Stone Pages Archaeo News: January 2016 Archives

January 2016 index:

4 January 2016: Stonehenge tunnel survey reveals new sites; Some 3,400 years before the A303 carriageway split the Stonehenge landscape in half, some people cut a beautiful pit a metre deep into the hard chalk using picks made of...
: Scientists sequence first ancient Irish human genomes; Geneticists from Trinity College Dublin and archaeologists from Queen's University Belfast have sequenced the first genomes from ancient Irish humans - an early farmer woman who lived near Belfast some...
: Remains of Stone Age hunters found in Western Iran; Excavations in Kurdistan at three sites along the Sirvan - a tributary of the Tigris - have led to the discovery of artefacts including stone tools, the bones of hunted...
5 January 2016: Bronze Age fortified settlement in Poland analysed; Studies of the fortified Bronze Age settlement in Bruszczewo, west-central Poland, reveal that it was founded by representatives of the Unetice culture shortly after 2000 BCE, and functioned for about...
: Ancient Vanuatu cemetery sheds light on Polynesian migration; Scientists studying skulls found at a 3,000-year-old cemetery in Vanuatu say they may have unlocked a vital clue to the origins of Polynesian people. Professor Matthew Spriggs, from the Australian...
: Early human dispersal into Spain through Gibraltar; A team of scientists have obtained or confirmed a date range between .9 and .85 Mya (million years ago) as a time when a species of Old World monkey (Theropithecus)...
14 January 2016: Sharjah excavations unearth objects dated as early as 8,000 BCE; Bronze ore smelting workshops, burial grounds, clay homes, stone tools and anvils are among the items unearthed during the past year in excavations by teams of international archaeologists at sites...
: Pathogens found in Oetzi's stomach; By first extracting the DNA of the entire stomach contents from the body of the famous 5,300-year-old ice mummy, researchers have succeeded in isolating the oldest complete genome sequence of...
17 January 2016: The Anthropocene: hard evidence for a human-driven Earth; According to a recent paper by an international group of Earth scientists, the evidence for a new geological epoch which marks the impact of human activity is now overwhelming. The...
: New findings on prehistoric stone tool industry in Italy; A newly released study suggests that the Uluzzian stone tool industry, generally associated with anatomically modern humans, has its roots in the Mousterian industry, usually associated with Neanderthals. The Uluzzian...
24 January 2016: New proposal for a common megalithic measure; Following nearly 40 years of research, Norman Stockdale and Peter Harris conclude that a standard unit of length was used in the construction of megalithic monuments, but not the same...
: Sounds of the Bronze Age to be studied; A researcher at the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) hopes to gain an understanding of sounds heard thousands of years ago. Michelle Walker's investigation will involve a cave...
: Chauvet cave may hold earliest painting of volcanic eruption; France's iconic Chauvet cave holds mysterious spray-shaped imagery, made around the time when nearby volcanoes were spewing lava. Discovered in 1994 and popularized in the Werner Herzog documentary 'Cave of...
: 9,000-year-old Jordanian skeletons with a strange history; Archaeologists have unearthed a burial site in southern Jordan that suggests the dead were not buried until they had decomposed to skeletal remains. The skeletons were then dismantled and bones...
: Prehistoric mass murder site discovered by Kenyan lake; Proof of intentional killing is extremely rare among prehistoric hunter-gatherers, but the evidence found at Nataruk by Lake Turkana is clear-cut. Skeletons dating to 10,000 years ago, bearing marks of...
26 January 2016: Did the first farmers come from Turkey?; Evidence is emerging that the origins of farming in Europe can be traced back to Anatolia in modern day Turkey. Occupation of the area stretches back to the Palaeolithic Era...
: Bronze & Iron Age settlements uncovered in Iran; A team of archaeologists from Iran's Research Institute for Cultural Heritage and Tourism has been carrying out extensive research in the Kavousiyeh hills in Tehran's suburbs. The area had not...
27 January 2016: Bronze Age Boats; The first log boats are thought to predate both pottery and agriculture by thousands of years. During the Bronze Age, which lasted from roughly 2000 BCE to 500 BCE in...
: Ancient gold and a 7,000-year-old fortress wall in Bulgaria; A 7,000-year-old defensive wall from the Copper Age has been discovered at a prehistoric settlement mound near Hotnitsa, in north central Bulgaria. The palisade was made of wooden pillars 40...
28 January 2016: Did interbreeding with Neanderthals strengthen our immune system?; Two independent studies, both recently published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, have both confirmed the belief that interbreeding between two of our ancestors, namely Neanderthals and Denisovans, has...
: Neolithic tomb in Spain reveals community in life and death; The Neolithic people are thought to have introduced new burial rituals - including megalithic tombs, which were used over an extended period of time as sites for collective burials and...
29 January 2016: Artists complete replica of Lascaux cave paintings; Three years of work has gone into creating a true-to-life replica of renowned Stone Age cave paintings in southwestern France, and the 46 segments are ready to be transported and...
: Southwest USA's oldest human footprints; The 2,500 year old footprints of some ancient farmers and their children and dogs have been found perfectly preserved north of Tucson, Arizona (USA), roughly 800 kilometres east-southeast of Los...
31 January 2016: Britain's 'Pompeii' uncovered in Cambridgeshire; Archaeologists say they have uncovered Britain's 'Pompeii' after discovering the best-preserved Bronze Age dwellings ever found in the country. The circular wooden houses, built on stilts, form part of a...