You are here: Home » News » Featured » Skulls on stakes in Sweden date to the Mesolithic

Archaeological excavations in 2009–2011 at Kanaljorden in the town of Motala, Östergötland in central Sweden unearthed a unique Mesolithic site with ceremonial depositions of human crania in a former lake.

The human skulls have been part of a complex ceremony that involved their display on stakes and deposition in water.

The skulls have now been C14 dated to 6212-5717 cal BC and two dates on worked wood have also been obtained (5972-5675 cal BC), making them 7-8000 year old.

Read the rest of the article...

 

Archaeologists unearth hundreds of Bronze and Iron Age sites

Hundreds of Bronze and Iron Age sites have been unearthed by archaeologists in part of the Highlands.

The £100,000 archaeology project has revealed 300 sites over West Caithness.

The project, funded by Baillie Wind Farm, involved Scotland's first large-scale survey using LiDAR - light detection and ranging - technology.

The equipment can map ancient sites in fine detail and reveals 3D images of their shapes, size and content.

As part of the project a cluster of seven Neolithic cairns will be unveiled to the public for the first time.

Read the rest of this article...

'Prehistoric' antler hammerhead and human skeleton unearthed in Burren

A leading archaeologist has described the discovery of what is a likely “prehistoric” antler hammerhead at a Burren cave as hugely exciting.

Dr Marion Dowd of IT Sligo said a 10-day excavation at a small cave on Moneen Mountain outside Ballyvaughan, Co Clare, also produced the “poignant” discovery of a skeleton of a teenager thought to have sought shelter in the cave.

Carbon dating found the skeletal bones date from the 16th or 17th century.

The skull of the skeleton and the antler hammerhead were discovered by cavers last June, prompting the National Museum Service to fund the excavation led by Dr Dowd last August.

Read the rest of this article...

Antler hammerhead found in cave ‘likely to be prehistoric’

An antler hammerhead found in a Burren cave is "likely to be prehistoric".

Along with the "hugely exciting" hammerhead find, archaeologists also came across the skeleton of a teenager who carbon dating suggest sought shelter in the cave sometime in the 16th or 17th century.

The skull of the skeleton and the hammerhead were discovered by cavers last June in a small cave on Moneen Mountain outside Ballyvaughan, Co Clare.

The National Museum Service then carried out a 10-day excavation last August.

Presenting the findings in Tubber last night, lead archaeologist Marion Dowd of IT Sligo said the cave was used in the Bronze Age about 3,000 years ago, and again at the end of the Medieval period.

Read the rest of this article...

Googling the past: How I uncovered prehistoric remains from my office

Archaeology is the study of the remains of the past but has long been predatory on the sciences and their ever-growing technologies. I was brought up as a student in 1970s Britain, when we learned of the wonderful revelations to be made through aerial viewing of almost any human landscape.

Today we have moved on to add, first, satellite imagery to our arsenal, and now the astonishing virtual globes any one of us can use to explore many of the most remote and difficult places in the world. This was never clearer to me than during the past two years, when I began finding thousands of prehistoric sites in the Middle East … from my desk in Perth, Australia, using Google Earth.

Archaeology from the air

Aerial reconnaissance for archaeology – Aerial Archaeology – has been an indispensable part of fieldwork in most of north-western Europe for decades. Hundreds of flights are dedicated annually to archaeology, which provide access to millions of aerial photographs. It would not be overstating it to say this technique has been transformational for the discipline.

Read the rest of this article...

Neolithic horned cairns near Caithness wind farm scanned

An image created by AOC Archaeology of one of the seven horned cairns

Continue reading

A wind farm developer has paid for archaeologists to scan a cluster of seven Neolithic horned cairns near to where 21 turbines will be erected.

The 5,000 year old structures at Hill of Shebster, near Thurso, in Caithness, were used for burials and rituals.

Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) equipment was used to map the cairns.

Edinburgh-based AOC Archaeology also recorded 300 new Bronze and Iron Age sites in the £100,000 project funded by Baillie Wind Farm.

The new sites included hut circle settlements.

Read the rest of this article...

 

Remarkable Russian Petroglyphs

Artefacts are usually displayed in museums but sometimes there are some that just can’t be put on exhibition – as is the case with one that is hidden deep in the Russian forests.

It was known that there were rock carvings on some islands in Lake Kanozero, and Jan Magne Gjerde, project manager at the Tromsø University Museum, went out there to document them as part of his doctoral work however, when he and his colleagues had completed their work, the number of known petroglyphs had risen from 200 to over 1,000.

“I still get chills up my spine when I talk about it because it was such an emotional experience finding these carvings,” says Gjerde. “No matter how much I explore over the next 50 years, chances are close to zero that I’ll ever find anything comparable.”

Read the rest of this article...

Were Some Neandertals Brown-Eyed Girls?

In museums around the world, reproductions of Neandertals sport striking blue or green eyes, pale skin, and gingery hair. Now new DNA analysis suggests that two of the most closely studied Neandertals—a pair of females from Croatia—were actually brown-eyed girls, with brunette tresses and tawny skin to match. The results could help shed new light on the evolution of the family that includes both modern humans and Neandertals, who died out some 30,000 years ago.

The study has provoked deep skepticism among several outside researchers, however, who criticize numerous aspects of its methodology. The results also run contrary to other genetic evidence and to a long-held hypothesis that Neandertals, who lived mostly in northern latitudes, must've had light skin to get enough vitamin D.

But even scientists who have doubts about the new research say it still provides food for thought. "Neandertals occupied a wide geographical range," says John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who was not involved in the study and who is also studying the physical traits of ancient humans, so "it's likely that they were variable in pigmentation. ... We are really at the first step."

Read the rest of this article...

Beer and Bling in Iron Age Europe

If you wanted to get ahead in Iron-Age Central Europe you would use a strategy that still works today -- dress to impress and throw parties with free alcohol. 

Collaborating with the State Monuments Office in Tübingen, Germany, UW-Milwaukee Professor Bettina Arnold has excavated Iron-Age burial mounds in an area of southwest Germany where pre-Roman Celtic people lived [Credit: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee]

Pre-Roman Celtic people practiced what archaeologist Bettina Arnold calls "competitive feasting," in which people vying for social and political status tried to outdo one another through power partying. 

Artifacts recovered from two 2,600-year-old Celtic burial mounds in southwest Germany, including items for personal adornment and vessels for alcohol, offer a glimpse of how these people lived in a time before written records were kept.

Read the rest of this article...

'Like welcoming back an old friend' — 3,000-year-old Carpow logboat goes on public display at Perth Museum

More than a decade after its discovery, one of the finest archaeological finds ever to be made in Perthshire has finally gone on public exhibition.

Visitors are expected to flock to the Perth Museum and Art Gallery to view the 3,000-year-old Carpow logboat.

It has taken years of painstaking restoration and conservation to ready Scotland's oldest example of one of the first known boats for display.

The logboat made its long-awaited return to Perthshire last month, when it was manoeuvred into Perth Museum in sections. It has now been made whole again and takes centre stage in a major new exhibition on the boat's story and its Bronze Age origins, which opened on Monday.

Read the rest of this article...

Neolithic pottery at Culduthel section of Inverness flood scheme

 

Grooved Neolithic pottery found at the flood relief site

Neolithic pottery excavated ahead of work on a £16m flood scheme has added to archaeologists' understanding of a city's past.

Pits containing fragments of ceramics were recovered from the site in the Culduthel area of Inverness.
Archaeologists were brought in ahead of construction of phase three of the city's south west flood relief channel.

Iron Age weapons and a Romano-British brooch have been found previously at other sites nearby.

Read the rest of this article...

'World's Oldest Temple' May Have Been Cosmopolitan Center

Ancient blades made of volcanic rock that were discovered at what may be the world's oldest temple suggest that the site in Turkey was the hub of a pilgrimage  that attracted a cosmopolitan group of people some 11,000 years ago.

The researchers matched up about 130 of the blades, which would have been used as tools, with their source volcanoes, finding people would have come from far and wide to congregate at the ancient temple site, Göbekli Tepe, in southern Turkey. The blades are made of obsidian, a volcanic glass rich with silica, which forms when lava cools quickly.

The research was presented in February at the 7th International Conference on the Chipped and Ground Stone Industries of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic in Barcelona, Spain.

Read the rest of this article...

Was Human Evolution Caused by Climate Change?

According to a paper published in Science, models of how animal and plant distributions are affected by climate change may also explain aspects of human evolution

The approach takes existing knowledge of the geographical spread of other species through the warming and cooling of the ice ages to provide a model that can be applied to human origins.

"No one has applied this knowledge to humans before," said Dr John Stewart, lead author on the paper and researcher at Bournemouth University.

Read the rest of this article...

Peak archaeological project wins award

A PEAK District project has won a top archaeological award.

The investigation of the iron age hillfort at Fin Cop was named Research Excavation of the Year at the prestigious Current Archaeology Awards 2012.

The Heritage Lottery-funded community excavation at the site overlooking Monsal Dale by Longstone Local History Group and Bakewell-based Archaeological Research Services revealed unexpected evidence of a massacre of women and children 2,000 years ago.

Members of the public and subscribers to Current Archaeology magazine voted for Fin Cop after an article appeared in the magazine written by Dr Clive Waddington of Archaeological Research Services.

Read the rest of this article...

Archaeologists Return to Excavate Major 3,300-Year-Old Bronze Age Site in England

Some of the world's greatest archaeological finds don't emerge as a result of planned investigation. They were accidental. They were stumbled upon. And such was literally the case in 1982 when Francis Pryor, MBE, was in the midst of conducting a survey of dykes in the Peterborough area in England for English Heritage, a public commission responsible for managing historic buildings.   "I was walking back to the pub," says Pryor, "when I caught my foot on a large piece of wood.  When I picked up the piece of wood, I looked at it, and then when I spotted the axe marks, about an inch and one-half wide, I knew that it had to be Bronze Age........" For the following several weeks, Pryor and his team proceeded to excavate along the side of a dyke, in the area where the initial wood sample had been found, and recovered hundreds of additional pieces of similar timber.  Read the rest of the article...

'Red Deer Cave people' may be new species of human

The fossilised remains of stone age people recovered from two caves in south west China may belong to a new species of human that survived until around the dawn of agriculture.

The partial skulls and other bone fragments, which are from at least four individuals and are between 14,300 and 11,500 years old, have an extraordinary mix of primitive and modern anatomical features that stunned the researchers who found them.

Named the Red Deer Cave people, after their apparent penchant for home-cooked venison, they are the most recent human remains found anywhere in the world that do not closely resemble modern humans.

Read the rest of this article...

Iron Age murder mystery as CT scan shows British man from 100AD was beaten, strangled, then beheaded in 'pagan ritual'

Archaeologists have solved a 1900-year-old 'cold case' mystery - using a medical CT scanner to scan the head of an Iron Age murder victim.

The preserved head of the second century Briton - known as The Worsley Man due to his location near Salford - was found in a peat bog in 1958.

The scan shows he as bludgeoned over the head, garrotted and then beheaded - leading archaeologists to suspect he was sacrificed.

Read the rest of this article...

Project launched to build replica of boat

A project to build a replica of the Dover Bronze Age boat has been launched.

The archaeological research project, called Boat 1550 BC, brings together seven partners from the UK, Belgium and France to build a replica of the 3,500-year-old boat which was discovered below Townwall Street, during the building of the A20, 20 years ago (pictured below).

Canterbury Archaeological Trust and Canterbury Christ Church University are playing key roles in the two-and-a-half-year long project, which culminates with the sea-launch of the boat and a major touring exhibition.

Apart from serious academic research, the project is intended to capture the popular imagination of those living in the Transmanche region, especially children and young people, and inspire them to explore our shared ancient past and common heritage.

Read the rest of this article...

Ancient calculator on display at Archaeological museum

An exhibition entitled "The wreck of Antikythera - The ship, the treasures, the Mechanism", will open at the Archaeological Museum in Athens on April 5 and will run for a year.

 

This is the first time that all the findings from the Antikythera wreck, dated between 60-50 BC, will be displayed together, while some of the items have never been displayed before.

 

Sometime before Easter 1900, Elias Stadiatis, a Greek sponge diver, discovered the wreck of an ancient cargo ship off Antikythera Island at a depth of 42 m (138 ft). Sponge divers retrieved several statues and other artifacts from the site.

Read the rest of this article...

Neanderthaler hatten Sinn für Symbolik

Ob der Adler schon vor 90.000 Jahren als Machtsymbol angesehen wurde oder ob der Greifvogel für unsere Urzeit-Vettern eine andere Bedeutung hatte, wird man wohl nie sicher sagen können. Jedenfalls dienten die Könige der Lüfte wohl kaum als Nahrung - das meinen jetzt zwei Wissenschaftler aus Kanada und Frankreich nachweisen zu können.

Read the rest of this article...

Worsley Man: Hospital scanner probes Iron Age bog death

Bryan Sitch, curator of archaeology at the museum, said it now appeared the man had been beaten about the head, garrotted and then beheaded

 

The head of an Iron Age man who died almost 2,000 years ago has been scanned in a Manchester hospital to shed light on how he died.

Worsley Man is thought to have lived around 100 AD when Romans occupied much of Britain.
Since its discovery in a Salford peat bog in 1958, the head has been kept at Manchester Museum on Oxford Road.

The scans at the Manchester Children's Hospital have now revealed more details about his violent death.

Read the rest of this article...

Kent’s Prehistoric Pottery on Show

Wessex Archaeology’s London & South East office is hosting the Prehistoric Ceramics Research Group’s Spring Meeting.

Join us on 28th April 2012 to hear about new discoveries and directions in the study of Kent’s prehistoric pottery.

The audience will be introduced to recent discoveries from the East Kent Access Road, one of the biggest excavations in the country over the last few years (Link) as well as from the Cliffs End, Thanet Earth and Swalecliffe projects. Some of the Country’s leading experts will explore the pivotal role Kent played in the period.

There will be a chance to have a hands-on look at key groups of pottery from the various schemes and to hear and engage in some lively debate and catch up on current thinking. There will also be a chance to view some exciting recent Beaker and Early Bronze Age finds (around 4000 years old).

Read the rest of this article...

Bronze Age ring in Hampshire declared treasure

A Bronze Age gold ring found in a Hampshire field has been declared as treasure by a coroner.

The 3,000-year-old double ring was found by Winchester artist Alan Cracknell in February 2010 in a field at Headbourne Worthy.

He was using a metal detector and thought the artefact was an old bottle top when he first picked it up.

Read the rest of this article...

Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel

The tricky thing about the wheel is not conceiving of a cylinder rolling on its edge. It's figuring out how to connect a stable, stationary platform to that cylinder

Wheels are the archetype of a primitive, caveman-level technology. But in fact, they're so ingenious that it took until 3500 B.C. for someone to invent them. By that time — it was the Bronze Age — humans were already casting metal alloys, constructing canals and sailboats, and even designing complex musical instruments such as harps.

The tricky thing about the wheel is not conceiving of a cylinder rolling on its edge. It's figuring out how to connect a stable, stationary platform to that cylinder.

Read the rest of this article...

Rise of the citizen scientist

Sometimes, even the cleverest of scientists could benefit from a helping hand. Be it the need for an extra pair of eyes, volunteers for large experiments or fundraising, crowd sourcing is becoming an ever popular way of getting the public involved with scientific endeavours.

Just this week it was announced that archaeologists at the famous Bronze Age site Flag Fen, Cambridgeshire would be inviting members of the public to get on board with the excavations.

The site, an ancient causeway, must be kept constantly wet to preserve the fragile timbers. By opening the dig up to the public, the team will be able to completely excavate the site before it eventually dries out as a result of climate change.

The project will also gain a much-needed funding injection, as each volunteer will need to provide a hefty £125 donation.

Read the rest of this article...

The Science and Art of Neandertal Teeth [Slide Show]

The fossilized teeth of the Neandertals are scientifically informative--and pleasing to the eye

Of all the human ancestors represented in the fossil record, Neandertals are the best known. A significant proportion of what scientists have learned about the Neandertals is based on a set of remains that the Croatian paleontologist Dragutin Gorjanović-Kramberger recovered between 1899 and 1905 from a rock shelter in the town of Krapina, some 60 kilometers north of Zagreb. The Krapina sample dates to between 120,000 and 130,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene epoch, and includes multiple representatives of nearly every bone and tooth of the body.

Early on, Gorjanović-Kramberger took an interest in the teeth from Krapina, noting anomalies such as taurodontism, in which the pulp chamber expands into the roots. First described from the Krapina remains, taurodontism turns out to be common in Neandertals, although not exclusive to them. Since Gorjanović's time, studies of the more than 275 Neandertal teeth from Krapina have yielded key insights into Neandertal life history.

rchaeologists digging up the remains of Manchester’s grimmest Victorian slum near the new Co-op building have helped Dean Kirby make a surprising discovery – and bring to light a long-forgotten family tragedy ... IT might just be a hole in the ground to any Tom, Dick or Harry passing in the street above. But this was the not-so-sweet home of my long-lost Victorian forefather, William Kirby. He was a farm labourer who fled County Mayo in the west of Ireland following the potato famine and became a fishmonger in ‘Angel Meadow’ – Manchester’s filthiest and most violent slum.

Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1487068_digging-up-the-past-archaeologists-reveal-grim-secrets-of-angel-meadow-manchesters-filthiest-slum?rss=yes

rchaeologists digging up the remains of Manchester’s grimmest Victorian slum near the new Co-op building have helped Dean Kirby make a surprising discovery – and bring to light a long-forgotten family tragedy ... IT might just be a hole in the ground to any Tom, Dick or Harry passing in the street above. But this was the not-so-sweet home of my long-lost Victorian forefather, William Kirby. He was a farm labourer who fled County Mayo in the west of Ireland following the potato famine and became a fishmonger in ‘Angel Meadow’ – Manchester’s filthiest and most violent slum.

Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1487068_digging-up-the-past-archaeologists-reveal-grim-secrets-of-angel-meadow-manchesters-filthiest-slum?rss=yes

rchaeologists digging up the remains of Manchester’s grimmest Victorian slum near the new Co-op building have helped Dean Kirby make a surprising discovery – and bring to light a long-forgotten family tragedy ... IT might just be a hole in the ground to any Tom, Dick or Harry passing in the street above. But this was the not-so-sweet home of my long-lost Victorian forefather, William Kirby. He was a farm labourer who fled County Mayo in the west of Ireland following the potato famine and became a fishmonger in ‘Angel Meadow’ – Manchester’s filthiest and most violent slum.

Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1487068_digging-up-the-past-archaeologists-reveal-grim-secrets-of-angel-meadow-manchesters-filthiest-slum?rss=yes

Archaeologists digging up the remains of Manchester’s grimmest Victorian slum near the new Co-op building have helped Dean Kirby make a surprising discovery – and bring to light a long-forgotten family tragedy ... IT might just be a hole in the ground to any Tom, Dick or Harry passing in the street above. But this was the not-so-sweet home of my long-lost Victorian forefather, William Kirby. He was a farm labourer who fled County Mayo in the west of Ireland following the potato famine and became a fishmonger in ‘Angel Meadow’ – Manchester’s filthiest and most violent slum.

Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1487068_digging-up-the-past-archaeologists-reveal-grim-secrets-of-angel-meadow-manchesters-filthiest-slum?rss=yes

Archaeologists digging up the remains of Manchester’s grimmest Victorian slum near the new Co-op building have helped Dean Kirby make a surprising discovery – and bring to light a long-forgotten family tragedy ... IT might just be a hole in the ground to any Tom, Dick or Harry passing in the street above. But this was the not-so-sweet home of my long-lost Victorian forefather, William Kirby. He was a farm labourer who fled County Mayo in the west of Ireland following the potato famine and became a fishmonger in ‘Angel Meadow’ – Manchester’s filthiest and most violent slum.

Read more at: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1487068_digging-up-the-past-archaeologists-reveal-grim-secrets-of-angel-meadow-manchesters-filthiest-slum?rss=yes

Read the rest of this article...

Un site Néolithique dans la vallée de la Seine

Ce secteur de Pont-sur-Seine fait l’objet d’un suivi archéologique attentif depuis l’ouverture d’une carrière au milieu des années 1990. En 2009, les archéologues de l’Inrap ont fouillé une surface de quatre hectares et mis au jour un village néolithique exceptionnel par la densité de l’occupation, la monumentalité des bâtiments et le caractère inédit de certaines architectures.
Watch the video...

Flag Fen archaeology idea brings in public to dig deep

 

 

The exposed "causeway" must be watered constantly in order to preserve it

Renowned Bronze Age archaeological site Flag Fen in Cambridgeshire will host a first-of-its-kind dig that makes the public integral to the project.

The idea combines both "crowdfunding" and "crowdsourcing"; for contributions starting at £125, donors can get their hands very dirty and dig for a day.

The venture's website will also stream live video from the dig as well as host lectures and interviews with experts.

Read the rest of this article...

Radical theory of first Americans places Stone Age Europeans in Delmarva 20,000 years ago

When the crew of the Virginia scallop trawler Cinmar hauled a mastodon tusk onto the deck in 1970, another oddity dropped out of the net: a dark, tapered stone blade, nearly eight inches long and still sharp.

Forty years later, this rediscovered prehistoric slasher has reopened debate on a radical theory about who the first Americans were and when they got here.

Archaeologists have long held that North America remained unpopulated until about 15,000 years ago, when Siberian people walked or boated into Alaska and then moved down the West Coast.

Read the rest of this article...

Tools May Have Been First Money

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Hand axes, small handheld stone tools used by ancient humans, could have served as the first commodity in the human world thanks to their durability and utility.

The axes may have been traded between human groups and would have served as a social cue to others, Mimi Lam, a researcher from the University of British Columbia, suggested in her talk at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting here on Feb. 18.

Read the rest of this article...

De nouvelles révélations sur Stonehenge

On sait aujourd'hui que le gigantesque site britannique de Stonehenge, l'un des plus importants de la fin du Néolithique, a été construit en plusieurs étapes, de 3000 à 1600 avant J.-C. environ. Les techniques employées pour son édification surpassent en ingéniosité celles utilisées durant la préhistoire. Mais une question demeure : comment des hommes de cette époque ont-ils pu transporter puis disposer les pierres géantes qui composent cet ensemble mégalithique ? De récentes enquêtes ouvrent de nouvelles perspectives sur sa construction et sa finalité. Mené par l'archéologue Mike Parker Pearson de l'université de Sheffield, le projet Stonehenge Riverside s'efforce d'apporter du nouveau en explorant non seulement l'intérieur mais aussi les environs de ce site de la fin du Néolithique.

Watch the video...

Also available in German "Neues aus Stonehenge"

Oetzi the Iceman's nuclear genome gives new insights

 "The Iceman" has been the subject of constant study for more than 20 years

New clues have emerged in what could be described as the world's oldest murder case: that of Oetzi the "Iceman", whose 5,300-year-old body was discovered frozen in the Italian Alps in 1991.

Oetzi's full genome has now been reported in Nature Communications.
It reveals that he had brown eyes, "O" blood type, was lactose intolerant, and was predisposed to heart disease.

They also show him to be the first documented case of infection by a Lyme disease bacterium.

Read the rest of this article...

Scientists find clue to Neanderthal extinction

Washington: An international team of researchers, studying ancient DNA, have suggested that most Neanderthals in Europe already were largely extinct 50,000 years ago - long before modern humans first arrived in the continent.

The findings contradict the long-held notion that Neanderthal populations were stable in Europe for hundreds of thousands of years until modern Homo sapiens arrived.

The scientists say the Neanderthal human species already had died off as early as 50,000 years ago, but a small group recovered and survived for another 10,000 years in areas of central and western Europe before modern humans entered the picture.

Read the rest of this article...

DNA reveals Neanderthal extinction clues

Neanderthals were already on the verge of extinction in Europe by the time modern humans arrived on the scene, a study suggests.

DNA analysis suggests most Neanderthals in western Europe died out as early as 50,000 years ago - thousands of years before our own species appeared.

A small group of Neanderthals then recolonised parts of Europe, surviving for 10,000 years before vanishing.

Read the rest of this article...

Theory and method in the prehistoric archaeology of Central Europe

International Conference
„Theory and method in the prehistoric archaeology of Central Europe“
24th-26th October 2012
Mikulov – Czech Republic

Conference objectives:

• discuss modern (and post-modern!) developments in current world archaeology
• bridging the national and linguistic differences – English language
• making sense of systematic research processes, scientific method and the approaches of the social sciences, and our part­ner disciplines in cultural anthropology

Find Call for Sessions here and feel free to send your proposal to theory_and_method(@)yahoo.com until the end of March 2012

Further information...

European Neandertals were on the verge of extinction even before the arrival of modern humans

New findings from an international team of researchers show that most neandertals in Europe died off around 50,000 years ago. The previously held view of a Europe populated by a stable neandertal population for hundreds of thousands of years up until modern humans arrived must therefore be revised.

This new perspective on the neandertals comes from a study of ancient DNA published today in Molecular Biology and Evolution. The results indicate that most neandertals in Europe died off as early as 50,000 years ago. After that, a small group of neandertals recolonised central and western Europe, where they survived for another 10,000 years before modern humans entered the picture. The study is the result of an international project led by Swedish and Spanish researchers in Uppsala, Stockholm and Madrid.

"The fact that neandertals in Europe were nearly extinct, but then recovered, and that all this took place long before they came into contact with modern humans came as a complete surprise to us. This indicates that the neandertals may have been more sensitive to the dramatic climate changes that took place in the last Ice Age than was previously thought", says Love Dalén, associate professor at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm.


Read the rest of this article...

Western Neanderthals already a fading light before arrival of modern humans

Newly published results from an international team of researchers show that most of an earlier population of Neanderthals in Europe had already died off around 50,000 years ago.

Previously, the established view was of a stable Neanderthal population in Europe from nearly 250,000 to 30,000 years ago and then they disappeared from the archaeological record after modern humans arrived, however this new research suggests the accepted paradigm must be revised.

A new perspective

This new perspective on the Neanderthals comes from a study of ancient DNA published today in Molecular Biology and Evolution. The results indicate that most European Neanderthals had died off as early as 50,000 years ago. After which, a smaller group of Neanderthals recolonised central and western Europe, where they survived until modern humans entered the picture.

Read the rest of this article...

Bronze Age hoard declared treasure

A "significant discovery" of a Bronze Age artefacts in Carmarthenshire have been recorded as treasure. 

The museum says the hoard shows the type of weapons and dress items worn nearly 3,000 years ago [Credit: NNC]

The hoard of 13 bronze items found in a field at St Ishmael, near Kidwelly, last June, included a bracelet, fragments of a spearhead and an axe. 


The artefacts are thought to have been buried around 1000 to 800 BC, and were declared treasure by the Carmarthenshire coroner on Friday.

Read the rest of this article...

Scientists revive sacred sounds

Ancient peoples around the world seem to have designed their sacred spaces not only for ceremonial sights, but for ceremonial sounds as well, archaeologists say. In Peru, for example, a 3,000-year-old Andean ceremonial center's design was optimized for the blare of a priest's conch-shell trumpet. In Mexico, the Chichen Itza temple site features a staircase that can make hand claps sound like the chirp of a quetzal bird. And one of the best-known ancient monuments of all, England's Stonehenge, has a layout that's acoustically pleasing as well as astronomically significant. The big question is, did ancient societies really have acoustics in mind when they built their monuments? Read the rest of this article...

Neolithic settlers colonized Spain from N. Africa

The Neolithic period, around 10,000 BC in the Middle East, a time when the nomadic economy became permanent, founded on farming and breeding, could have arrived on the Iberian peninsula through a third route of expansion - North Africa. This is according to a study carried out by the Autonomous University of Madrid, the University of Seville and the Higher Council of Scientific Research (CSIC) and other Spanish, Portuguese and American universities. The study has been published in the journal "Quaternary Research".  Stone Circle in Cromeleque dos Almendres [Credit: ANSA] Until now, two routes had been traditionally accepted: one identifying a first expansion of the northern margin of the Mediterranean sea, and the second, by sea, which reached the Balearic islands from Cyprus. The new research, though, highlights a third route from North Africa, which would identify the Neolithic characteristics that are found in the south of the Iberian peninsula.  Read the rest of this article...

Solent's Stone Age village 'had modern high street links'

Work on an 8,000-year-old Stone Age settlement under the surface of the Solent in Hampshire is throwing up evidence of clear parallels of the modern "high street", archaeologists say.

After 30 years of excavating the area around Bouldnor Cliff, a boatyard was uncovered last summer, which teams have been working on ever since.

Since The Hampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology spotted a swamped prehistoric forest in the 1980s, the Stone Age village was found by chance at the end of the last century.

Divers taking part in a routine survey spotted a lobster cleaning out its burrow on the seabed and to their surprise the animal was throwing out dozens of pieces of worked flint - which turned out to be the first sign of the village.

Read the rest of this article...

‘Welsh Stonehenge’ Halts Work on Windfarm

A multimillion pound windfarm could be scrapped after a Stone Age monument was spotted on the site using Google Earth.

Work to install the 15 wind turbines had already began after experts said they were unable to find anything of historical interest on the mountaintop in Carmarthenshire, Wales.

But a weekend rambler stumbled upon a row of stones while trekking across the site on the mountain and realised they were of historical interest.

Archaeologists were called in and discovered the stones on Mynydd Y Betws were between 3,500 and 5,000 years old and could have been part of an ancient site of worship.

Read the rest of this article...

'Digger nearly destroyed Betws Mountain's Neolithic stone row'

THE man who discovered the Neolithic stone row on Betws Mountain has told how the historic find came within 20 minutes of being destroyed.

Freelance archaeologist Dr Sandy Gerrard said a digger working on the construction of the 15-turbine MynyddyBetwswindfarm had to be halted in its tracks.

“In fairness to the developers they stopped work instantly – we have no criticism at all on that score,”
he told the Guardian.

“Asit is, the rowhas been cut in two places by the windfarm access road.

Read the rest of this article...

Neanderthals Used Red Ochre Pigment 250,000 Years Ago

We have seen cave paintings where the splashy red pigment was used to create images by ancient humans in present-day Europe tens of thousands of years ago. Scientists have said that ancient humans used it generally in Europe about 40,000 - 60,000 years ago, in West Asia as long ago as 100,000 years, and by the ancients in Africa as long ago as 200,000-250,000 years. Now, a new study suggests that Neanderthals were also using it in the present-day Netherlands region of Europe as far back as 200,000-250,000 years ago, if not earlier.


The study, conducted by a team of scientists led by W. Roebroeks of Leiden University, examined and analyzed a sample of red material retrieved from excavations originally conducted during the 1980's at the Maastricht-Belvédère Neanderthal site in the Netherlands. The excavations exposed scatterings of well-preserved flint and bone artifacts that were produced in a river valley during the Middle Pleistocene full interglacial period. During the coarse of the excavation, soil samples were also collected, a typical procedure when excavating a site. Within the soil samples were traces of a reddish material. The samples were subjected to various forms of analyses and experimentation to study their physical properties. They identified the reddish material as hematite, a common mineral form of iron oxide that was used for pigmentation by prehistoric populations.

Read the rest of this article...

Time Team: Mary-Ann Ochota quits Channel 4 archaeological show

Time Team has been thrown into disarray after Mary-Ann Ochota became the second presenter to leave the Channel 4 archaeological programme. 

Mary-Ann Ochota, 30, who holds a master’s degree in archaeology and anthropology from Cambridge University, has left the show after a row with Prof Mick Aston, the archaeologist.

Her leaving the show comes after Prof Aston, 65, also quit the show after producers hired Ms Ochota, a former model, as the programme’s co-presenter with Tony Robinson.

Prof Ashton, who has been on the show for 19 years, said he had been left “really angry” by changes which led to the introduction of co-presenter and some archaeologists being axed.

Read the rest of this article...

Reply to my complaint to Channel 4 concerning Time Team Changes

As expected, a wishy-washy response - but the more people who write in, the better!

"Dear Mr Beard,

Thank you for contacting Channel 4 Viewer Enquiries regarding TIME TEAM.

We are sorry to hear that you are unhappy with the new format of the show and that Prof. Mick Aston has decided to leave. We are saddened by Mick 's decision to leave, he has been a fantastic member of the Time Team team and we wish him well in the future.

Please be assured your complaint has been logged and noted for the information of those responsible for our programming.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact us. We appreciate all feedback from our viewers; complimentary or otherwise.

Regards,

Doug Masterson

Channel 4 Viewer Enquiries"

Please take the time to send your own comments to Channel 4.  Use the link here...

See the original story " Mick Aston quits Time Team after producers hire former model co-presenter"...

Research: Neanderthal demise due to many influences, including cultural changes

Computer modeling shows interactions between Neanderthals and modern human ancestors

 As an ice age crept upon them thousands of years ago, Neanderthals and modern human ancestors expanded their territory ranges across Asia and Europe to adapt to the changing environment.

In the process, they encountered each other.

Although many anthropologists believe that modern humans ancestors "wiped out" Neanderthals, it's more likely that Neanderthals were integrated into the human gene pool thousands of years ago during the Upper Pleistocene era as cultural and climatic forces brought the two groups together, said Arizona State University Professor C. Michael Barton of the Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity and School of Human Evolution and Social Change.

"The traditional story in textbooks doesn't fit well with what we know about hunter-gatherers. For the most part, they don't like to go far from home. It's dangerous," Barton said.

Read the rest of this article...

Mick Aston quits Time Team after producers hire former model co-presenter

Mick Aston, the archeologist, has quit Time Team after producers hired a former model as the programme’s co-presenter. 

The 65-year-old, who has been on the show for 19 years, said he had been left “really angry” by changes which led to the introduction of co-presenter Mary-Ann Ochota and some archaeologists being axed.

In an interview with the magazine British Archaeology, Prof Aston, the show’s former site director, said: “The time had come to leave. I never made any money out of it, but a lot of my soul went into it. I feel really, really angry about it.”

He was responding to changes first proposed by producers at Channel 4 in late 2010, which included a new presenter to join Tony Robinson and decisions to “cut down the informative stuff about the archaeology”.

Read the rest of this article...

Click here to contact Channel 4 to tell them what you think of their decision.

Stonehenge as you've never seen it

Archaeologists reveal a new way of viewing Stonehenge using Google Earth software

Millions of people have used Google Earth's geo-modelling software to take a tour of the moon, Mars, foreign countries, or – let's be honest – to compare their homes with those of their neighbours. But now a new project developed by Bournemouth University academics is giving surfers access to a virtual prehistoric landscape: Stonehenge.

The World Heritage site near Salisbury is now more accessible than ever, archaeologists claim, thanks to Google's Under-the-Earth: Seeing Beneath Stonehenge project. Their last few years of findings, combined with the search giant's technology, allows surfers to visit the Neolithic village of Durrington Walls, to scout around prehistoric houses, to see reconstructions of Bluestonehenge at the end of the Stonehenge Avenue and to explore the great timber monument called the Southern Circle. The sites look as they would have appeared more than 4,000 years ago – and all from the comfort of your desk.

Read the rest of this article...

Ancient Greek Pills Found in Greek Shipwreck

In 130 BC, a ship fashioned from the wood of walnut trees, bulging with medicines and Syrian glassware, sank off the coast of Tuscany, Italy. Archaeologists found its precious load 20 years ago and now, for the first time, archaeobotanists have been able to examine and analyse pills that were prepared by the physicians of ancient Greece.


DNA analyses show that each millennia-old tablet is a mixture of more than 10 different plant extracts, from hibiscus to celery.

“Medicinal plants have been identified before, but not a compound medicine, so this is really something new,” says Alain Touwaide, director of the Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions, which has the world’s largest digital database of medical manuscripts.

Read the rest of this article...

Did Early Humans Ride the Waves to Australia?

Everybody is African in origin. Barring a smattering of genes from Neanderthals and other archaic Asian forms, all our ancestors lived in the continent of Africa until 150,000 years ago. Some time after that, say the genes, one group of Africans somehow became so good at exploiting their environment that they (we!) expanded across all of Africa and began to spill out of the continent into Asia and Europe, invading new ecological niches and driving their competitors extinct.

There is plenty of dispute about what gave these people such an advantage—language, some other form of mental ingenuity, or the collective knowledge that comes from exchange and specialization—but there is also disagreement about when the exodus began. For a long time, scientists had assumed a gradual expansion of African people through Sinai into both Europe and Asia. Then, bizarrely, it became clear from both genetics and archaeology that Europe was peopled later (after 40,000 years ago) than Australia (before 50,000 years ago).

Read the rest of this article...

Archaeologists and pagans alike glory in the Brodgar complex

Archaeologists are notoriously nervous of attributing ritual significance to anything (the old joke used to be that if you found an artefact and couldn't identify it, it had to have ritual significance), yet they still like to do so whenever possible. I used to work on a site in the mid-1980s – a hill fort in Gloucestershire – where items of potential religious note occasionally turned up (a horse skull buried at the entrance, for example) and this was always cause for some excitement, and also some gnashing of teeth at the prospect of other people who weren't archaeologists getting excited about it ("And now I suppose we'll have druids turning up").

The Brodgar complex has, however, got everyone excited. It ticks all the boxes that make archaeologists, other academics, lay historians and pagans jump up and down. Its age is significant: it's around 800 years older than Stonehenge (although lately, having had to do some research into ancient Britain, I've been exercised by just how widely dates for sites vary, so perhaps some caution is called for). Pottery found at Stonehenge apparently originated in Orkney, or was modelled on pottery that did.

Read the rest of this article...

Study Reveals Possible New Key to Human Evolution

For the first five years of life, human cognition slowly comes to fruition, receiving and storing information and experience from the environment and enabling humans to advance beyond the capabilities of their primate cousins, according to a study published online in Genome Research.  An international team of researchers have identified extended synaptic development in the prefrontal cortex of the human brain that sheds new light on the evolution of human cognition and suggests another reason why the human family diverged from other primates 4-6 million years ago.

"Why can we absorb environmental information during infancy and childhood and develop intellectual skills that chimpanzees cannot?" asks study author Dr. Philipp Khaitovich of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. "What makes the human brain so special?"

Read the rest of this article...

Estonian students find Iron Age life smoky and cold

Ever wondered what it was like to endure an Iron Age winter?


Five students in the small Baltic state of Estonia, who have abandoned modern conveniences for a week in a replica wooden hut built on the site of an ancient hill fort, have discovered that Iron Age accommodation was mainly cold, dark and smoky.

"You can't heat and be in the building and after dark there is no light," said Kristiina Paavel, 24, one of the students.

Read the rest of this article...

Stonehenge Precursor Found? Island Complex Predates Famous Site

On an island off Britain's northern tip, new discoveries suggest a huge Stone Age ritual complex is older than Stonehenge.

But age is only the half of it. Researchers say the site may have in fact been the original model for Stonehenge and other later, better-known British complexes to the south.

First discovered in 2002, the waterside site—called the Ness of Brodgar ("Brodgar promontory")—lies on Mainland, the largest of Scotland's Orkney Islands (map).
Read the rest of this article...

Arabia the First Stop for Modern Humans Out of Africa, Suggests New Study

Questions surrounding when and where early modern humans first migrated from Africa to populate the rest of the world have long been a focus of debate and study among scientists, where genetic research has played a key role. Now, recent genetic research study results have been released by an international team of scientists. The research, published January 26 by Cell Press in the American Journal of Human Genetics, suggests that modern humans settled first in Arabia more than 60,000 years ago on their way out through the Horn of Africa.  
Says senior study author Dr. Luisa Pereira of the University of Porto in Portugal (IPATIMUP): "A major unanswered question regarding the dispersal of modern humans around the world concerns the geographical site of the first steps out of Africa. One popular model predicts that the early stages of the dispersal took place across the Red Sea to southern Arabia, but direct genetic evidence has been thin on the ground."

Read the rest of this article...

The forgotten Mound of Down

There are plenty of drumlins in County Down - but have you heard of the Mound of Down? 

If not, that is probably because it has been hidden from public view by trees and gorse for decades.

But work is now under way to expose this fortification which could be about 1,000 years old.

Tim Campbell, director of the St Patrick Centre in Downpatrick, said it was one of the largest megalithic hill forts in western Europe.

Read the rest of this article...

Archaeologists Excavate Ancient Populonia

A team of archaeologists and students excavate the remains of a major Etruscan center in Italy.

A team of archaeologists, students and volunteers will return again during the summer of 2012 to investigate the remains of a major Etruscan port city that straddles the Mediterranean coast of Tuscany, Italy. Located near the Italian town of Piombino, it features one of the most important necropolises in the country, as well as an acropolis and a history that goes back to Etruscan settlers around 900 B.C.E. and a Bronze Age culture that dates back to about 1200 B.C.E. The ancient site is known today as Populonia, a city that was for centuries a prominent Mediterranean center for iron smelting and trade.

The "main objective is to fill as many of the gaps as possible in our knowledge of the history of Populonia and its territory, from the late Etruscan period to the late Roman age", reports the team leadership. Co-led by Andrea Camilli (Superintendence for Archaeological Heritage of Tuscany), Giandomenico De Tommaso (University of Florence), and Carolina Megale (Archeodig Project), they intend to focus their investigation on a section of the site's lower city that is still intact, where they have identified evidence of a late Roman building and, beneath that, a part of the Etruscan necropolis.
Read the rest of this article...

Archaeology Courses at the Oxford Experience 2012

The Oxford Experience Summer School

1 July to 11 August 2012

The 2012 Oxford Experience Programme is now online.

The Oxford Experience is a residential summer school held at the college of Christ Church, University of Oxford.

The programme consists of 6 weeks of courses and participants attend for one or more weeks.
It offers a choice of twelve seminars each week over a period of five weeks. Participants do not need any formal qualifications to take part, just an interest in their chosen subject and a desire to meet like-minded people.

You can also find details of the various archaeology courses offered at Oxford Experience here...

Underwater archaeology: Hunt for the ancient mariner

Armed with high-tech methods, researchers are scouring the Aegean Sea for the world's oldest shipwrecks.

Brendan Foley peels his wetsuit to the waist and perches on the side of an inflatable boat as it skims across the sea just north of the island of Crete. At his feet are the dripping remains of a vase that moments earlier had been resting on the sea floor, its home for more than a millennium. “It's our best day so far,” he says of his dive that morning. “We've discovered two ancient shipwrecks.”

Foley, a marine archaeologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, and his colleagues at Greece's Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities in Athens have spent the day diving near the cliffs of the tiny island of Dia in the eastern Mediterranean. They have identified two clusters of pottery dating from the first century BC and fifth century AD. Together with other remains that the team has discovered on the island's submerged slopes, the pots reveal that for centuries Greek, Roman and Byzantine traders used Dia as a refuge during storms, when they couldn't safely reach Crete.

Read the rest of this article...

Neanderthals used ochre much earlier than previously thought

Scientists have uncovered evidences that show Neanderthals were using red paint up to 250,000 years ago - thousands of years earlier than previously thought. 


Traces of the paint, made from ochre, were dug up in the Netherlands and dated to a quarter of a million years ago. 

Scientists are upto finding out what the sub-species of humans did with it back then although it is often considered a sign of symbolic behaviour such as artwork and body painting. 

Read the rest of this article...

Facebook in our Genes?

A new study indicates that social networking is an integral part of humankind's nature, carried down from ancient humans who lived tens of thousands of years ago.

This was Hadza land, a type of rugged African landscape that we have all seen in pictures and movies about the African Serengeti. Coren Apicella and her research assistants were frequently on the move, traveling the region by Land Cruiser, struggling to cross mud-drenched trails. At one location, they had to lay felled trees on the ground in order to advance, and at another point, they had to flee a horde of elephants. But it all came with the territory. They were studying a nomadic people called the Hadza, or Hadzabe, an ethnic group of people in north-central Tanzania, living around Lake Eyasi in the central Rift Valley and in the neighboring Serengeti Plateau. The Hadza people number less than 1,000 in total population. Roaming over 4,000 square kilometers of the African landscape, several hundred of them still live as hunter-gatherers, much as their ancestors lived tens of thousands of years ago before the invention of agriculture. Some consider them to be the last full-time hunter-gatherers in Africa. To Coren and other researchers, they offer an interesting case for ground-breaking research and discovery about the dynamics and evolution of social networking in the human family, one element that made modern humans what they are today.

Read the rest of this article...

Complex Fish Traps Over 7,500 Years Old Found in Russia

One might argue that the stone age technology among people living in Russia during the Mesolithic and Neolithic ages was relatively unimpressive. But the fishing equipment of a certain group living near present-day Moscow more than 7,500 years ago would be something to shout about, according to archaeologists.


An international team of archeologists, led by Ignacio Clemente, a researcher with the Spanish National Research Council, has discovered and documented an assemblage of fish seines and traps in the Dubna Basin near Moscow that are dated to be more than 7,500 years old. They say that the equipment, among the oldest found in Europe, displays a surprisingly advanced technical complexity. The finds illuminate the role of fishing among European settlements of the early Holocene (about 10,000 years ago), particularly where people did not practice agriculture until just before the advent of the Iron Age.

Read the rest of this article...

Neanderthals and their contemporaries engineered stone tools

New published research from anthropologists at the University of Kent has scientifically supported for the first time the long held theory that early human ancestors across Africa, Western Asia and Europe engineered their stone tools.

For over a century, anthropologists have debated the significance of a group of stone age artifacts manufactured by at least three prehistoric hominin species, including the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis). These artifacts, collectively known as ‘Levallois’, were manufactured across Europe, Western Asia and Africa as early as 300,000 years ago.

Levallois artifacts are flaked stone tools described by archaeologists as ‘prepared cores’ i.e. the stone core is shaped in a deliberate manner such that only after such specialised preparation could a prehistoric flintknapper remove a distinctive ‘Levallois flake’. Levallois flakes have long been suspected by researchers to be intentionally sought by prehistoric hominins for supposedly unique, standardised size and shape properties. However, such propositions were regarded as controversial by some, and in recent decades some researchers questioned whether Levallois tool production involved conscious, structured planning that resulted in predetermined, engineered products.


Read the rest of this article...

Modern flint expert 'reverse engineers' Neanderthal stone axes - and says our ancestors were clever, elegant craftsmen

Researchers at the University of Kent have recreated the processes Neanderthals used to produce sharp flint axes, and found that our ancestors were skilled engineers. 


A modern-day 'flintknapper' replicated the sharpening processes that Neanderthals used to create tools - a sort of modern 'reverse engineering' of ancient techniques in use by three kinds of early 'hominin' including Neanderthals as early as 300,000 years ago.

The researchers found that Neanderthals could shape 'elegant' stone tools - shaping them to be hard-wearing, easily sharpened and with a perfectly balanced centre of gravity.

Read the rest of this article...

Star Carr archaeologists given more than £1m in funding

rchaeologists excavating what they claim is Britain's oldest house have secured more than £1m in funding.


The circular structure at Star Carr near Scarborough was found in 2008 and dates from 8,500BC.

Archaeologists from the Universities of Manchester and York say the site is deteriorating due to environmental changes.

The European Research Council has given them £1.23m to finish the work before information from the site is lost.

Read the rest of this article...

Seeing beneath Stonehenge revealed

Two new 21st century inventions are helping us to understand and visit the wonders of Stonehenge from the comfort of our own homes. ‘Google Under-the-Earth’ is an extension of the well known ‘Google Earth’ and adds archaeological layers to the base levels.

‘Seeing beneath Stonehenge’ has been developed as part of the Stonehenge Riverside Project, using data gather by the combined team from the Universities of Sheffield, Manchester, Bristol, Southampton and London.

Google Under-the-Earth: Seeing Beneath Stonehenge is the first application of its kind to transport users around a virtual prehistoric landscape, exploring the magnificent and internationally important monument.

Read the rest of this article...

Bronze Age boat to ride the waves

A modern day boat builder is being challenged to recreate one of the oldest boats found in western Europe, dating to around 1500 BCE.

The prehistoric boat will be built using ancient tools including bronze axes at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall in Falmouth, as part of a collaborative project devised by the University of Exeter.

Sewn plank boats

The construction will be overseen by a professional boat builder as they begin building their ‘sewn-plank boat’ in April.

Read the rest of this article...

Archaeologists uncover oldest evidence of ploughing in Czech lands

Archaeologists in Prague-Bubenec have uncovered a site with the oldest traces of ploughing and a field in the Czech Lands, that date back to the mid-4th millennium B.C., Archaeological Institute spokeswoman Jana Marikova has told CTK.


The research in two streets, completed late last year, also uncovered a rich evidence on the area's population in later periods, from the Celtic people and German tribes to the early medieval inhabitants, Marikova said.

Probably the most important find is the system of four approximately parallel lines that are nine metres long, ten metres wide and eight centimeters deep, which archeologists say, are furrows.

Experts believe the furrows date back to the earlier phase of Copper Age, i.e. between 3800 and 3500 B.C.

Read the rest of this article...

Ancient Greek sites could soon be available for rent

In a move bound to leave many Greeks and scholars aghast, Greece's culture ministry said Tuesday it will open up some of the debt-stricken country's most-cherished archaeological sites to advertising firms and other ventures.

The ministry says the move is a common-sense way of helping "facilitate" access to the country's ancient Greek ruins, and money generated would fund the upkeep and monitoring of sites. The first site to be opened would be the Acropolis.

Archaeologists, however, have for decades slammed such an initiative as sacrilege.

The culture ministry said any renting of ancient Greek sites would be subject to strict conditions.

Read the rest of this article...

Maritime Museum in Falmouth to build Bronze Age ship

Academics from the University of Exeter, overseen by a professional boat builder, are to reconstruct a Bronze Age ship.

The ship will be built of oak planks stitched together with flexible yew stems at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth.

The aim is to see how seaworthy the vessels were when they were in use 4,000 years ago.

Building is expected to start in April and last five months.

Read the rest of this article...

Must Farm Bronze Age site: Archaeologists at work

Over three thousand years ago the inhabitants of a small southeast fenland community were skilled boat builders, enjoyed fishing, and practised a method of eel trapping still in use today in East Anglia. Mark Knight, senior project officer for Cambridge Archaeological Unit, said: “It’s archaeology like it’s never been preserved before.” The incredibly detailed picture of  Bronze Age life discovered on the River Nene, at Must Farm quarry, Whittlesey, has everything from well preserved boats, spears and swords to clothing and jewellery as well as carved bowls and pots still full of  food, making it one of the most significant sites of its kind ever found in Britain. View the rest of this article

Archaeologist objects - Achill-Henge may be built over prehistoric site - VIDEO Read more: http://www.irishcentral.com/news/news_from_ireland/Archaeologist-objects---Achill-Henge-may-be-built-over-prehistoric-site---VIDEO

Theresa McDonald, Managing Director of the Achill Archaeological Field School, voiced her objections this week over the Achill-Henge which was built at Pollagh in November by Joe McNamara. The archaeologist believes that a prehistoric site could be less than half a kilometer from where Achill-Henge is now standing.

Speaking to The Mayo News, McDonald said, “We’re worried that there is an archaeological site, mostly prehistoric, less than half a kilometre from the site. It is mostly covered by bog, as are a lot of sites in Ireland. There was also an old railway line from Slieve Mor going through the site of the so-called ‘henge’ to Purteen Harbour, that’s gone now because of the unauthorised development.”

The Achill-Henge was constructed in November by architect Joe McNamara and resembles the famous Stonehenge structure.

Read the rest of this article...

Archaeologists ready for Bronze Age boat build

The processes behind building the oldest boat ever found in Western Europe will be investigated by a team of modern- day maritime experts.

Archaeologists from the University of Exeter will lead the project at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth as they attempt to rebuild a sewn-plank boat, examples of which date to around 2000 BC. The Bronze Age vessels, which measured up to 16 metres in length, are thought to have been unique to England and Wales.

"Because none of the boats have ever been found as complete boats, this project will seek to understand how they were constructed, how to steer such a long boat, measure how fast it can go, understand how the crew used paddles, as sails were not evident, and how watertight it is," said Professor Robert Van de Noort, an archaeologist at the University of Exeter.


Read the rest of this article...

Meet the Contenders for Earliest Modern Human

Paleoanthropologists agree that modern humans evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago, yet the fossil evidence for the earliest examples of Homo sapiens is scarce. One problem is the difficulty in recognizing true modern humans in the fossil record: At this time, many of the fossils thought to be early members of our species possess a mix of modern and primitive traits. For some paleoanthropologists, it means our species once had a greater range of physical variation than we do today. For others, it means more than one species of Homo may have lived in Africa at this time, sharing some traits in common.

Despite the challenges of identifying early humans, there are several candidates for the earliest known members of our species. Here’s a look at some of the top contenders.

Read the rest of this article...

Star Carr excavations enter exciting new phase

A rchaeologists at the University of York have secured major European funding to carry out sophisticated new research at one of Europe’s most important Early Mesolithic sites.


A team led by Dr Nicky Milner has won a €1.5 million grant from the European Research Council to develop a high-resolution approach to understanding how hunter-gatherers adapted to climatic and environmental change between 10,000 and 8,000 BC at Star Carr in North Yorkshire.

Last year a team of archaeologists, from York and the University of Manchester, discovered Britain’s earliest surviving house. The house dates to at least 9,000 BC – when Britain was part of continental Europe. The research team unearthed the 3.5 metres circular structure next to an ancient lake at the site, near Scarborough, which archaeologists say is comparable in importance to Stonehenge. They also excavated a well preserved 11,000 year-old tree trunk with its bark still intact and the earliest evidence of carpentry in Europe.

Read the rest of this article...

Archaeologists get £1m funding boost to carry out research at Stone Age Star Carr site

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have secured more than £1 million in funding to delve deeper into the history of Britain’s earliest surviving house discovered in North Yorkshire, writes Daniel Birch.


A team of archaeologists from the universities of York and Manchester helped unearth the house at Star Carr, a Stone Age site, near Scarborough, in 2010.

The wooden house, which is 3.5 metres wide, predates the house previously thought to be Britain's oldest house in Howick, Northumberland, by at least 500 years.

Read the rest of this article...

It's Official: Stonehenge Stones Were Moved 160 Miles

Some of the volcanic bluestones in the inner ring of Stonehenge officially match an outcrop in Wales that's 160 miles (257 kilometers) from the world-famous site, geologists announced this week. (See Wales pictures.)

The discovery leaves two big ideas standing about how the massive pieces of the monument arrived at Salisbury Plain: entirely by human hand, or partly by glacier.

As it looks today, 5,000-year-old Stonehenge has an outer ring of 20- to 30-ton sandstone blocks and an inner ring and horseshoe of 3- to 5-ton volcanic bluestone blocks. (See Stonehenge pictures.)

Read the rest of this article...