We should also note that we neglected to watch the Scientific American television program Tuesday night, after urging you, our faithful readers, to do so. Our excuse is that our DVD boxed set of Millennium came in the mail and we were busy watching the special features.
So anyway, on with the news. . . .
Wine not? First Wine? Archaeologist Traces Drink to Stone Age
Wine snobs might shudder at the thought, but the first wine-tasting may have occurred when Paleolithic humans slurped the juice of naturally fermented wild grapes from animal-skin pouches or crude wooden bowls.
The idea of winemaking may have occurred to our alert and resourceful ancestors when they observed birds gorging themselves silly on fermented fruit and decided to see what the buzz was all about.
"The whole process is sort of magical," said Patrick McGovern, an expert on the origins of ancient wine and a leader in the emerging field of biomolecular archaeology. "You could even call [fermentation] the first biotechnology," said McGovern, who is based at Philadelphia's University of Pennsylvania.
Mammoth piece of art Prehistoric art relic 17,000 yrs old found in central Russia
Archaeologists working in the Kursk region, 500 km south off Moscow, have found a relic of prehistoric art carved from mammoth’s tusk about 17,000 years ago.
Natalya Ahmetgaleyeva, the chief of the archaeological expedition, told Itar-Tass the object was found not far from the village of Byki.
“It’s a small thing and it might have been used as a primeval hunter’s amulet or a fixed accessory of some primitive cult,” she said.
Ramesses on the move Pollution forces Egypt to move statue of god-king
Ramses II, son of the Sun god, the greatest warrior king and the most prolific builder of ancient Egypt, has been defeated by the rumble and fumes of modern traffic.
His monumental pink granite statue outside Cairo central rail station has all but vanished within a sarcophagus of scaffolding erected to enable experts to prepare it for removal next year to a less polluted site outside the city.
Antiquities Market update Customs seize pre-Colombian artifacts from Dominican Republic
Nearly 200 artifacts from the Dominican Republic, some dating back to 2500 B.C., have been seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, officials announced Tuesday.
The artifacts include arrowheads and stone carvings, some smaller than a fingernail, and are called pre-Columbian because they predate Christopher Columbus' 1492 arrival in the Americas.
Thomas S. Winkowski, the agency's director of field operations, called it a "significant seizure" and evidence of federal officials' work to "address illegal trafficking in stolen artifacts."
Site found all Ohlone Caltrans discovers ancient Ohlone site
Caltrans has unearthed what appears to be an ancient Ohlone Indian village on Yerba Buena Island in continuing work to build a new $4 billion span of the Bay Bridge.
Since July 13, Caltrans has found at least five skeletons during a preparatory archaeological dig for the final phases of the work, which is still years away.
Work on the bridge continues unabated because the latest discovery was not made during construction.
It was the second such finding, following the discovery of 21 Ohlone remains in the fall of 2002 during a prework exploration.
Caltrans has been working with the Ohlone for years, trying to anticipate what archaeological sites they might encounter while building the bridge. The work was part of federal and state environmental regulations.
"Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of archaeology" Canine Case Closed?
The conviction of a renowned handler raises questions about the use of dogs in archaeology.
Michigan native Sandra Anderson is set to be sentenced on August 24 in Federal Court, Southern Division of the Eastern District of Michigan, for planting evidence at a crime scene and making false statements to authorities. A respected scent-detection dog trainer and handler, Anderson pled guilty earlier this year. Since the charges were filed last fall, the work of Anderson and her dog Eagle has been questioned.
Sandra Anderson rose to prominence in 2000 as a dog trainer and cadaver dog handler specializing in human remains detection. Having helped start a dog training and search company called Canine Solutions, Inc., she later became director of the Great Lakes Search and Rescue of Michigan K-9 Unit. Undertaking searches for nothing more than travel costs, Anderson and Eagle became popular with police departments as an inexpensive tool in their investigations. Sandra and her dog were even asked to Panama and Bosnia to search for graves of victims of political oppression and war crimes. Anderson also visited several archaeological sites and old cemeteries, marking burials or establishing area boundaries. From her work, Sandra Anderson and Eagle gained media attention, appearing in at least one documentary. And in 2000, ARCHAEOLOGY ran an article about Anderson, her dog Eagle, and their supposed ability to detect ancient buried remains through the dog's keen sense of smell.
Medici crypt updateMedici Project Turns Up Mystery Bodies
The project to exhume the remains of several members of the Medicis, the family that dominated the Florentine Renaissance, has taken a new turn this month as researchers discovered a secret crypt containing the mysterious bodies of seven children and an adult.
The vaulted chamber was found under a stone floor behind the main altar of the Medici Chapels at Michelangelo's church of San Lorenzo in Florence. The researchers stumbled across it while searching for the final resting place of the last Grand Duke Gian Gastone, who probably died from obesity and kidney stones.
More detail on the secret crypt we reported on earlier.
That's good to know Human sacrifice was rarer than thought
Bronze Age ritual human sacrifice may have been rarer than believed, according to a unique study of ancient DNA from bones in central Europe.
German anthropologist Dr Susanne Hummel from the University of Göttingen presented her team's research at a recent ancient DNA conference in Brisbane, Australia.
Hummel said the research was also the first to use ancient DNA to complete a family tree from human prehistoric remains.
The researchers have been looking at 3000-year old human bones from the remains of about 40 people found in the Lichtenstein cave, in Lower Saxony, north-western Germany.
Islamic necropolis discovered in Portugal
Portuguese archeologists said they have discovered the largest Islamic necropolis in the country, and possibly in the Iberian peninsula.
Around 35 skeletons have so far been found at the cemetery, at Santarem, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Lisbon and which was the capital of an independent kingdom in the 8th century when Muslims from North Africa occupied the Iberian peninsula.
The site covers 3,400 square meters (36,000 square feet), making it the largest of its kind in Portugal, said Antonio Matias, the archeologist in charge of the site, quoted by the Lusa news agency.
More news, especially of the Egyptian sort, later this afternoon. We are also busy researching an interesting aspect of North American prehistory that should provide you, our faithful readers, with some good links to learn more.