Popular Archaeology Magazine Launched

Popular Archaeology magazine is a 100% online periodical dedicated to participatory, or public, archaeology. Unlike most other major magazines related to archaeology, no paper copies will ever be produced and distributed, so it will always be "green", and it will always be less costly to produce and therefore far less costly to purchase by premium subscribers (although regular subscriptions are always free). Most of our writers and contributors are either professionals or top experts in their fields, or are individuals relating first-hand experiences; however, the magazine is unique among other archaeology-related magazines in that it makes it easy to invite and encourage members of the public (YOU) to submit pertinent articles, blogs, events, directory listings, and classified ads for publication. As a volunteer or student, do you have a fascinating story to tell about an archaeological experience? As a professional archaeologist, scholar, educator, or scientist, do you have a discovery, program or project that you think would be of interest to the world? Do you have an archaeology-related service or item for sale? Would you like to have your archaeology-related blog post featured on the front page? ( Ad and specially featured item prices are lower than what you will find in any other major archaeology magazine). Through Popular Archaeology, you can realize all of these things. Moreover, because the content is produced by a very broad spectrum of contributors, you will see more feature articles than what you would typically find in the major print publications, with the same content quality.

As a community of professionals, writers, students, and volunteers, we invite you to join us as subscribers in this adventure of archaeological discovery. It could open up a whole new world for you.

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German Archeologists Uncover Celtic Treasure

Archeologists in Germany have discovered a 2,600-year-old Celtic tomb containing ornate jewellery of gold and amber. They say the grave is unusually well preserved and should provide important insights into early Celtic culture.

German archeologists have unearthed a 2,600-year-old Celtic tomb containing a treasure of jewellery made of gold, amber and bronze.

The subterranean chamber measuring four by five meters was uncovered near the prehistoric Heuneburg hill fort near the town of Herbertingen in south-western Germany. Its contents including the oak floor of the room are unusually well preserved. The find is a "milestone for the reconstruction of the social history of the Celts," archeologist Dirk Krausse, the director of the dig, said on Tuesday.

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Celtic noble's tomb discovery is a 'milestone of archaeology'

Stuttgart - Scientists have discovered a 2,600 year-old aristocratic burial, likely of a Celtic noblewoman, at the hill fort site of Heuneburg in southern Germany.

The discovery has been described as a “milestone” in the study of Celtic culture.
The dig leader and chief of the Baden-Württemberg State archaeology, Dirk Krausse, referred to the discovery as a “milestone of archaeology,” according to The Local.

One reason for the claim is likely the manner of excavation, which is new. In the past, such burial chambers have been dug up piece by piece locally, but now the team lifted the entire burial chamber, measuring four by five square metres (12 by 15 square feet) as one block of earth and placed it on a special truck to be transported to the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments in Stuttgart.

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Neanderthals may have feasted on meat and two veg diet

Scientists have upgraded their opinion of Neanderthal cuisine after spotting traces of cooked food on the fossilised teeth of our long-extinct cousins.

The researchers found remnants of date palms, seeds and legumes – which include peas and beans – on the teeth of three Neanderthals uncovered in caves in Iraq and Belgium.

Among the scraps of food embedded in the plaque on the Neanderthals' teeth were particles of starch from barley and water lilies that showed tell-tale signs of having been cooked.

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Neanderthals ate their greens

It just goes to show what can happen if you don't brush your teeth: some anthropologist can tip up thousands of years later and start making disparaging remarks about your diet.

A study of Neanderthal teeth from Iraq and Belgium has indicated that they didn't, as previously believed, have a diet consisting almost entirely of meat.

Scientists from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington have found specks of fossilised vegetable matter - some of it cooked - between the teeth, indicating that they were actually pretty good about getting their five a day.

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The earliest evidence of modern man?

Israeli archaeologists claim that they may have found the earliest evidence yet for the existence of modern man.

A Tel Aviv University team excavating a cave in Rosh Ha'ain in central Israel say they have found teeth that are approximately 400,000 years old. The earliest Homo sapiens remains found until now are half that old.

Archaeologist Avi Gopher said further research is needed to solidify the claim. If it does, he says, "that means that we have to rethink the basic reconstructions we have for human evolution."

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Homo sapiens lived in Eretz Yisrael 400,000 years ago

Long before the land was called Israel and the residents Jews, Homo sapiens lived here twice as long ago as was previously believed, the researchers wrote in the latest (December) edition of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

The cave was uncovered in 2000 by Prof. Avi Gopher and Dr. Ran Barkai of TAU’s Institute of Archeology. Later, Prof. Israel Hershkowitz of the Department of Anatomy and Anthropology at TAU’s Sackler School of Medicine and an international team of scientists performed a morphological analysis on the teeth found in the cave.

The examination included CT scans and X-rays indicating the size and shape of the teeth are very similar to those of modern man. The teeth found in the cave are also very similar to evidence of modern man dated to around 100,000 years ago that had previously been discovered in the Skhul Cave on Mount Carmel and the Qafzeh Cave in the Lower Galilee near Nazareth.

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Swedish scientists study ice man bacteria samples

A team of scientists are currently examining specimens of stomach bacteria from Ötzi the Iceman, who lived about 5,300 years ago, at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute (KI).

Ötzi was discovered by two Germans tourists in September 1991 in the Ötztal Alps, near Hauslabjoch in Italy close to the Austria border.

His body is usually kept frozen, but he has been thawed recently to allow experts to examine him, among them Swedish infectious disease control professor Lars Engstrand at KI.

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Ancient Bone's DNA Suggests New Human Ancestors

DNA taken from a pinkie bone at least 30,000 years old is hinting at the existence of a previously unknown population of ancient humans. It's just the latest example of how modern genetic techniques are transforming the world of anthropology.

The pinkie bone in question was unearthed in 2008 from what's called the Denisova Cave.

"The Denisova Cave is in southern Siberia in the Altai Mountains in central Asia," says David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School in Boston. "This bone is the bone of a 6- to 7-year-old girl."

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Weder Neandertaler noch moderner Mensch

Das Genom eines ausgestorbenen Urmenschen liefert neue Erkenntnisse über die Ursprünge des modernen Menschen

Ein internationales Forscherteam unter der Leitung von Svante Pääbo vom Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie in Leipzig hat das Kerngenom eines mindestens 30.000 Jahre alten Fingerknochens sequenziert. Dieser stammt von einem ausgestorbenen Urmenschen, dessen Überreste von Archäologen der Russischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 2008 in der Denisova-Höhle im südlichen Sibirien ausgegraben wurden. Demnach war der Mensch aus Denisova weder Neandertaler noch moderner Mensch, sondern eine neue Homininenform.

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Crowds expected to gather to witness magical winter solstice light ceremony at Newgrange

Despite the weather, it’s expected that like last year, crowds will gather to witness the winter solstice light ceremony on December 21. Last year the World Heritage site in Newgrange drew a large audience.

The 5,000-year-old Stone Age tomb is older than the pyramids, and over 32,000 people worldwide applied to witness last year’s magnificent winter solstice.

The tomb’s chamber lights up when the sun rises on a winter solstice morning. It is the only time of the year when the tomb lights up with natural sunlight.

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Spain rethinks reopening of prehistoric art 'Sistine Chapel'

Spain's Altamira cave, dubbed the "Sistine Chapel" of Paleolithic art because of the paintings of animals on its ceiling, will no longer reopen to the public as planned at the end of the year.

The cave located some 30 kilometres (19 miles) west of the northern city of Santander has been closed since 2002 because the breath and body heat from visitors threatened the fragile natural pigments used in the cave art.

But in June the foundation which manages the the cave announced it would reopen the site to the public at the end of 2010 once a panel of experts determined how many people could safely be allowed to visit.

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Woodhenge: Is this one of the greatest discoveries of archaeology...or a simple farmer's fence?

The discovery of a wooden version of Stonehenge – a few hundred yards from the famous monument – was hailed as one of the most important archaeological finds for decades.

But now experts are at loggerheads after claims that what was thought to be a Neolithic temple was a rather more humble affair – in fact the remains of a wooden fence.

One leading expert on Stonehenge criticised the announcement of the ‘remarkable’ find in July as ‘hasty’ and warned it could become a ‘PR embarrassment’.

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Lucky duck! Spanish Bronze Age man suffered broken bone in neck – and lived

Archaeologists exploring a Bronze Age fortress at La Motilla del Azuer, in Spain, have come across a very lucky man.

One of the skeletons is of a man that lived more than 3,400 years ago and suffered a broken hyoid bone, likely caused by a blow to his neck.

The hyoid bone is a horseshoe shaped object located at the root of the tongue. Amazingly enough the injury healed and the man lived to be in his 40’s. He was five and a half feet and had a “moderate” build.

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Neanderthals Fashioned Earliest Tool Made From Human Bone

The earliest known tool made from human bone has been discovered — and it was apparently crafted by Neanderthals, scientists find.

The scientists note that as of yet, they have no way to prove or disprove whether the Neanderthals who made the tool did so intentionally — for instance, for rituals or after cannibalization.

Until now, the first evidence that human bones were used either symbolically or as tools were 30,000-to 34,000-year-old perforated human teeth found at excavations in southwest France. These were apparently used as ornaments.

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Archaeology: 8000 year-old Sun temple found in Bulgaria

The oldest temple of the Sun has been discovered in northeast Bulgaria, near the city of Varna, aged at more then 8000 years, the Bulgarian National Television reported on December 15 2010.

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UK exhibits Newark, Sedgeford torcs

The British Museum has exhibited the Newark Torc alongside the museum's own Sedgeford Torc, both of which date back to the pre-Roman Iron Age.

Composed of twisted gold wire strands attached to hollow terminals, both torcs are adorned with 'La Tene' decorations, Past Horizons reported.

Visitors can see the two relics at the museum's Britain and Europe (800BCE -43CE) gallery in an exhibition which clearly depicts the complex craftsmanship behind their construction.

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10 Ancient Burial Places Discovered in Stavropol Territory

The burial grounds recently found in Stavropol Territory date back to different periods, the earliest of them 5th millennium B.C.

The burial places were found out in the course of underground laying works.

Archeologists dug out ceramic vessels, labour tools made of silicon, a bronze knife, and glass beads in the ancient mounds.

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Giant fossil bird found on 'hobbit' island of Flores

A giant marabou stork has been discovered on an island once home to human-like 'hobbits'.

Fossils of the bird were discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores, a place previously famed for the discovery of Homo floresiensis, a small hominin species closely related to modern humans.

The stork may have been capable of hunting and eating juvenile members of this hominin species, say researchers who made the discovery, though there is no direct evidence the birds did so.

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Neanderthals: how needles and skins gave us the edge on our kissing cousins

The Neanderthal genome tells us we were very similar: in fact we interbred. But intellect and invention meant that we lived while they perished, says Robin McKie

On the ground floor of the Natural History Museum in London, arrays of Formica-covered cabinets stretch from floor to ceiling and from one end of the great building to the other. Some of nature's finest glories are stored here: pygmy hippo bones from Sicily, mammoth tusks from Siberia and skulls of giant sloths from South America.

Many treasures compete for attention, but there is one sample, kept in a small plywood box, that deserves especial interest: the Swanscombe skull. Found near Gravesend last century, it is made up of three pieces of the brain case of a 400,000-year-old female and is one of only half-a-dozen bits of skeleton that can be traced to men and women who lived in Britain before the end of the last ice age. Human remains do not get more precious than this.

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Important archaeological find preserved in Scotland thanks to slow motion tree felling

A pre-historic archaeological find in the Scottish Highlands has been secured for future investigation – thanks to some inventive ‘slow-mo’ tree felling.

The find – a late prehistoric galleried dun – was discovered at a site in Strath Glass, near Cannich, during checks carried out by Forestry Commission Scotland staff of a forest block of mature Douglas fir that was due to be felled.

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Burnham hoard uncovered

Earlier this year a rare Bronze Age founders hoard, buried within a pot in an Essex field, was excavated by archaeologists after being discovered by metal detectorists. The excavation was recorded by 360Production in the following video.

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Global Sea-Level Rise at the End of the Last Ice Age Interrupted by Rapid 'Jumps'

Southampton researchers have estimated that sea-level rose by an average of about 1 metre per century at the end of the last Ice Age, interrupted by rapid 'jumps' during which it rose by up to 2.5 metres per century. The findings, published in Global and Planetary Change, will help unravel the responses of ocean circulation and climate to large inputs of ice-sheet meltwater to the world ocean.

Global sea level rose by a total of more than 120 metres as the vast ice sheets of the last Ice Age melted back. This melt-back lasted from about 19,000 to about 6,000 years ago, meaning that the average rate of sea-level rise was roughly 1 metre per century.

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Farmers slowed down by hunter-gatherers: Our ancestors' fight for space

Agricultural – or Neolithic – economics replaced the Mesolithic social model of hunter-gathering in the Near East about 10,000 years ago. One of the most important socioeconomic changes in human history, this socioeconomic shift, known as the Neolithic transition, spread gradually across Europe until it slowed down when more northern latitudes were reached.

Research published today, Friday, 3 December 2010, in New Journal of Physics (co-owned by the Institute of Physics and the German Physical Society), details a physical model, which can potentially explain how the spreading of Neolithic farmers was slowed down by the population density of hunter-gatherers.

The researchers from Girona, in Catalonia, Spain, use a reaction-diffusion model, which explains the relation between population growth and available space, taking into account the directional space dependency of the established Mesolithic population density.

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Archaeological amazements from Bulgaria: 5 thousands year old burials (Chirpan Project)

Bulgaria is one of the archaeologically richest countries in the world. Archaeology is a highly prestige profession there with huge media interest in everything what has been discovered. Recently, thanks especially to young generations archaeologists, more information has begun to be published online. An excellent example is 2009-2010 Project "Archaeologiacal examination of a Thracian-Roman Dynasty Centre in the region of the Chirpan Eminences" directed by Dr Milena Tonkova with team. It has a special website (see photogallery).

Among the new discoveries within this project is the Early Bronze Tumulus Malkata Momina Mogila near Chirpan in South Bulgaria, Bratya Daskalovi municipality. Sadly, but significantly for science, several children’s burials were unearthed in this Tumulus (single and a group burial) together with two adolescents, two adults and a baby.

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Stonehenge Builders Said to Use Giant Wicker Baskets to Roll Massive Stones

Rolling a 4-ton stone some 200 miles from a Welsh quarry to the site that the world now knows as Stonehenge would have been a daunting enough challenge for even the hardiest of Neolithic-era laborers. There have been any number of explanations offered - the most recent coming last week when a University of Exeter archeology student suggested that wooden ball bearings balls placed in grooved wooden tracks would have facilitated the movement of the massive stone slabs.

Now add another theory to the list. Engineer Garry Lavin, who also happens to be a former BBC presenter, is making the case that giant wicker baskets were deployed by the locals to roll the boulders all that way

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Coca leaves first chewed 8,000 years ago, says research

Peruvian foraging societies were already chewing coca leaves 8,000 years ago, archaeological evidence has shown.

Ruins beneath house floors in the northwestern Peru showed evidence of chewed coca and calcium-rich rocks.

Such rocks would have been burned to create lime, chewed with coca to release more of its active chemicals.

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Coca leaves first chewed 8,000 years ago, says research

Peruvian foraging societies were already chewing coca leaves 8,000 years ago, archaeological evidence has shown.

Ruins beneath house floors in the northwestern Peru showed evidence of chewed coca and calcium-rich rocks.

Such rocks would have been burned to create lime, chewed with coca to release more of its active chemicals.

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Unveiling Rock Art Images: A Pilot Project Employing a Geophysical Technique to Detect Magnetic Signatures

The use of geophysical techniques in archaeology has become widespread, however these methods have rarely been applied to rock art research. There is a need to record and document rock art images as they face deterioration from environmental, industrial and human impacts. This project trials the use of magnetic susceptibility (MS) meter to non-invasively detect and spatiallly resolve ochre rock art images

Ochre is frequently used in rock art production and previous research in other contexts has shown that it emits a MS signature due to its inherant magnetic characteristics. These ochre images can be hidden behind silica or carbonate crusts or may deteriorate ove time limiting their visibility. The rock art images that lie behind such crusts are likely to be protected from weathering and are amenable to dating using such techniques as uranium mass spectometry (AMS).

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Humankind's earliest, ancient beginnings

Forum speaker outlines documenting earliest human life in presentation on man's humble ancestors

The human race has roots that run deep dating several million years in the past. However, The Forum speaker Ann Gibbons said a different kind of race is being played out.

"The Human Race: The Quest to Find Our Earliest Ancestors," is the presentation Gibbons gave to a near-capacity crowd in Schofield Auditorium Wednesday. The main idea prevalent in her speech was the "race" that paleontologists and paleoanthropologists are in to find the earliest evidence of ancient human life still on Earth.

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Multiple burials at Orkney Neolithic site

Archaeologists have recovered remains from at least eight people after initial excavation at a Neolithic tomb site in Orkney discovered in October.

A narrow, stone-lined passageway leads to five chambers, two of which have been part-excavated so far.

Fragments of skull and hipbone have been unearthed, some carefully placed in gaps in the stones, suggesting the 5,000-year-old site is undisturbed.

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