One of earliest farming sites in Europe discovered

University of Cincinnati research is revealing early farming in a former wetlands region that was largely cut off from Western researchers until recently. The UC collaboration with the Southern Albania Neolithic Archaeological Project (SANAP) will be presented April 20 at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA). 

UC students Kassi Bailey (yellow shirt), Michael Crusham (blue shirt), and Kathleen Forste (red shirt) at work on the excavation [Credit: Image courtesy of University of Cincinnati]

Susan Allen, a professor in the UC Department of Anthropology who co-directs SANAP, says she and co-director Ilirjan Gjipali of the Albanian Institute of Archaeology created the project in order to address a gap not only in Albanian archaeology, but in the archaeology in Eastern Europe as a whole, by focusing attention on the initial transition to farming in the region. 

"For Albania, there has been a significant gap in documenting the Early Neolithic (EN), the earliest phase of farming in the region," explains Allen. "While several EN sites were excavated in Albania in the '70s and '80s, plant and animal remains - the keys to exploring early farming - were not recovered from the sites, and sites were not dated with the use of radiocarbon techniques," Allen says.

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Penlee Museum shows Bronze Age necklace Penwith lunula

 

 

The lunula was believed to have been found in the Gwithian area

A Bronze Age necklace found in Cornwall in the 18th Century has returned to the county after being housed at the British Museum for more than 150 years.

The necklace, known as Penwith lunula, has been loaned to the Penlee House Gallery and Museum in Penzance.

The crescent-shaped gold collar is thought to date back to the early Bronze Age - possibly to 2500 BC.

It was discovered in the Gwithian area of the county in 1783 and recorded by local man John Price.

Alison Bevan, director of the Penlee, said: "I had butterflies as it was put on display.

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How I traced my ancestry back to the Stone Age

I recently had a genetic test to find out more about where my ancestors came from. The results confirmed what I already knew - I am from a family of European Jews. But there was also a surprise - a Neanderthal forebear.

In many families, there seems to be one person who is interested in genealogy. In my family, it's me. 

When I was 11, I conducted my very first interview with my grandmother, Ray Zall, who graciously answered all my questions about her childhood in Belarus.

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Favourite science writing: Sleeping with Neanderthals

Elizabeth Kolbert explores what enabled humans to take over the world, while our cousins are caged in zoos or long extinct

 

They were so similar to us that we desired them, producing half-Neanderthal, half-human children. Photograph: Nikola Solic/Reuters/Corbis

 

It helps that it's an utterly intriguing subject: what defines us as human? But really, Elizabeth Kolbert could make anything interesting, and this feature-length article, ostensibly about the attempt to sequence the Neanderthal genome, uses her trademark personal insight and riveting narrative style.

Kolbert so skillfully manages the tricky task of weaving several concurrent stories through the one feature, that the reader is hardly aware of the jumps in a long piece that flows without crossheads or text-breakouts. Through it, she includes a profile of palaeogeneticist Svante Pääbo, the unfolding genetic and developmental story of human evolution, and the creation of fast-throughput genetic analysis, all infused within the central philosophical and scientific question of what it means to be human. Why are we so special? What enabled us to take over the world while our cousins are caged in zoos or extinct?

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Ancient walking gets weirder

The simple act of walking continues to take strange detours among ancient human ancestors.

To wit, 1.5 million-year-old footprints excavated in Africa, initially thought to reflect a thoroughly modern walking style, were instead made by individuals that walked differently than people today do, researchers reported April 13 at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. And findings presented April 12 at the meeting revealed the surprisingly apelike qualities of foot fossils from a 2 million-year-old species that some researchers regard as the root of the Homo genus.

These reports come on the heels of evidence that a previously unknown member of the human evolutionary family 3.4 million years ago possessed a gorillalike grasping big toe and an ungainly stride (SN Online: 3/28/12).

Depth measurements of the African footprints, discovered at Kenya’s Ileret site, differ at 10 landmarks from the footprints of people who live in that area today, said graduate student Kevin Hatala of George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

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Ancient burial urns uncovered at St Albans King Harry Park site

Archaeologists have found an entrance to the Iron Age tribal capital of Verlamion, precursor to the Roman city of Verulamium, and five urns, several holding cremated remains, dating back 2,000 years.

The ancient items were discovered at former school playing fields on King Harry Lane, currently being transformed into 150 homes. 

One of the conditions of approval for the Linden Homes development was that archaeologists could investigate the site before it was built upon.

The urns have been dubbed King Harry one, two, three, four and five in honour of their burial location.

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Standards needed to record the mark of our ancestors

Jackson Njau, a co-director of field research at palaeontological sites in eastern Africa’s Olduvai Gorge, has written in the journal Science of the lack of agreement on interpreting marks on fossil bones and if they were made by stone tools or by biting animals.  This is leading to uncertainty over when exactly early hominids began using tools to kill and butcher animals — a fundamental step in human evolution.

“There’s really no solid, standard method of analysing these bones that is used by all researchers,” he said. “And there is no universal guide, nothing that is part of one’s training as a student, that tells you reliably how to judge one type of mark from another.”

A close-up of a fossilized zebra bone shows a variety of cuts and grooves, suggesting the difficulty of distinguishing marks made by stone tools from those made by animals. Image: Courtesy of Indiana University.

A standard approach

His Science Perspectives article, published in the April 6 2012  issue and entitled “Reading Pliocene Bones,” contends that the “way forward” is through further experimentation, integration of different disciplines to better understand the fossil record, and blind testing of bone samples by researchers and students.

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More on ancient burial urns found at St Albans

Archaeologists have found an entrance to the Iron Age tribal capital of Verlamion, precursor to the Roman city of Verulamium, and five urns, several holding cremated remains, dating back 2,000 years. 

CT scan image of the contents of one of the five urns [Credit: BMI Bath Clinic]

The ancient items were discovered at former school playing fields on King Harry Lane, currently being transformed into 150 homes. 

One of the conditions of approval for the Linden Homes development was that archaeologists could investigate the site before it was built upon.

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Slideshow: Roman and Iron Age finds at college

Roman remains have been discovered at an archaeological dig at a Cambridge theological college which is planning a £9 million extension.

A major project to update and create state-of-the-art teaching and living space at Ridley Hall meant archaeologists were drafted in to carry out a survey.

After removing the topsoil the experts from Access Cambridge Archaeology discovered the “tantalising possibilities” of a Roman settlement, and even some remains dating back 3,000 years to the Iron Age.

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Maritime Cornwall opens 2012 BC: Cornwall and the Sea in the Bronze Age exhibition

The Nebra Sky Disc, the oldest representation of the cosmos © Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt. Photo: Juraj Lipták

The National Maritime Museum Cornwall will display the 4500-year-old Nebra Sky Disc for the first time in its new exhibition, 2012 BC: Cornwall and the Sea in the Bronze Age.

A single bronze disc decorated with gold symbols that represent the sun, moon, stars and a boat, the Nebra Sky Disc is the world's oldest representation of the cosmos.

It reveals a prehistoric view of the world that before its discovery had never been known to exist, and has single-handedly reformed our understanding of ancient European history.

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Greece reopens Bronze Age site on Santorini island

Greece reopened on Wednesday the Bronze Age site of Akrotiri on the tourist island of Santorini, seven years after its roof collapsed, killing a British visitor.

Known as the "Pompeii of the Aegean", the prehistoric town was buried under thick layers of volcanic ash during an eruption 3,700 years ago that may have destroyed the Minoan civilisation in Crete to the south.
"One of the most significant archaeological sites in Greece and the world opened its gates again," said Deputy Culture and Tourism Minister Petros Alivizatos. "Akrotiri, which is now fully safe, will attract visitors and boost Greek tourism."

The site was closed down in 2005 after its roof collapsed killing a 45-year old Welsh tourist. A new roof made of steel and wood now shelters the settlement discovered by Greek archaeologists in 1967.

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Prehistoric buildings found on Skomer Island

A team of archaeologists have found "hidden" remains of prehistoric buildings and fields on Skomer Island, off the Pembrokeshire coast.

Archaeologists carried out a geophysical survey of the island to find out what's beneath the surface [Credit: BBC]

Using new technology, they "X-rayed" fields and found buried ditches and structures not visible on the ground.

Dr Toby Driver from the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales said they may date back 5,000 years.

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Playing with Fire

For many years it was believed that humans didn’t use fire until about 800,000 years ago. But two College of Arts & Sciences archaeologists have found evidence in South Africa of a man-made fire dating back 1.2 million years, the earliest such discovery. The finding by Francesco Berna and Paul Goldberg substantially pushes back the date that humans laid the first kindling. Berna and Goldberg’s research was published yesterday in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Knowing when man first made fire has huge implications for understanding how our species evolved. Once early man had flames at his command, he not only had a source of heat, but a means to cook food. By unlocking nutrients in food, cooking made for a much better diet that not only boosted overall health, but may have contributed to other modern human traits, such as increased brain size and pair bonding, as the prominent primatologist Richard Wrangham has argued. Berna and Goldberg’s discovery bolsters Wrangham’s theory that our evolutionary predecessor, Homo erectus, was building fires and cooking far sooner than was previously thought.

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Wiltshire Bronze Age artefacts put on show

Bronze Age items which were excavated in Wiltshire 200 years ago are to go on display in the county after spending recent years in a bank vault.

The Wiltshire Heritage Museum in Devizes, which had been at risk of closure, has been awarded a £370,000 lottery grant to create a new gallery.

The new Prehistoric Galleries will display Wiltshire's gold and amber finds dating back to before 2,000 BC.

Museum director David Dawson said he was "absolutely delighted".

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'Lucy' Lived Among Close Cousins: Discovery of Foot Fossil Confirms Two Human Ancestor Species Co-Existed

A team of scientists has announced the discovery of a 3.4 million-year-old partial foot from the Woranso-Mille area of the Afar region of Ethiopia. The fossil foot did not belong to a member of “Lucy’s” species, Australopithecus afarensis, the famous early human ancestor. Research on this new specimen indicates that more than one species of early human ancestor existed between 3 and 4 million years ago with different methods of locomotion.

The analysis will be published in the March 29, 2012 issue of the journal Nature.

The partial foot was found in February 2009 in an area locally known as Burtele.

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Ancient human ancestor had feet like an ape

A fossil discovered in Ethiopia suggests that humans' prehistoric relatives may have lived in the trees for a million years longer than was previously thought.

The find may be our first glimpse of a separate, extinct, branch of the human family, collectively called hominins. It also hints that there may have been several evolutionary paths leading to feet adapted for walking upright.

The fossil, a partial foot, was found in 3.4-million-year-old rocks at Woranso-Mille in the Afar region of Ethiopia. Bones of the hominin Australopithecus afarensis — the species to which the famous 'Lucy' skeleton belongs — have also been found in this location and from the same period.

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Record hoard of celtic coins found

 

The biggest hoard of celtic silver coins ever found in Switzerland has been unearthed in the village of Füllinsdorf, in the northwestern canton of Basel Country.

Announcing the find on Thursday, the cantonal archaeological department said it consisted of 293 silver coins, found scattered over an area of about 50 square metres only a few centimetres below the surface. However, cantonal archaeologist Reto Marti said they had probably originally been buried together.

The coins are small: about a centimetre across and weighing barely two grams. It is not known what they would have been worth.

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DNA traces cattle back to a small herd domesticated around 10,500 years ago

All cattle are descended from as few as 80 animals that were domesticated from wild ox in the Near East some 10,500 years ago, according to a new genetic study. 

Aurouchs reconstructed- Heck Cattle

An international team of scientists from the CNRS and National Museum of Natural History in France, the University of Mainz in Germany, and UCL in the UK were able to conduct the study by first extracting DNA from the bones of domestic cattle excavated in Iranian archaeological sites. These sites date to not long after the invention of farming and are in the region where cattle were first domesticated. 

The team examined how small differences in the DNA sequences of those ancient cattle, as well as cattle living today, could have arisen given different population histories. Using computer simulations they found that the DNA differences could only have arisen if a small number of animals, approximately 80, were domesticated from wild ox (aurochs).

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Archaeologists astounded by musical instrument find in Skye cave

ONE of the earliest stringed instrument ever found in Western Europe - dating to more than 2,300 years ago - has been discovered at an excavation on the Isle of Skye.

Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary for Culture Fiona Hyslop has revealed the small wooden fragment that it is believed comes from a lyre.

It has been burnt and broken, but the notches where strings would have been placed are easy to distinguish on the artefact.

Music archaeologists Graeme Lawson and John Purser studied the fragment which was discovered at High Pasture Cave, near the village of Torrin.

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Skye cave find western Europe's 'earliest string instrument'

 

The notched wood is believed to be the bridge of an ancient lyre

Archaeologists believe they have uncovered the remains of the earliest stringed instrument to be found so far in western Europe.

The small burnt and broken piece of carved piece of wood was found during an excavation in a cave on Skye.

Archaeologists said it was likely to be part of the bridge of a lyre dating to more than 2,300 years ago.

Music archaeologist Dr Graeme Lawson said the discovery marked a "step change" in music history.

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Europe's 'earliest string instrument' found

Archaeologists believe they have uncovered the remains of the earliest stringed instrument to be found so far in western Europe. 

The small burnt and broken piece of carved piece of wood was found during an excavation in a cave on Skye. 

Archaeologists said it was likely to be part of the bridge of a lyre dating to more than 2,300 years ago. 

Music archaeologist Dr Graeme Lawson said the discovery marked a "step change" in music history.

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Human hunting caused extinction of 'megafauna'

Australian scientists have concluded that human hunting caused the extinction of the ancient giant animals – or megafauna - that roamed the continent and vanished about 40,000 years ago.

A new study on the hotly-debated mystery, published in Science, blames humans rather than climate change for the demise of the massive plant-eating animals such as 300-kilogram kangaroos, birds that were twice the size of emus and a leopard-sized marsupial lion. Various theories have been promoted to explain the demise of the megafauna, including the use of fire and climate change.

"The debate really should be over now," said John Alroy, from Sydney's Macquarie University. "Hunting did it, end of story."

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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.

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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.

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'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.

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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.

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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.

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Neolithic horned cairns near Caithness wind farm scanned

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

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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.

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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.”

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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."

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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.

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'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.

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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.

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'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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Also available in German "Neues aus Stonehenge"