Stone Pages Archaeo News: December 2012 Archives

December 2012 index:

3 December 2012: Stone Age nomads settled in West of England; A recent discovery of worked flints and charred timber suggests that stone age people built permanent dwellings at Lunt Meadows, Sefton (Merseyside, England). Archaeologists are still working on the site,...
: 'Trust' provides answer to hand-axe enigma; Dr Penny Spikins, from the University of York, suggests a desire to prove their trustworthiness, rather than a need to demonstrate their physical fitness, was the driving force behind the...
4 December 2012: Secrets of an Iron Age blacksmith; The scarcity of direct archaeological evidence leaves many questions about how Iron Age smiths practiced their craft. New finds at Beechwood Farm, Inverness, may help to reveal these ancient techniques,...
: Engraved stone from the Paleolithic era found in China; In recent years, engraved ochre, bones and ostrich eggs unearthed from various Palaeolithic sites in Africa, the Near East and Europe have attracted the attention of many scholars. However, such...
5 December 2012: Native American heritage vandalised; There is a remote Native American tribal homeland in California (USA) which is known as Volcanic Tableland. The area is rich in lava boulders which have been carved with spiritual...
6 December 2012: Our poo can reveal more than you thought!; It has long been believed that the analysis of charcoal from fires and pollen from cultivated plants was the most accurate way of tracking ancient human life and development. But...
: The world's oldest microbrewery; Beer drinkers have long held the belief that drinking it is safer and better than drinking water. Well Neolithic Man new for a fact that it was better than water,...
7 December 2012: Bronze Age burial commemorated; A Bronze Age monument has been commemorated in Britain after a long-running campaign. The 4,000-year-old Quernhow burial mound, which was obliterated by the upgrading of the A1(M) motorway, has been...
: Ancient forts in Scotland at risk of being destroyed; An entire hill, famed for its archeological heritage and geological significance, is to be removed from the Scottish skyline to make way for a quarry under plans being considered by...
10 December 2012: A new timeline for the building of Stonehenge; Ancient people probably assembled the massive sandstone horseshoe at Stonehenge more than 4,600 years ago, while the smaller bluestones were imported from Wales later, a new study suggests. Past researchers...
: Iron Age bronze helmet found in England; A rare bronze helmet dating to the 1st century BCE has been unearthed on farmland near Canterbury, south east England, along with a late Iron Age brooch, and fragments of...
12 December 2012: Cavemen were better at drawing animals than modern artists; The depiction of animals dates back to the prehistoric era, when people used cave paintings and carvings to illustrate the animals they hunted. Experts of animal locomotion are well aware...
13 December 2012: Bronze Age stone back after car crash; A Bronze Age standing stone that was knocked down by a reversing car last year has been returned to its original position in Pembrokeshire (Wales). The Bedd Morris stone on...
: Museum to examine remains found in Irish bog; The National Museum of Ireland is to begin examining the remains of Ireland's latest 'bog body' discovered at a Bord na Móna site in Co Meath last week. The headless...
: Art of cheese-making dates back to the Neolithic; Traces of dairy fat in ancient ceramic fragments suggest that people have been making cheese in Europe for up to 7,500 years. Early dairy farmers probably devised cheese-making as a...
14 December 2012: Ancient civilization uncovered in Bulgaria; A team of archaeologists have unearthed additional evidence of what may have been Europe's first civilization at a site located near the town of Pazardzhik in southern Bulgaria. Known as...
: Possible Mesolithic site on North York Moors; Archaeologists are investigating a possible Mesolithic site in the North York Moors National Park (England). Field work has been carried out at a number of sites across the north east...
15 December 2012: Ancient tsunami in the Caribbean; A detailed analysis of sediments from the island of Bonaire in the Caribbean presents convincing evidence for an extraordinary wave impact dating back some 3,300 years, suggesting this tsunami entirely...
: Iron Age feast found in England; The discovery of 13 Iron Age cauldrons in Chiseldon, west of London, England, is the largest such grouping ever found in Europe. One features a handle plate in the form...
16 December 2012: Archaeology in Oregon; Several years ago some of the earliest evidence of human activity in the Americas was found in eight caves on the outskirts of Paisley, about 220 miles southeast of Eugene,...
: New light on the Nazca Lines; The first findings of the most detailed study yet by two British archaeologists into the Nazca Lines - enigmatic drawings created between 2,100 and 1,300 years ago in the Peruvian...
17 December 2012: Fury at plan to move Cornish ancient stone; The shifting of an ancient monument that may date back thousands of years to make way for affordable housing in Cornwall (England) has been condemned as a 'desecration.' The Tristan...
19 December 2012: Israeli archaeologists unearth 'elite' Stone Age society; Artefacts unearthed in northern Israel have researchers convinced they have discovered the remains of an elite society, with strong commercial ties with cultures as distant as Mesopotamia and Anatolia, in...
: Uncertain future of Sighthill stone circle; At the top of an inner city hill in Glasgow, Scotland, 17 stones form the first astronomically aligned circle to be built in Britain for nearly 3000 years. Politics stopped...
21 December 2012: Bronze Age surprise discovery in Suffolk; A treasure hunter unearthed a socketed bronze axe at North Cove, near Beccles - by the North Sea, northeast of London. Inside it were 5 gold rings. Experts at London's...
: Prehistoric burial site unearthed in China; Two months ago a brickyard worker in Baoshan, Yunnan province (in the mountainous extreme southwest of China) was clearing land with a bulldozer when he unearthed what looked to him...
22 December 2012: Oldest wood architecture found in Germany; Wooden water wells made out of oak timbers dated to over 7,000 years ago have been discovered in eastern Germany, and their workmanship suggests an unexpected sophistication in carpentry skills...
: Ancient humans cared for sick and disabled; Some archaeologists are suggesting a closer, more systematic look at how prehistoric people - who may have left only their bones - treated illness, injury and incapacitation. Call it the...
: Crowds gather at Stonehenge and Newgrange to mark winter solstice; More than 5,000 people have gathered to mark the winter solstice at Stonehenge. The attendance was equivalent to five times the number that turned out at Salisbury Plain for last...
23 December 2012: Possible prehistoric site uncovered in northern Italy; Near the village of Tezze di Arzignano in northern Italy, archaeologists have found a Roman settlement which appears to have been built on top of a prehistoric site. Battista Carlotto,...
: Ancient caves and rock shelters under threat in Brazil; In the Amazon's Carajas National Forest, Vale, the Brazilian mining giant, is pushing the expansion of one of the world's largest open-pit iron ore complexes, a project that will destroy...
25 December 2012: Stone smoking pipes overturns a century-old assumption; In the early 1900s, archaeologist William Mills dug up a cache of carved stone smoking pipes that had been buried almost 2,000 years earlier. Mills was the first to dig...
27 December 2012: Crisis in Syria has Mesopotamian precedent; Research carried out at the University of Sheffield (UK) has revealed parallels between modern day and Bronze Age Syria, as the Mesopotamian region underwent urban decline, government collapse, and drought....
: Human hands evolved for fighting; University of Utah (USA) school of medicine researchers measured the forces when martial artists hit a punching bag. They found that the structure of the fist provides support that increases...
30 December 2012: Trojan pottery holds key to great Bronze Age collapse; The end of the Bronze Age signals the gradual decline of Eastern Mediterranean trade networks, and major cities in the Levantine coast, Anatolia and the Aegean. The collapse of Hittite...
: 4,000-year-old spearheads found in Mexico; Researchers discovered 4,000-year-old spearheads and other artifacts at a site in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History said. The find "will change the chronologies...
: Ancient burial rituals uncovered in Maryland; Since 2009 archaeologists have uncovered a trove of prehistoric Native American artifacts along the Patuxent River (Maryland, USA) indicating the spot was a gathering place for thousands of years. This...
: The Moorehead Circle - A cermonial machine; The Moorehead Circle is a woodhenge at the Fort Ancient Earthworks (Ohio, USA): a monumental hilltop enclosure built by the Hopewell culture 2,000 years ago. Now, thanks to Robert Riordan...
: Iron Age temple discovered near Jerusalem; Rare evidence of the religious practices and rituals in the early days of the Kingdom of Judah has recently been discovered at Tel Motza, to the west of Jerusalem (Israel)....
: 2000 BCE cemetery unearhted in Oman; A discovery of graves by Royal Oman Police (ROP) while digging for the new border check post in the Aswad area of the province of Shinas in northern Oman has...