November 2011: Bronze Age hoard goes on show in Wiltshire; As we reported last November 5th, a cache of more than 100 copper alloy axes, heads, chisels, sickles, gouges and tools has been unearthed in a field near Tisbury, in...
: Israelis mapping Mount of Olives necropolis; A Jewish group in Jerusalem is using 21st-century technology to map every tombstone in the ancient cemetery on the Mount of Olives, a sprawling necropolis of 150,000 graves stretching back...
: How humans adapted to Ice Age climate change; A team at Arizona State University and the University of Colorado (USA) used complex computer modelling to analyse evidence of how human hunter-gatherers responded to dramatic changes during the last...
23 November 2011: Menhirs discovered in southwestern India; Menhirs (standing stones) from the megalithic Iron Age period have been discovered at several places in southern Karnataka (India). The discovery was made by Prof T. Murugeshi and his team...
: Oetzi may have smashed eye in fall; A sharp incision in his right eye may have contributed to the rapid demise of Oetzi the Iceman, the famous mummy who died in the Italian Alps more than 5,000...
: Two large enclosures found near Knowth; The Brú na Bóinne passage grave sites continue to surprise archaeologists, with two large enclosures discovered near Knowth. The formation of one of them is unique in Ireland, leaving researchers...
24 November 2011: Ancient Indus bones show gender discrimination; A study of human bones from the ruins of Harappa, India, has revealed signs of lethal interpersonal violence and challenged current thinking that the ancient Indus civilisation was an exceptionally...
26 November 2011: Sex Pistols' drawing as important as prehistoric art?; Graffiti left by The Sex Pistols - an English punk rock band - in the upper room of a rented two-storey 19th century house in Denmark Street in London in...
: Bashed skull earliest evidence of human aggression?; A healed fracture discovered on an ancient skull from China may be the oldest documented evidence of violence between humans. The individual, who lived 150,000-200,000 years ago, suffered blunt force...
28 November 2011: Dowsing or guesswork?; Dowsing has become a highly contentious form of finding archaeological features, with vehement supporters of both sides of the argument. Whilst not intending to prove or disprove its merits or...
: The mystery of the golden torcs; The discovery of two golden torcs in the bed of a stream in Yorkshire (England), is raising more questions than answers. Who made them? How did they get there? Who...
30 November 2011: Monte 'e Prama ancient statues on display - at last!; 37 years after their discovery, the stone giants of Monte 'e Prama are being shown to the public for the first time in the gallery of Li Punti in Sassari...