NORWELL, Mass. --
The discovery of a possible American Indian settlement as much as 7,500 years old has halted work on a new water treatment plant.
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"The site has, as we say, integrity. There are portions of the site beneath the surface that are not disturbed," Cook told The Patriot Ledger of Quincy. "It's pretty clear to us that one thing this site offers, because of the hearth, the possibility of radiocarbon dating, which can help to better define the period."
Particularly important because of the apparent "integrity" of the site and the fact that it contains "features" -- the storage pit and heart structures. Sites this old in North American often consist only of scatters of animal bones and/or stone tools. That much or all of it are undisturbed makes this a significant find.
Good/Bad/Indifferent: DNA Results Could ID Columbus
Jan. 21, 2004 — The long-standing cultural dispute over Christopher Columbus' final resting place could take a new turn as further DNA tests are carried out by an Italian university.
DNA technology will be applied by the University of Pavia's laboratories to fragments of bones now kept in a box in the university's library. The remains come from Santo Domingo, one of Columbus' debated burial places.
Columbus has been celebrated and decried over the years (the latter particularly recently) but his final resting place has been a mystery. This isn't strictly archaeology, but it represents one of the more fun aspects of advances in DNA technology.