A medieval cemetery containing around 1,300 skeletons has been discovered in the central English city of Leicester, archaeologists said Tuesday.
The bones were found during a dig before the site is developed as part of a $630 million shopping mall.
University of Leicester archaeologists say the find promises to shed new light on the way people lived and died in the Middle Ages.
"We think, probably outside London, this must be one of the largest parish graveyards ever excavated," said Richard Buckley, director of University of Leicester Archaeology Services.
More here.
More construction finds Archaeologists advise moving prison after Christian relics found on site
The Antiquities Authority on Tuesday recommended the Meggido Prison be transferred to a new location, after the remains of an ancient church were discovered on the facility's grounds four months ago.
The Antiquities Authority made the recommendation on Tuesday at a meeting with President Moshe Katzav and Christian leaders at the excavation site.
An excavation team last year discovered a mosaic floor on the prison grounds adorned with three inscriptions indicating religious activity from the early Christian period. Some 60 prisoners from Meggido and Tzalmon Prison particpated in the excavation, which was carried out as part of the prison's decision to build new incarceration units on the grounds.
Mystery solved Scientists solve puzzle of death of Pericles
The cause of the plague of Athens in 430BC, which devastated the city and killed up to one-third of the population, including its leader, Pericles, was typhoid fever, scientists believe. Doctors and historians have long speculated about the nature of the disease, which precipitated the end of the golden age of Athens, from the account given by Thucydides. Ebola fever, anthrax, tuberculosis and lassa fever have been suggested as candidates.
"The profound disagreement on the cause of the plague has been due to the lack of definite microbiological or palaeopathological evidence," write Manolis Papagrigorakis of the dental school at the University of Athens, and colleagues. But the discovery of a mass grave dating from the time of the epidemic appears to have solved the mystery.
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The scientists took three teeth at random from the remains in the pit and extracted DNA from the dental pulp. They compared it with sequences from plague, typhus, anthrax, tuberculosis, cowpox and cat-scratch disease, and found a match with typhoid fever.
A UAB research team discovers a new type of building built in Peru over 2000 years ago
A research team from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona has discovered a new type of construction, unknown until now, in the archaeological region of Puntilla, in the province of Nazca, Peru. These yards, built with stone walls, situated in the centre of the village, is where people went to work, either in agricultual or in the crafts. The yards date from the first millenium BC, but their exact date is yet to have been determined.
These results come from the analysis of archaeological excavations in the 2005 La Puntilla Project, which ended last December. The project aims to produce sociological research on the communities living in the Nazca province – where the archaeological area of La Puntilla is situated – on the south coast of Peru in the first millenium BC. The researchers have worked in two sites in the area.
Neolithic Europeans Made Cheese, Yogurt
Dirty cooking pots dating to nearly 8,000 years ago reveal that some of Europe's earliest farming communities produced dairy products, such as cheese and yogurt.
Two separate studies indicate that Neolithic dairying took place in what are now Romania, Hungary and Switzerland.
The discoveries suggest people in these regions might have originally learned how to process milk-based foods from Asian farmers.
Good article, especially describing why they would have cooked milk.
Queen Tiy statue update Here.
And another update On the large necroplis found in Rome, preceding the state of Rome here.
Historic archaeology update Dig Adds to Cherokee "Trail of Tears" History
Archaeologists working in the rugged mountains of southwestern North Carolina are adding new details to the story of a tragedy that took place more than 160 years ago.
The scientists are uncovering the remains of farms and homes belonging to the Cherokee Indians before they were forced to abandon their property and move to Oklahoma.
About 16,000 Cherokee and hundreds of other Native Americans were forced out of North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama in the late 1830s. The event came to be known among the Cherokee as the Trail of Tears.
Brett Riggs, an archaeologist with the University of North Carolina's Research Laboratories of Archaeology, is leading the excavations. He said the relocation of the Indians was a form of ethnic cleansing.
Non-archaeology but interesting Closer to man than ape
They already use basic tools, have rudimentary language and star in TV commercials, but now scientists have proof that chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than other great apes.
Genetic tests comparing DNA from humans, chimps, gorillas and orang-utans reveal striking similarities in the way chimps and humans evolve that set them apart from the others.
The finding adds weight to a controversial proposal to scrap the long-used chimp genus "Pan" and reclassify the animals as members of the human family. The move would give chimps a new place in creation's pecking order alongside humans, the only survivor of the genus Homo.
Basically, they're saying that mutation rates (the molecular clock) in the two genii are more comparable than either are to other apes.
Also more or less non-archaeological Chinese Columbus" Map Likely Fake, Experts Say
A recently unveiled map purporting to show that a Chinese explorer discovered America in 1418 has been met with skepticism from cartographers and historians alike.
The map depicts all of the continents, including Australia, North America, and Antarctica, in rough outline.
An inscription identifies the map as a copy made in 1763 of an original drawn in 1418.
Antiquities collector Liu Gang, who unveiled the map in Beijing last week, says it proves that Chinese seafarer Zheng He discovered America more than 70 years before Christopher Columbus set foot in the New World.
Bog bodies update A bit more on the analysts who examined the bodies reported everywhere in the last week (one had "hair gel") here.