Skeletal evidence shows abrupt worldwide increase in birth rate during Neolithic period
In an important new study assessing the demographic impact of the shift from foraging to farming, anthropologists use evidence from 60 prehistoric American cemeteries to prove that the invention of agriculture led to a significant worldwide increase in birth rate.
Discussing the shifts in the demographic patterns before and after the introduction of agriculture in Europe at the end of the Stone Age, Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, France) writes, "The signal of a demographic change we detected … is characterized by an abrupt 20 to 30 percent increase, over 500 to 700 years, in the proportion of immature skeletons."
Applied archaeology update Archaeologist in New Orleans Finds a Way to Help the Living
"That's a finger bone."
Shannon Lee Dawdy kneeled in the forlorn Holt graveyard to touch a thimble-size bone poking up out of the cracked dirt. She examined it without revulsion, with the fascination of a scientist and with the sadness of someone who loves New Orleans.
Dr. Dawdy, a 38-year-old assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago, is one of the more unusual relief workers among the thousands who have come to the devastated expanses of Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. She is officially embedded with the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a liaison to the state's historic preservation office.
Her mission is to try to keep the rebuilding of New Orleans from destroying what is left of its past treasures and current culture.
Some interesting points, main one being that in order to bring residents back, some things need to be conserved that might ordinarily just be cleaned up and discarded, such as items left at graves, because it connects living residents to their past and gives them some roots in that location.
Fort Littleton acquired by Archaeology Conservancy
Aside from a bronze plaque and a roadside historical marker, there is no visible evidence that a hillock outside this tiny Fulton County village was a frontline outpost in the war between the empires of France and Great Britain for domination of the North American continent.
It is what might lie below the surface that remains to be discovered by archaeologists, who will have the opportunity to explore the site of Fort Littleton now that it has been purchased by the Archaeology Conservancy.
"Fort Littleton never saw any actual battles, but it was garrisoned much longer than the other forts in the chain," said Andrew Stout, the Eastern Regional director of the conservancy. Begun in 1755, it was originally garrisoned by 75 provincial troops and might still have been used by the British as a communications post as late as the Revolutionary War, Stout said.
Rodents to the rescue Mole family uncovers Roman villa
A group of busy moles has been credited with helping archaeologists find a Roman villa in Gloucestershire.
Fragments of ancient tiles from the villa were found in molehills and are believed to have been pushed above ground by the creatures' burrowing.
Channel 4's Time Team archaeology programme was alerted and went on to uncover an Anglo-Romano villa thought to date back to the third century AD.
Experts believe the villa could hold considerable historic importance.
This is supposedly a fairly common way to locate buried remains, though to be honest, this is the first time I've actually seen of such a case.
Online articles The new issue of PalArch is out with two articles on things archaeological:
Vandecruys, G. 2006. The Sphinx: dramatising data . and dating. - PalArch,
series archaeology of Egypt/Egyptology 1, 1: 1-13.
Veldmeijer, A.J. Ed. 2006. The PalArch Foundation's Proceedings of the
Annual Flemish-Netherlands Egyptologists Meeting, 2005. - PalArch
proceedings 1, 3: 1-12.
Both freely downloadable.