Stone Pages Archaeo News: January 2012 Archives

January 2012 index:

1 January 2012: Better view of Mississippi Indian mounds; Local archaeologists and volunteers are removing decades of dense overgrowth from prehistoric Native American earthworks in Indian Mounds Park (Quincy, Illinois, USA) - one of the best preserved complexes still...
: Oldest representation of the Tower of Babel; Carved on a black stone, which has already been dubbed the 'Tower of Babel' stele, the inscription dates to 604-562 BCE. It was found in the collection of Martin Schoyen,...
: Pendant could be the oldest found at open-air digs in Spain; A pendant discovered last Summer at the Irikaitz archaeological site in Zestoa (in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa, Spain) may be as old as 25,000 years, which would make it...
2 January 2012: Ancient burial chamber on Dartmoor restored; A prehistoric monument on Dartmoor (Devon, England) has been restored to its previous condition after a stone that had been removed for laboratory analysis was returned. Beads, worked leather and...
: Human remains from 450 BCE unearthed in a Nepalese cave; Experts digging into the Mhebrak cave in Lower Mustang (Nepal) have unearthed new clues, which could potentially unravel a significant portion of human history dating back to 450 BCE. A...
: Megalithic burial urn excavated in southern India; A burial urn, locally known as a nannangady and believed to date back to the megalithic era (1500 BCE -100 CE), was recently excavated from a construction site near Ramakkalmedu...
7 January 2012: Yorkshire's ancient sites threatened by hikers and bikers; Ancient burial mounds and monuments dating back to the Bronze Age in Yorkshire's national parks (England) are at risk of being lost forever amid a surge in popularity in walking...
8 January 2012: Ancient cave paintings found in Peru; The president of the Cave Art Peruvian Association, Gori Echevarria reported the finding of cave paintings depicting humans, animals and geometric figures (circa 8-12,000 years old) in the province of...
: China's tomb raiders; China's extraordinary historical treasures are under threat from increasingly aggressive and sophisticated tomb raiders. The thieves use dynamite and even bulldozers to break into the deepest chambers, and night vision...
: New German-Israeli center to study human evolution; When it comes to human evolution, Europe and the Near East are crucial places: Europe has the first cave art, and the Near East has the first sightings of modern...
10 January 2012: Mystery of the fulacht fiadh; Pronounced FULL-ahk FEE-add (plural 'fulachtai fia'), versions of this Bronze Age structure exist all around Ireland and throughout the United Kingdom, however archaeologists are not agreed on their purpose. There...
11 January 2012: 2,000 year-old cave paintings found in Mexico; Mexican archaeologists found some 3,000 cave paintings, some almost 2,000 years old, in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, the National Anthropology and History Institute, or INAH, said. The discoveries...
: Stargazing at Irish stone circles; Astronomers from Armagh Observatory and archaeologists from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) will be hosting the Stargazing Live Universe Awareness (UNAWE) activities at the fascinating Beaghmore stone circles near...
14 January 2012: Stonehenge enters the 21st Century; Two new 21st Century inventions are helping us to understand and visit the wonders of Stonehenge from the comfort of our own homes. 'Google Under-the-Earth' is an extension of the...
: Rare ancient artefact found in Malta; The discovery of a very small fragment of agate stone is causing excitement, as it has a 13th Century BCE cuneiform inscription. Not so surprising, you might think, for an...
15 January 2012: Earliest modern human; Palaeo-anthropologists agree that modern humans evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago, yet fossil evidence for the earliest examples is scarce. One problem is the difficulty in recognising true modern...
: Yorkshire appeal to save Iron Age Torcs; Two gold bracelets found near Tadcaster have been declared the first Iron Age gold jewellery ever found in the north of England. The torcs were found within metres of each...
: Remains of prehistoric hut found in southern Texas; Last month, workers preparing San Antonio's Mission County Park for construction found the remains of a prehistoric hut that had burned down about 3,500 years ago. Betty Bueche, who manages...
16 January 2012: 5,000-year-old pottery found on Scottish island; Last year, fishermen, beachcombers, divers and islanders in the Western Isles of Scotland were asked for information on where archaeologists might find ancient sites along shorelines. The project involves the...
: Ancient bones discovered on Milton Keynes building site; A set of bones which could be thousands of years old has been discovered on a building site in Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire, England). The human remains were uncovered by a...
: Achill-Henge may be built over prehistoric site; Theresa McDonald, Managing Director of the Achill Archaeological Field School, voiced her objections over the Achill-Henge structure which was built at Pollagh (Achill Island, County Mayo, Ireland) in November by...
18 January 2012: Humans were skilled fishermen 42,000 years ago; Fish hooks and fish bones dating back 42,000 years found in a cave in East Timor suggest that humans were capable of skilled, deep-sea fishing 30,000 years earlier than previously...
: Indian megalithic sites project begins; 'Discovering Idukki', a project to explore and document the rich heritage of the Kerala district in the very southern tip of India has begun. In the first phase, a heritage...
19 January 2012: Bronze Age boat to take to Cornish waters after 4,000 years; Between 1937 and 1963 the remains of three Bronze Age ships were found on the foreshore of the river Humber, on the east coast of England. Now a professor from...
: A new theory on the disappearance of Neanderthals; A new theory has been put forward by a team from the Arizona State university and the University of Colorado Denver (USA) on the fate of Neanderthals. The team has...
20 January 2012: Stonehenge tunnel idea resurrected; The idea of building a tunnel under Stonehenge has been resurrected by a consortium of council leaders from across the South West of England. Wiltshire was among the authorities represented...
: Oldest evidence of ploughing in the Czech Republic; Archaeologists in Prague-Bubenec have uncovered a site with the oldest traces of field ploughing in the Czech Republic, that date back to the mid-4th millennium BCE. The research, completed late...
21 January 2012: Ancient Sumerian fermented cereal beverage; Archaeologists from the Ludwig Maximilian University, together with brewing experts from the Technical University of Munich, carried out an experiment in an attempt to replicate the beer of ancient Sumer,...
: Cave in Croatia yields oldest-known astrologer's board; A research team has discovered what may be the oldest astrologer's board - used to depict a person's horoscope - in the Nakovana cave famous for its conspicuously phallic stalagmite,...
: Seafaring in the Aegean: new dates; Seafaring before the Neolithic - circa 7th millennium BCE - is a controversial issue in the Mediterranean. However, evidence from different parts of the Aegean is gradually changing this, revealing...
22 January 2012: Haematite to colour ancient stones found in Scotland; Archaeologists working on prehistoric sites at Daer on Lowther Hills, an extensive area of hill country in the Southern Uplands of Scotland, are discovering further sites within a forestry plantation....
26 January 2012: Ancient geoglyphs found under Amazonian rainforest; In an area on the western boundary of the Brazilian Amazon, known as Acre, rare geoglyphs have been uncovered by a farmer clearing his land. The area has long been...
: Early evidence of popcorn found in Peru; The first evidence of the domesticated production of corn in the Americas can be found in Mexico and dates back to 7,000 BCE. It was developed from a wild grass...
27 January 2012: 7,500-year-old fishing village found in Russia; A team of Spanish and Russian archeologists has documented a series of seines and fish traps - on the banks of the River Dubna, 100 kilometres north of Moscow -...
28 January 2012: Neanderthals and their contemporaries engineered stone tools; New published research from anthropologists at the University of Kent (UK) has scientifically supported for the first time the long held theory that early human ancestors across Africa, Western Asia...
: Underwater archaeology: The elusive Minoan wrecks; Brendan Foley, a marine archaeologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA, and his colleagues at Greece's Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities, made a four-week survey of the waters around Crete...