Stone Pages Archaeo News: May 2015 Archives

May 2015 index:

4 May 2015: Iron Age tumulus discovered near Paris; In France, as in many European countries, part of the planning process for any new development incorporates the requirement for an archaeological investigation of the site, before any building or...
: More light shed on European origins; The question of 'where did we come from?' has been posed many times over the millennia, particularly when it comes to the origins of European peoples and their cultures. Traditional...
: Altamira cave paintings under threat again; Inadvertently, precious cave paintings are being irretrievably damaged by the people flocking to view them. The cave paintings in question are those in the Altamira cave in Spain. It is...
5 May 2015: The oldest evidence of human occupation in North America?; Sometimes nature can come to the aid of archaeologists when dating finds. There is an area in the western United States, in Harney County (Oregon), called the Rimrock Draw Rockshelter....
: Extra molar identified for the first time in an Atapuerca hominid; A fourth molar tooth has been identified in the remains of an individual - about 40 years old, and probably male - recovered from a collective burial in north central...
: Stone Age axemen used 'complicated thinking'; University of Exeter archaeology professor Bruce Bradley co-authored research which highlights how making stone tools provides some of the most abundant evidence of human behavioural change over time. A group...
6 May 2015: Shropshire villagers safeguard future of historic hill; The Shropshire village of Pontesford, in the west of England, has raised more than 240,000 pounds in just five months to save a major historic landmark from potentially being closed...
: Chauvet replica cave art gallery opens; A few kilometres from the village of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc in the south of France, a replica of the Grotte Chauvet re-creates one of the most extraordinary archaeological finds of recent times....
12 May 2015: Iron Age man with shield unearthed in England; An archeological dig in Pocklington (East Riding of Yorkshire, England) has unearthed a prehistoric man buried with a shield. The skeleton was found in one of the square barrows at...
: Traces of flowers on a Palaeolithic tomb are found; The burial of the so-called Red Lady, dating back to the Upper Palaeolithic, was discovered in El Mirón cave (Cantabria, Spain) in 2010. A research led by the UPV/EHU's Ikerbasque...
: Stone circle discovered on Dartmoor; The highest stone circle in southern England has been found on a moorland in Devon (England). Situated 525 metres (1,722ft) above sea level, the ancient site is the first stone...
15 May 2015: Iron Age artifacts found in a megalithic site in Spain; Discovered among the remains of a megalithic funerary structure on a hill in the Andalusia region of southern Spain, an exotic assemblage of Iron Age artifacts dated to between 1044...
: Homes burned deliberatley at Neolithic site in Bulgaria; Huge two-storey houses which were deliberately set on fire by their inhabitants have been unearthed at the 8,000-year-old Early Neolithic site excavated by Bulgarian archaeologists near the town of Mursalevo,...
: The unique social structure of hunter-gatherers; Sex equality in residential decision-making explains the unique social structure of hunter-gatherers, a new University College London (UCL) study reveals. Previous research has noted the low level of relatedness in...
17 May 2015: Schoolboy spots bird carved on ancient stone; The phrases 'hidden in plain sight' and 'cannot see the wood for the trees' have been applied to many situations over time but never, it is thought, with respect to...
: The oldest toy in Europe?; In Southern Bulgaria there is a region known as the Rhodope Mountains, where is located the town of Yagnevo. For some time now a local businessman, Alexander Mitushov, has been...
: More evidence found for Neanderthal adaptability; There is a cave in Northern Israel which is known locally as the Amud Cave. This cave was occupied at various times over the millennia but most notably during two...
18 May 2015: Stone bracelet is oldest ever found; Discovered in the Altai Mountains of Siberia in 2008, detailed analysis by Russian experts confirms an intricately made polished green stone bracelet dates to as long ago as 40,000 years. Anatoly...
: Alaska researchers turn up 12,300-year-old artwork; At the edge of a spruce forest in eastern central Alaska, archaeologists have unearthed bone pendants that might be the first examples of artwork in northern North America. Ice-age sites...
: A Late Glacial family at Trollesgave, Denmark; On a sandy plateau near a lake in Denmark, Trollesgave preserves evidence of human occupation identified with the Bromme Culture - a Late Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer society that extended across present-day...
19 May 2015: Cahokia's rise and fall linked to river flooding; At its peak, between around 1050 and 1200 CE, Cahokia - the famous complex of earthen mounds about 500 kilometres southwest of Chicago, USA - wielded economic power and religious...
: Volunteers help repair ancient cairn in Ireland; A group of volunteers has helped to repair a 5,000-year-old burial cairn on one of Northern Ireland's most significant mountains. Around 30 of them trekked to the top of Slieve...
: Declining mobility drove humans' shift to lighter bones; A new study of the bones of hundreds of humans who lived during the past 33,000 years in Europe finds the rise of agriculture and a corresponding fall in mobility...
21 May 2015: Newgrange to be X-rayed; The base of the 5,000- year-old Neolithic monument at Newgrange, Co Meath (Ireland), is to be X-rayed by a researcher in a bid to determine the origin of its granite...
25 May 2015: Most European men descended from just three ancestors; Using new methods for analysing DNA variation that provide a less biased picture of diversity, and a better estimate of the timing of population events, a team led by Professor...
: World's oldest stone tools; A recently published study reveals that stone tools found almost by accident on the shore of Lake Turkana, in Kenya, in 2011, are by far the oldest known. The discovery...
26 May 2015: Hundreds of gaming pieces found in Utah cave; A cave on the shore of Utah's Great Salt Lake is giving archaeologists a rare glimpse into prehistoric gambling. Cave 1 has proven to hold a profusion of artefacts, most...
: Bronze Age Egtved girl was not from Denmark; Egtved Girl was a Nordic Bronze Age girl whose well-preserved remains were discovered outside Egtved, Denmark in 1921. Aged 16 to 18 at death, she was slim, 160 centimetres tall,...
28 May 2015: The earliest depiction of a music scene; Israeli archaeologists found what they think is Israel's most ancient depiction of a music scene, Israel Antiquities Authority announced. The scene appears on a rare 5,000-year-old large storage vessel from...
: Megalithic monuments discovered in India; A team of archaeologists discovered several new megalithic monuments in Karbi Anglong district (Assam, north-eastern India). The team, which was headed by Director Dr Deepi Rekha Kouli and comprised the...