A week after a psychic investigation of the 20-year-old unsolved murder of Luana Williams was aired on television, police yesterday took two archaeologists to examine skeletal remains discovered at the reserve.
In TV2 show Sensing Murder, three psychics independently identified a spot at the falls as the burial site of Williams.
The Tauranga woman disappeared without trace from her Gate Pa home on June 5, 1986. Her body has never been found.
A man phoned police the day after the show screened, saying he knew of a skull at the falls.
But his discovery was kilometres away from the spot the pyschics were drawn to - at the top lake end of McLaren Falls.
They weren't the bones of the person in question and they were miles away from the site the "psychic" said. This virtually guarantees that this will be a celebrated success story in the psychic world for years to come.
Lost
Four well-preserved residences in an ancient village, probably submerged by a flood, have been unearthed in central China, providing an insight into rural life about 2,000 years ago, archaeologists said.
The village in Neihuang county, Henan province, belongs to the late western Han dynasty (206 BC - AD25), director of the Henan provincial institute of cultural relics and archaeology, Sun Xinmin said.
"With the excavation, archaeologists are able to map out the layout of the ancient village and the architecture of village residences in the western Han dynasty for the first time," Sun said.
Breaking news Part of colossus found near Luxor
A German expedition has unearthed part of a colossal statue of an XVIII dynasty pharaoh. Minister of Culture Farouq Hosni said that "the red granite head and shoulders of Amenihotep III (1390-1352 BC) were unearthed in the pharaoh's temple area at Kom el-Hetan on the west bank of the Nile at Luxor."
Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), Zahi Hawass said that "The one-metre, high bust is in good condition' except for a slight crack on the right side." For her part, the leader of the German team described the bust as "the best portrait of King Amerihotep III that has over been found.
The team is led by Hourig Sourouzian (via EEF).
Rising water threatens great temples of Egypt
Some of the world's most precious archaeological treasures - the ancient Egyptian tombs and temples at Luxor - are being devastated by salt water that is eating their foundations, scientists have discovered.
The temples of Amun, Luxor and Karnak, designated World Heritage Sites, have survived 4,000 years of arid desert heat but are now being destroyed by rising ground water.
The threat has been uncovered by American Egyptologists, who have warned that urgent action is now needed. Their view has been backed by Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. 'When I found out the Temple of Luxor and the Temple of Karnak were going to completely fall apart because of the rising water table, I was shocked,' Hawass said in an interview in Science.
Well. Not exactly news since all of this has been discussed in depth for years.
Mystery solv-ed BBC history team solves riddle of Llywelyn
One of the last great mysteries of the history of the independent Welsh nation was apparently solved yesterday by a group of English historians working for the BBC.
For centuries, people living in and around the chicken farm called Pen y Bryn on top of a hill overlooking the Menai Straits in Caernarvonshire have been convinced that it is a royal place.
More than that, they all firmly believed that the 36-acre farm was the last remnant of the palace of Llywelyn, the first and last prince of a "free" Wales, who died in 1282.
But Cadw, the Welsh equivalent of English Heritage, says it has found traces of a medieval house about 400 yards away, near to a Norman motte, or defensive mound, that is the real site of the palace.
Kennewick update Researcher seeks secrets of Kennewick Man
Milwaukee Journal SentinelMILWAUKEE - Ground to the bone, the teeth of the famous fossil skeleton, Kennewick Man, look as if they've spent a lifetime gnashing rocks.
But it's from these worn choppers that Thomas Stafford Jr., a research fellow in the department of geology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and president of Stafford Research Laboratories in Boulder, Colo., plans to learn about the origins, movement and lifestyle of this highly controversial, 9,000-year-old North American.
In 1996, Kennewick Man was discovered on the banks of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Wash.
Found by a couple of college students who were hydroplaning along the river, K-Man - as he is fondly called by Stafford - became one of the most notorious and controversial skeletons ever discovered.
Actually a pretty good article explaining what they'll be doing and why. The same techniques were used on Otzi the Ice Man te determine where was hailed from.
Not that kind of tongue Ancient Tongue Linked to Aztec Past
For 15 years, David Vazquez has awakened each morning at 5:30 to clean the pews and the patio at the Episcopal Church of the Messiah in Santa Ana.
His wife, Rosa, brings him lunch. When the musicians don't show up on Sundays for the Spanish-language service, Vazquez plays the guitar. For Good Friday, he weaves religious figures out of palm leaves and makes church decorations for Day of the Dead.
But what has attracted attention among Mexican Americans seeking to learn more about their heritage is his second, unpaid job. He teaches his native Nahuatl, a language spoken by the Aztecs and still spoken in parts of central Mexico.
Good show.
Scholars to explore protocol for defending cultural heritage
As the plundering of artifacts continues in Iraq, the work that University scholars and others have done to protect them will be the focus of a conference titled, “Protecting Cultural Heritage: International Law after the War in Iraq.”
The conference, which will take place at 3 p.m., Friday, Feb. 3, in the Weymouth Kirkland Courtroom at the Law School, will examine shortcomings in the international legal framework built over the last century to prevent looting and destruction of cultural property in times of war. McGuire Gibson, Professor in the Oriental Institute, as well as other academics, called international attention to the pillaging of Iraq’s National Museum in the early weeks of the war in Iraq. They also drew attention to the plundering at archaeological sites throughout the country that took place as a result of the war.
Good idea to bring the issue front and center but, you know, everywhere is being systematically looted. We can't even control it here.