4,000 year old skeleton was likely a 'warrior chief'

A Bronze Age skeleton found buried in West Sussex with one of the earliest bronze daggers in the UK was probably a high-ranking warrior chief who died in combat, experts have said. 

James Kenny, site excavator and planning archaeologist at Chichester District Council,  views the skeleton known as Racton Man at the Novium Museum in Chichester, West Sussex  [Credit: Chichester District Council] 

The virtually-complete skeleton dating back more than 4,000 years was found on farmland in the hamlet of Racton, near Chichester, in 1989. 

Its background has long been a source of intrigue to historians as the skeleton - nicknamed Racton Man - was found with an extremely rare and valuable dagger. 

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Solid gold torc hidden in Celtic coin hoard

A Celtic coin hoard discovered on Jersey has been astounding archaeologists with a series of gold treasure finds. 

The Golden torc is bigger than any other ever found on Jersey  [Credit: © Jersey Heritage] 

For the past two weeks, Jersey Heritage's conservation team have been excavating an area known to contain gold jewellery. Late last week, one end of a solid gold torc was uncovered. 

The find comes after the discovery of two other solid gold torcs - one gold-plated and one of an unknown alloy - along with a silver brooch and a crushed sheet gold tube. But the latest artefact is considerably larger than anything previously unearthed on the island.

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Une nécropole antique dans le quartier périphérique occidental de la ville de Saintes : plusieurs individus entravés, dont un enfant

De septembre à novembre 2014, une équipe d’archéologues de l’Inrap a mené, sur prescription de l’État (Drac Poitou-Charentes), une fouille préventive sur un terrain de 613 m2, dans le cadre de la construction d’une maison individuelle dans le quartier ouest de Saintes. Une première campagne de fouille réalisée en 2013 sur une parcelle contigüe avait mis en évidence la vocation funéraire de cet espace au cours de l’Antiquité. L’opération de cette année a permis la découverte d’une centaine de sépultures. 

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EMAS Easter Study Tour to North Scotland and the Isle of Skye

EMAS Easter Study Tour to North Scotland 

and the Isle of Skye

2 - 8 April 2015

The 2015 EMAS Easter Study Tour is to the North of Scotland, including one day on the Isle of Skye.

We will travel from London Embankment by coach, staying overnight at Carlisle on the 2nd and 7th April.

We shall be based at a hotel in Inverness, which is a very good central point from which to explore the region.

The itinerary includes a wide range of prehistoric and medieval sites, including some of the famous Pictish symbol stones.

Click Here for full details of this study tour...

Limestone 'Venus' 23,000 years old dug up in France

A person points to a 23,000 year-old chalk statue of a woman called the "Venus of Renancourt" which was found at the paleolithic site of Renancourt, France, November 27, 2014

A limestone statuette of a shapely woman some 23,000 years old has been discovered in northern France in what archaeologists Thursday described as an "exceptional" find.

Archaeologists stumbled on the Paleolithic-era sculpture during a dig in the summer in Amiens, the first such find in half a century.

"The discovery of this masterpiece is exceptional and internationally significant," said Nicole Phoyu-Yedid, the head of cultural affairs in the area, on showing the find to the media.

"We were expecting to find classical vestiges such as tooled flint or bones," said archaeologist Clement Paris.

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Secrets of a Celtic princess

The burial chamber of the "Celtic Princess of the Danube" unearthed in 2010 remains one of the most important archeological finds of the past decades in Germany. A new exhibition in Stuttgart allows the public to contemplate the riches found in the 2,600-year old grave. Even in plain view, the princess holds on to many secrets which keep puzzling archeologists.

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Archaeologists working for a mining company have uncovered an Iron Age settlement near Newcastle. 

Workmen at the dig [Credit: Banks Group] 

The five-hectare site at the Brenkley Lane Surface Mine has been excavated by Headland Archaeology on behalf of Banks Mining. 

The settlement, much of which is more than 2,000 years old, features the footprint of four roundhouses within an enclosure. 

Artefacts and a cemetery have also been unearthed at the site.

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People ate mammoth; Dogs got reindeer

Artist's depiction of cave painting of primitive hunt (stock image).

Credit: © Nomad_Soul / Fotolia

Biogeologists have shown how Gravettian people shared their food 30,000 years ago.

Předmostí I is an exceptional prehistoric site located near Brno in the Czech Republic. Around 30,000 years ago it was inhabited by people of the pan-European Gravettian culture, who used the bones of more than 1000 mammoths to build their settlement and to ivory sculptures. Did prehistoric people collect this precious raw material from carcasses -- easy to spot on the big cold steppe -- or were they the direct result of hunting for food? This year-round settlement also yielded a large number of canids remains, some of them with characteristics of Palaeolithic dogs. Were these animals used to help hunt mammoths?

To answer these two questions, Tübingen researcher Hervé Bocherens and his international team carried out an analysis of carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes in human and animal fossil bones from the site. Working with researchers from Brno and Brussels, the researchers were able to test whether the Gravettian people of Předmostí ate mammoth meat and how the "palaeolithic dogs" fit into this subsistence picture.

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Woolly mammoth skeleton fetches £189,000 at auction

Monty the woolly mammoth skeleton is displayed at Summers Place Auctions in Billingshurst, West Sussex. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

A rare woolly mammoth skeleton has been sold for £189,000 at auction.

The skeleton, named Monty, is one of the most complete of the species and was bought by a private UK buyer at the sale by Summers Place Auctions in West Sussex.

It stands 3.5 metres tall and is 5.5 metres long (11ft tall by 18ft long), suggesting it may have been a male that weighed up to six tonnes. The skeleton, which is 30,000 to 50,000 years old, was estimated to command a price of between £150,000 and £250,000. It had been in a private eastern European collection for years and was only assembled, including tusks, for the first time when it came to the auction house.

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Stone age axe found with wood handle

Archaeologists in Denmark have uncovered an incredibly rare find: a stone age axe held within its wooden handle.

The 5,500-year-old Neolithic axe was found during archaeological surveys ahead of a multi-billion euro tunnel project.

The axe seems to have been jammed into what was once the seabed, perhaps as part of a ritual offering.

The lack of oxygen in the clay ground helped preserve the wooden handle.

The find was made in Rodbyhavn on the Danish island of Lolland, which is to be connected to the German island of Fehmarn via the tunnel link.

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Climate change was not to blame for the collapse of the Bronze Age

Scientists will have to find alternative explanations for a huge population collapse in Europe at the end of the Bronze Age as researchers prove definitively that climate change - commonly assumed to be responsible - could not have been the culprit.

Archaeologists and environmental scientists from the University of Bradford, University of Leeds, University College Cork, Ireland (UCC), and Queen’s University Belfast have shown that the changes in climate that scientists believed to coincide with the fall in population in fact occurred at least two generations later.

Their results, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that human activity starts to decline after 900BC, and falls rapidly after 800BC, indicating a population collapse. But the climate records show that colder, wetter conditions didn’t occur until around two generations later.

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Were Neanderthals a sub-species of modern humans? New research says no

In an extensive, multi-institution study led by SUNY Downstate Medical Center, researchers have identified new evidence supporting the growing belief that Neanderthals were a distinct species separate from modern humans (Homo sapiens), and not a subspecies of modern humans.

The study looked at the entire nasal complex of Neanderthals and involved researchers with diverse academic backgrounds. Supported by funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, the research also indicates that the Neanderthal nasal complex was not adaptively inferior to that of modern humans, and that the Neanderthals' extinction was likely due to competition from modern humans and not an inability of the Neanderthal nose to process a colder and drier climate.

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Solent's Stone Age village 'washing away'

In 1999, a team of divers off the Isle of Wight came across a lobster busily digging out its burrow. To their surprise they found it was kicking out flints from the Stone Age. However, archaeologists now fear artefacts dating back more than 8,000 years are simply being "washed away". 

Diver recovering flint [Credit: Michael Pitts] 

Bouldnor Cliff is a submerged Stone Age settlement off the coast of Yarmouth which was covered in silt as great sheets of ice melted at the end of the last Ice Age. 

It is an important site because the muddy conditions have helped preserve organic materials from the distant past that do not normally survive on dry land. 

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Woolly mammoth could be cloned by South Korean scientists

Scientists are considering an attempt to ressurect the extinct woolly mammoth. But concerns have been raised about the ethics of such a project

The fierce debate over whether to clone a woolly mammoth has been reignited by a fresh attempt to bring the species back from the dead.

South Korean scientists believe the extinct 'Mammuthus' can be brought back to life using the DNA of an extremely well preserved mammoth found in the Siberian snow.

Insung Hwang, a geneticist at Sooam, the South Korean biotech company working on the project, said this week his team think it is an achievable goal, using the fresh blood samples they have recovered.

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Rare pre-historic basket found in North Uist set for imminent excavation

A pre-historic woven reed basket found last week in North Uist is to be excavated by specialist archaeologists within the next few days.

The discovery, made by a local resident, has excited islanders and archaeologists for its rarity and excellent state of preservation.

It was found last week, exposed in sediment on a stretch of beach at Baile Siar after recent gales. Storms frequently expose the remains of ancient settlements in this area.

The basket, about half a metre in length, contains a handful of worked quartz stones, and a handful of diverse animal bones.

Local archaeologist Kate MacDonald of Uist Archaeology spoke of her excitement at the find.

She said: “It’s rare to find well-preserved organic material. It indicates that this basket must have been kept under water from the day that it was placed, or lost, there. Perhaps it was in a freshwater loch until it was covered over by encroaching beach sediment.

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5,000 year old footprints found in Denmark

Archaeologists working on the excavations for the Femern Bælt Tunnel have discovered several well-preserved footprints dating back to the Stone Age. 

The Stone Age impressions were during the excavation of the Femern Bælt tunnel  [Credit: Copenhagen Post] 

The prints were left by fishermen looking to safeguard their weirs (river barriers used for fishing) in a storm 5,000 years ago, announced Lolland-Falster Museum. 

"It is quite surreal to have found human footprints," said archaeologist Terje Stafseth in a press release. 

"We normally find historical clues in the form of human waste, but here we have found an entirely different clue and a first in Danish archaeology: a physical print left behind by a human."

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First Europeans 'weathered Ice Age'

The DNA comes from a man who lived in westernmost Russia some 36,000 years ago

The genetic ancestry of the earliest Europeans survived the ferocious Ice Age that took hold after the continent was initially settled by modern people.

That is the suggestion of a study of DNA from a male hunter who lived in western Russia 36,000 years ago.

His genome is not exactly like those of people who lived in Europe just after the ice sheets melted 10,000 years ago.

But the study suggests the earliest Europeans did contribute their genes to later populations.

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Sound Illusions: Eerie Echoes May Have Inspired Prehistoric Cave Art

Humankind has a long-standing affinity for art. As far back as 40,000 years ago, people were decorating cave walls in Indonesia and in Europe, often with panoramas of thundering herds of wildlife. Now, a growing line of research suggests that the "thundering" part of that description is no coincidence.

Echoes, reverberations and other then-inexplicable auditory illusions may have inspired mankind's earliest artists, according to Steven Waller, a researcher at Rock Art Acoustics in La Mesa, California. In a talk to be presented today (Oct. 28) in Indianapolis, Indiana, at the annual meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Waller weaves together a theory of ancient art that focuses as much on sound as on sight.

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Archaeologists have discovered a sunken village from millennia ago

The first Stone Age settlement identified in Polish waters has been discovered in the lake Gil Wielki, Iława Lake District (Warmia and Mazury) by underwater archaeologists led by Dr. Andrzej Pydyn from the Department of Underwater Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.

The discovery was made in the project carried out in cooperation with the Warsaw branch of the Scientific Association of Polish Archaeologists.

"In shallow water in the reservoir we found a large amount of animal bones, remains of tools made of antler and numerous fragments of pottery, used at various times by ancient communities. Among them, the fragments that caught our attention relate to the tradition of late Neolithic, probably associated with the so-called Corded Ware culture" - told PAP Dr. Andrzej Pydyn.

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Decrypting the enigmatic Phaistos Disk

The decoding of the Phaistos Disk has puzzled specialists for over a century, however new findings describe the disk as “the first Minoan CD-ROM’ featuring a prayer to a mother. Gareth Owens, Erasmus coordinator at the Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Crete, speaking at the TEI of Western Macedonia on Monday, said the disk is dedicated to a “mother”. 

Discovered in 1907 in the Minoan palace of Phaistos in Crete, the disk has been the  subject of many an interpretation attempt. However, the small total body of text - it consists  of only 241 signs on both sides, based on 45 individual signs - defies any  decisive conclusion [Credit: Yves Brise/Flickr] 

“The most stable word and value is ‘mother’, and in particular the mother goddess of the Minoan era,” said Dr. Owens. He says there is one complex of signs found in three parts of one side of the disk spelling I-QE-KU-RJA, with I-QE meaning “great lady of importance” while a key word appears to be AKKA, or “pregnant mother,” according to the researcher. One side is devoted to a pregnant woman and the other to a woman giving birth.

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Forscherteam identifiziert 3500 Jahre alte Königsstadt

Marburger Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler haben die Identität einer 3500 Jahre alten Königsstadt enthüllt. Bei Ausgrabungen des Vorgeschichtlichen Seminars der Philipps-Universität in Kayalıpınar (Türkei) entdeckten sie Keilschrifttafeln, die erstmalig den hethitischen Namen des Ortes nennen: Samuha. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt Professorin Dr. Elisabeth Rieken vom Marburger Fachgebiet Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft und Keltologie bei ihrer kürzlich abgeschlossenen Bearbeitung der neuen Textfunde.

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Stunning new finds from Antikythera

A Greek and international team of divers and archaeologists has retrieved stunning new finds from an ancient Greek ship that sank more than 2,000 years ago off the remote island of Antikythera. The rescued antiquities include tableware, ship components, and a giant bronze spear that would have belonged to a life-sized warrior statue. 

WHOI Diving Safety Officer Edward O'Brien "spacewalks" in the Exosuit, suspended  from the Hellenic Navy vessel THETIS during the 2014 Return to Antikythera project  [Credit: Brett Seymour, Copyright: Return to Antikythera 2014] 

The Antikythera wreck was first discovered in 1900 by sponge divers who were blown off course by a storm. They subsequently recovered a spectacular haul of ancient treasure including bronze and marble statues, jewellery, furniture, luxury glassware, and the surprisingly complex Antikythera Mechanism. But they were forced to end their mission at the 55-meter-deep site after one diver died of the bends and two were paralyzed. Ever since, archaeologists have wondered if more treasure remains buried beneath the sea bed.

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Découverte d’un nouveau pré-Néandertalien en France : l’homme de Tourville-la-Rivière

Une équipe d’archéologues de l’Inrap a mis au jour, sur le site préhistorique de Tourville-la-Rivière (Seine-Maritime), les vestiges d’un pré-Néandertalien. Cette découverte fait aujourd’hui l’objet d’une publication dans la revue internationale PLOS ONE par un groupe de chercheurs du CNRS, de l’Inrap, de l’université nationale australienne, du Centre national de recherche sur l’évolution de l’Homme à Burgos (Espagne) et du département d’Anthropologie de l’université Washington à Saint Louis.

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Neolithic finds unearthed at Scilly Isles site

Archaeologists have discovered one of the largest hauls of Neolithic pottery in the south west on St Martin's in the Isles of Scilly. 

The Old Quay site on the edge of the sea at St Martin's  [Credit: The Cornishman] 

Thousands of pottery shards, dating back between 3,500 and 3,000 BC, have been uncovered thanks to a project run by volunteers. 

Reading University lecturer and archaeologist Dr Duncan Garrow headed the Stepping Stones project with Fraser Sturt, of Southampton University. 

Dr Garrow called the find of an age that preceded the Bronze Age "significant and intriguing ".

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Sardinian archaeologists find Bronze Age 'giant'

Archeologists working in Sardinia's southwestern region have uncovered a new 'giant', officials reported on Thursday. 

The newly discovered Bronze Age stone figure at the Monte Prama excavation site in Oristano [Credit: ANSA] 

Archaeologists from the Superintendency of Cagliari and Oristano and Cagliari and Sassari universities dug up another monumental sandstone giant at the Monte Prama excavation site in Oristano on Thursday morning. 

The Monte Prama site is home to the Giants of Monte Prama, ancient stone figures from the Bronze-age Nuragic civilization that were discovered en masse in the early 1970s.

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Prehistoric Stone Tools Evolved Independently Within Local Populations, Say Researchers

Suggestion challenges the traditional Out-of-Africa human migration theory for new stone tool introduction into Eurasia.

It wasn’t exclusively the arrival of new people from Africa with new technology that changed the stone tool repertoire of early humans in Eurasia a few hundred thousand years ago—it was local populations in different places and times gradually and independently wising up to a better industry on their own.

So suggests Daniel Adler, associate professor of Anthropology at the University of Connecticut, and colleagues based on a recently completed study in which the researchers examined thousands of stone artifacts recovered from Nor Geghi 1, an Armenian Southern Caucasus archaeological site that features preserved lava flows and artifact-bearing sediments dated to between 200,000 and 400,000 years ago.  The artifacts, dated at 325,000 – 335,000 years old, were a mix of two distinct stone tool technology traditions—bifacial tools, such as hand axes, which were common among early human populations during the Lower Paleolithic, andLevallois, a stone tool production method typically attributed to the Middle Stone Age in Africa and the Middle Paleolithic in Eurasia. The researchers argue that the coexistence of two technologies at Nor Geghi 1 provides the first clear evidence that local populations developed Levallois technology out of existing biface technology.

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Study shows early modern human settlement in Central Europe over 43,000 years ago

Early modern humans inhabited the region of what is today known as Austria around 43,500 years ago, living in an environment that was cold and steppe-like, according to a recent study. 

Philip Nigst and colleagues of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and other institutions analyzed stone tools and their context after a re-excavation of the famous Willendorf site in Austria, the site best known for the discovery in 1908 of the Venus of Willendorf figurine. Between 2006 and 2011 archaeologists uncovered an assemblage of 32 lithic artifacts and 23 faunal remains. The authors identified the tools as belonging to the Aurignacian culture, generally accepted as associated with modern humans. The researchers determined this through systematic morphological and technological analysis. They assign the artifacts to a very early archaeological horizon of modern human occupation.

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They weren’t wimps: how modern humans, like Neanderthals, braved the northern cold

Recent finds at Willendorf in Austria reveal that modern humans were living in cool steppe-like conditions some 43,500 years ago – and that their presence overlapped with that of Neanderthals for far longer than we thought. 

In 1908 the famously plump Venus of Willendorf, thought to be a symbol of fecundity, was discovered during an excavation near the Austrian town of Melk. The statuette, on display at the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna, has been dated to 30,000 years ago and is one of the world’s earliest examples of figurative art.

Now a team of archaeologists has dated a number of stone tools, excavated recently from the same site at the village of Willendorf, to 43,500 years ago. The multinational team, led by Dr Philip Nigst of the University of Cambridge, has identified the tools as belonging to the Aurignacian culture, generally accepted as indicative of modern human presence. 

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Divers sure of new finds from 'ancient computer' wreck

Athens - Archaeologists began on Monday using a revolutionary new deep sea diving suit to explore the ancient shipwreck where one of the most remarkable scientific objects of antiquity was found.

The so-called Antikythera Mechanism, a 2nd-century BC device known as the world's oldest computer, was discovered by sponge divers in 1900 off a remote Greek island in the Aegean.

The highly complex mechanism of up to 40 bronze cogs and gears was used by the ancient Greeks to track the cycles of the solar system. It took another 1 500 years for an astrological clock of similar sophistication to be made in Europe.

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Roadworks reveal ancient city in Western Greece

The construction works for the new motorway Ionia Odos, in Messolonghi, western Greece, led to an important archaeological discovery. 

The recently discovered archaeological site of Alikyrna near Missolonghi  in western Greece [Credit: Protothema] The archaeological site of Alikyrnas stretches to many acres and includes an entire ancient city near Aghios Thomas in Messolonghi. 

The Minister of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks Michael Chryssochoides visited the area and expressed his admiration for this great discovery. 

According to sources in the Greek media, the first findings suggest an ancient urban center which crosses over to the Ionia Odos construction site.

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New photos of Amphipolis Caryatids released

The two caryatids found at the Kasta Tomb in ancient Amphipolis were uncovered entirely by excavators, the ministry of Culture announced on Sunday. 

The Caryatids wear a long chiton and long fringed robe with rich folds  [Credit: Greek Ministry of Culture] 

The full height of each caryatid is 2.27 metres and they are wearing chitons - or full-length draped dresses, tied in the middle - and a long himation, or a shawl-like cover over their dress, with fringes and several folds. 

They are wearing kothornoi, resembling platform boots or shoes and best known for being worn by ancient Greek actors. Their shoes preserve traces of red and yellow pigments, while their toes are depicted in very fine detail.

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Naturfreunde schmelzen für Eisenzeit dahin: In Lehrte bald historisch-ökologische Bildung

DBU-Kurator Matthias Miersch überreichte den Bewilligungsbescheid über 150.000 Euro an den ersten Vorsitzenden der Naturfreunde Lehrte, Wilfried Helmreich. (© Anette Helmreich)

In der Eisenzeit stand die Eisenerz-Verhüttung auch in und um Hannover hoch im Kurs – und produzierte schon früh erste ökologische Krisen. Was diese historische Epoche mit der Gegenwart in Sachen nachhaltige Landwirtschaft, Imkerei und Forstwirtschaft trennt oder verbindet, wollen die Naturfreunde Lehrte in einem "Miniatur-Freilichtmuseum" aufzeigen und so ein "differenziertes Nachhaltigkeitsverständnis für Schüler der Sekundarstufen I und II wie für Jugendgruppen befördern".

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2,000 year old boomerang unearthed in France

The Gauls used boomerangs 2,000 years ago, according to archaeologists who have found a wooden curved stick on a beach in the northern French town of Cotentin. 

The Gallic "throwing stick" found at the site of Urville-Nacqueville  [Credit: Cyril Damourette] 

Boomerangs are usually associated with Australian aborigines but these amazing wooden weapons have been found in Egypt, apparently dating back 2,000 years, and in Europe - the oldest one, which was found in a cave in Poland, being 30,000 years old. 

They were apparently toys but now archaelogists have found what sems to be a 2,000-year-old boomerang on the beach at Cotentin and it was not used for play, Le Monde newspaper reports. 

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Fourth chamber likely at Amphipolis tomb

A high-ranking Ministry of Culture official told Greek news sources that the archaeologists who are currently clearing out the dirt from the third chamber in the Amphipolis tomb believe that a fourth chamber may exist. 

Meanwhile, the head of the excavation Katerina Peristeri told journalists that based on the findings so far, she believes the enigmatic tomb definitely dates back to the last quarter of the 4th century B.C.

 Mrs. Peristeri complained about colleagues who appear in the media claiming that the tomb may have been constructed in the Roman era. 

“The tomb is Macedonian. We have all the proof for that." said Mrs. Peristeri. "It’s futile for some people to say that it is Roman. I feel indignation against some colleagues of mine that speak to the TV channels, just for 5 minutes on prime time TV without knowing anything about the excavation.” 

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Greeks captivated by Alexander-era tomb at Amphipolis

Two sphinxes guard the entrance to the tomb at Amphipolis

The discovery of an enormous tomb in northern Greece, dating to the time of Alexander the Great of Macedonia, has enthused Greeks, distracting them from a dire economic crisis.

Who, they are asking, is buried within.

In early August, a team of Greek archaeologists led by Katerina Peristeri unearthed what officials say is the largest burial site ever to be discovered in the country. The mound is in ancient Amphipolis, a major city of the Macedonian kingdom, 100km (62 miles) east of Thessaloniki, Greece's second city.

The structure dates back to the late 4th Century BC and is 500m (1,600ft) wide, dwarfing the burial site of Alexander's father, Philip II, in Vergina, west of Thessaloniki.

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Prehistoric pit discovered on Coney Island beach

A box-like structure built from large stone slabs may have been used for bathing or cooking during the Bronze Age

Volunteers excavate the box-like archeological structure on Coney Island. The site may date back 4,000 years

Archaeologists have discovered signs of human habitation, possibly dating back 4,000 years, on Sligo’s Coney Island.

A box-like structure built from large stone slabs found on the island may have been used for bathing or cooking during the Bronze Age, experts believe. It has been excavated by a team led by Eamonn Kelly, director of Irish Antiquities at the National Museum.

The structure is thought to be part of a fulacht fiadh, a prehistoric trough or pit that was dug into the ground and filled with water. Stones, heated separated on an outdoor hearth, would be added to bring the water to boil.

Measuring about a metre long and 80cm wide, the structure was recently identified as an archaeological site by Ciaran Davis, an archaeology student at IT Sligo, and native of nearby Rosses Point, who alerted the museum.

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Letter from Ireland: Mystery of the Fulacht Fiadh

Versions of the same Bronze Age structure pop up all around Ireland and throughout the United Kingdom. Archaeologists, however, still have not agreed on their purpose.

On a typically misty morning in the west of Ireland, just outside the medieval town of Athenry, County Galway, archaeologist Declan Moore opens the trunk of his car and invites me to pull on a pair of Wellingtons. “Believe me, you’ll need them,” he assures me as we cross the parking lot and hop a fence into a nearby field.

Moore is taking me to visit an unexcavated fulacht fiadh (pronounced FULL-ahk FEE-add), or fulachtaí fia in plural, the most common type of prehistoric archaeological site in Ireland. Better known as a “burnt mound” in the neighboring United Kingdom, where they are also found, there are nearly 6,000 recorded fulacht fiadh sites dotted around Ireland alone. As we trudge through the wet and soggy field, Moore points out a small stream. “They are usually found near water or in marshy areas, so this is a prime location,” he explains.


When we arrive at the site, Moore shows me the basic features of a fulacht fiadh—a horseshoe-shaped mound of soil and rocks surrounding a depression big enough to park a small car in. Moore climbs the four-and-a-half-foot mound and quickly wipes away some of the soil to expose the layer of stones. He then points to the depression. “If we were to excavate, we’d find a trough dug into the ground there,” he says. It takes us only 15 minutes to fully explore the still-buried site.

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Die genetische Herkunft der Europäer

Schädel der ungefähr 7.000 Jahre alten Bäuerin aus Stuttgart, Deutschland. Es fehlt der untere rechte Backenzahn, aus dem die DNA gewonnen wurde. (Bild: Joanna Drath, Universität Tübingen)

Forscher vergleichen Genome ursprünglicher Jäger und Sammler sowie früher Bauern mit denen heutiger Menschen: die Spuren der Europäer führen zu Ahnen aus drei Populationen

Der Beginn der Landwirtschaft und die Domestizierung wilder Tiere, die vor rund 11.000 Jahren im Nahen Osten ihren Anfang nahmen, hatten einen enormen Einfluss auf das Leben der Menschen. Jäger und Sammler wurden vielerorts von sesshaften Bauern abgelöst. Die Populationen wuchsen und schufen so die Voraussetzungen für das Entstehen größerer Städte und komplexer Gesellschaften. Die archäologischen Nachweise legen nahe, dass sich der Übergang zur bäuerlichen Lebensweise in Mitteleuropa vor rund 7.500 Jahren vollzog, gleichzeitig mit dem Auftreten der Linienbandkeramik, der ersten jungsteinzeitlichen Kultur in Europa.

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'Emmets Post' excavation blog - weeks 1-2

When Olaf mentioned that he was going to be digging a round barrow in its entirety on the edge of Dartmoor in August, I did everything I could think of in order to secure a place on the crew. This is an incredible and very rare chance to investigate what hopefully may yet turn out to be a relatively undisturbed Bronze Age ring cairn/round barrow c. 2000 BC or so. I have been interested – to an almost manic degree – in British prehistory and specifically megaliths for more than 20 years now. I am a self-confessed stone circle, longbarrow, standing stone, stone row and rock art-loving fanatic and proud of it.

Long before I began a career in archaeology in the late 1990s I travelled to England with fanciful ideas of our prehistoric ancestors and only a handful of sites under my belt to ponder. I had been to Avebury and Stonehenge and the like but, amazing as these sites are, they were covered in throngs of people. I first went to Dartmoor in the summer of 1997 and fell madly in love with every aspect of this lonely and enchanted land, and this love drove me around much of the rest of the British Isles to see more. Being back in Dartmoor for a month has given me the chance to hike around the Moor in the evenings to new and ever more mysterious sites. This place is really a paradise for hikers and lovers of the prehistoric past. This near-obsession back in Canada at the dawn of the new millennium drove me to pursue a degree and career in archaeology. Almost 20 years later I am back here again been given the chance to fully investigate something from the period, people and type of place that turned me into an archaeologist in the first place.

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Murder 'comes naturally' to chimpanzees

Groups of male chimpanzees patrol the borders of their territory in single file

A major study suggests that killing among chimpanzees results from normal competition, not human interference.

Apart from humans, chimpanzees are the only primates known to gang up on their neighbours with lethal results - but primatologists have long disagreed about the underlying reasons.

One proposal was that human activity, including destroying habitats and providing food, increased aggression.

But the new findings, published in Nature, suggest this is not the case.

Instead, murder rates in different chimp communities simply reflect the numerical make-up of the local population.

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Stonehenge: children revealed to be the metal workers of prehistoric Britain

Research suggests children wrecked their eyesight embellishing weapons and jewellery with minute scraps of gold

Daggers at the Wiltshire Heritage Museum, Devizes, discovered in 1808 in Bush Barrow, Salisbury Plain, the richest and most important bronze age grave ever excavated in Britain. Photograph: Sam Frost for the Guardian

Scientists believe that some 4,000 years ago children as young as 10 wrecked their eyesight embellishing weapons and jewellery with minute scraps of gold, creating dazzling pieces so fine that the detail can barely be picked out with the naked eye. They were some of the best prehistoric metal work ever found in Britain.

The children may have been working in Brittany, where the largest concentration of daggers decorated with the tiny gold pins have been found, but the finest of all was excavated more than 200 years ago from a burial mound half a mile from Stonehenge.

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Europeans drawn from three ancient 'tribes'

The modern European gene pool was formed when three ancient populations mixed within the last 7,000 years, Nature journal reports.

Blue-eyed, swarthy hunters mingled with brown-eyed, pale skinned farmers as the latter swept into Europe from the Near East.

But another, mysterious population with Siberian affinities also contributed to the genetic landscape of the continent.

The findings are based on analysis of genomes from nine ancient Europeans.

Agriculture originated in the Near East - in modern Syria, Iraq and Israel - before expanding into Europe around 7,500 years ago.

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