Dr. Coz Cozzi cut an imposing figure as he explained his slides of nautical archaeology to a rapt audience at the Lemon Bay Historical Society. The nautical archaeologist was chosen by Mote Marine Laboratory to head up a world-class shipwreck research program.
Mote Marine plans to conduct shipwreck research throughout southwest Florida beginning in Charlotte Harbor, but including Tampa and Sarasota bays and the Florida Keys, all of which have a rich maritime past.
The Mote Marine archaeologist exuded a contagious enthusiasm for his subject; our submerged past. He ticked through hundreds of years of history, as he explained his methods of retrieving lost history from underwater ruins with a magnetometer and a side scan sonar. A magnetometer detects the presence of iron, and a side scan sonar finds objects that jut up from the bottom.
Hundreds of archaeology sites in Gainesville vulnerable to destruction 4/12/2004
There is history right below your feet.
Scott Mitchell collections Manager for Florida Archaeology at Museum of Natural History. He says there are hundreds of archaeology sites in Gainesville in addition to many more that people probably aren't aware of across Alachua County. The bad news is these sites are vunerable to an array of destruction. Mitchell explains three major types of destruction. The first type of destruction is natural causes such as erosion, the second is the development and growth, and the third is illicit digging for private market sales. Alachua County most commonly experiences the second type, development.
Roman Forum's oldest church to unveil its treasures
ROME -- Buried for 12 centuries by a landslide and closed to the public for 24 years, the oldest Christian church in the Roman Forum is being opened for a limited time, offering glimpses of Byzantine frescoes that changed scholars' views of medieval art.
Guided tours of the Santa Maria Antiqua, nestled under the imperial palaces of Rome's Palatine Hill, begin this weekend and continue through May while restoration efforts continue.
Werner Schmid, a restoration expert working on the project, said Thursday the tours will give visitors a chance to see frescoes from the mid-6th century to the mid-8th century.
More on the ancient pet cat
Oldest known evidence of cat taming found in Cyprus, researchers report in Science
Earliest pet cats may have lived long before rise of Egyptian civilization
This news release is also available in French.
Around 9,500 years ago, a human, a cat and a rich variety of offerings were buried together on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Scientists have now discovered the remains of this burial, believed to be the oldest known evidence of a special friendship between humans and cats.
The findings appear in a Brevia article in the 9 April 2004 issue of the journal Science, published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.
The ancient Egyptians are generally thought to have been the first to domesticate cats, breeding them to produce a distinct new species around 4,000 to 3,900 years ago. Although researchers have long suspected that humans began taming wild cats much earlier, they had limited evidence supporting this idea.
Antiquites Market update French seize Niger artefacts
French customs officials say they have seized a large number of prehistoric artefacts they believe were pillaged from archaeological sites in Niger.
The items were found in the baggage of a passenger who arrived on a flight from Niger's capital, Niamey, at the end of last month.
They included more than 5,000 stone arrowheads and 90 carved stone artefacts, dating back 5,000 years.
More from China Village boasts recorded history of 6,000 years
Chinese archaeologists have discovered a village which boasts a recorded history of more than 6,000 years in central China's Henan province.
Yuyang Village, located 22 km northwest of Anyang city, in northern Henan, records the chronological development process of Chinese history, constituted by locals, in a period of over 6,000 years with vivid, colorful relics, said Tang Jigen, head of the Anyang Work Station under the Archaeological Research Institute ofthe Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Tang said most of the relic items spotted in the village were fragments of daily life used by common folks, like cooking utensils, pottery jars, and other kinds of pottery and porcelain ware.
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Archaeologists also found objects and clues reflecting the period of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea (1950-1953). . .
Is that what it was called. Rather like The War of Northern Aggression.
Or rather, "The wa-ah of Nawthun Aggression".
And now from Ireland Researchers identify new archaeological sites on north coast
Researchers from the University of Ulster's Centre for Maritime Archaeology have begun a major study to identify new archaeological sites of interest on the north coast and Rathlin Island.
The archaeologists have already uncovered 600 new sites in a study at Strangford Lough and are hopeful that their latest project will be as successful.
Rosemary McConkey, an Archaeologist from the School of Environmental Sciences, said: “Although the north coast is a very different environment than the sheltered waters of Strangford, preliminary results have revealed a rich archaeological record along these shores. These include prehistoric settlement sites, such as the sand dunes around the Bann, where recent excavation uncovered new collections of flint tools and pottery.
'Sensational' discoveries unearthed in Roman armoury
ARCHAEOLOGISTS in Germany have described a Roman weapons dump discovered near the city of Göttingen as a "sensational find" that is yielding valuable military artefacts.
Excavations on the site have just started, but more than 250 metal objects, most of them weapons or tools used by Roman legionnaires in 10BC, have been found. They include several rare examples of a soldier’s axe, an all-purpose Swiss army knife of its day.
"We are particularly pleased with these: they are a rare find because they were usually so prized by the legionnaires that they rarely left their sides," said the chief archaeologist, Klaus Grote. "It is a sensational find for research purposes."