Slavery archaeology update Archaeologist attempts to find slave quarters on Coosaw Island
Evidence of early slave life may rest just across the Coosaw River under a foot of earth.
On Wednesday morning, archaeologist Dan Battle, with help from colleagues, used a ground-penetrating radar device in an attempt to locate slave cabins in a field on David Smith Community Center grounds on Coosaw Island.
Just don't put it to a vote ARCHEOLOGY: BUTTIGLIONE, "EUROPEAN CHARTER" NECESSARY
Cultural Heritage Minister Rocco Buttiglione considers a "European archaeology charter" necessary. According to the minister Italy can give the example to the rest of Europe preparing a "detailed archaeological charter of our territory to plan the conservation and appreciation of our immense heritage. Italy must become the European leader to launch the project of a European archaeological charter to help in the conservation, tutelage and appreciation especially of countries that entered the European Union last."
That's the whole thing.
Archaeologists launch long-term dig in W.Va.
Archaeologists have begun a three-year project unearthing the ruins of the U-S Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, in West Virginia.
They hope to find artifacts from buildings leveled after the Civil War.
Marsha Wassel is a spokeswoman for the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. She says the armory employed some 400 people in two rows of buildings divided by a 70-foot-wide street.
Fight! Fight! WASTE PLANT: Public concern grows
WORRIED residents have delivered protest letters to the council about plans to build a giant waste plant in Peterborough.
The move comes the day after The Evening Telegraph revealed the plans to build the waste plant could prove disastrous for Flag Fen – regarded as one of the most important Bronze Age archaeological sites in Europe.
If it is built, the controversial £220 million Global Olivine waste recycling site will be the biggest of its kind in Europe.
Plan your barbecues now National Archaeology Week
From Saturday 16th to Saturday 24th July over 250 archaeological events will take place up and down the UK.
With over 250 events already registered from right across England and Wales, National Archaeology Week running from Saturday 16th to Saturday 24th July will be the biggest archaeology festival ever.
We were wondering what was happeing in Mehr Iranian, Japanese archaeologists to study Neolithic caves at Tang-e Bolaghi
A team of Iranian and Japanese archaeologists is to study two Neolithic caves located at the ancient site of Tang-e Bolaghi in Iran’s southern province of Fars, an expert of Iran’s Archaeological Research Center announced on Saturday.
“According to an agreement signed between the Archaeological Research Center and the University of Tsukuba, several Iranian archaeologists and eight experts from the Japanese university will begin work at the site next month,” Karim Alizadeh added.
“Due to the dearth of studies on Iranian Neolithic caves, the upcoming studies on the two caves will be very important,” he noted.
Mohr from Mehr Archaeologists’ efforts to study Isfahan’s Atiq Square hindered by construction activities
Badly planned construction activities at the historic site of Atiq Square in Isfahan in recent decades have prevented Iranian archaeologists from identifying old strata of the site for renovation, an official of the Isfahan Cultural Heritage and Tourism Department said on Saturday.
“The buildings have spoiled all the old strata at the site, but the few recent excavations have determined that the square was a very big site with only a few structures, because we could find no remarkable ruins even in the intact strata,” Mohsen Javari added.
Remains of prehistoric plant found Shandong
Chinese archaeologists said Tuesday that they found remains of 30 kinds of plants dating back 8,000 years in east China's Shandong province.
The remains were found near the construction site of an international exposition center in the coastal city of Qingdao.
Zhang Zhigang, expert with China Paleontology Society, said a team of archaeologists had been digging for ancient plant remains since the end of last year when they first found remains of a 10-cm-long reed at the site. He said the discovery is a breakthrough and will provide evidence for human evolution research.
Non-archaeology, but relevant USS Arizona's vigor tested
Divers are collecting information to help experts determine how fast the USS Arizona is deteriorating.
The battleship sank on Dec. 7, 1941, during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The remains of more than 1,100 crewmen remain entombed under the USS Arizona Memorial.
"Collapse is inevitable, but by all indications, it is not imminent. It could be decades," said Matthew Russell, an underwater archaeologist who is heading the six-member team.
Apparently, the wreck contains an awful lot of fuel still on board which has been oozing out very slowly over the years. Once the structure collapses, however, it all could go gushing into the harbor. It's a tricky situation since it's basically sacred ground and would take an awful lot of disturbance (we assume) to study and remove the remaining oil.
Update: More here.
Yes, indeed Egypt's other pasts
Although Egypt stands at the crossroads of continents and civilizations, images of pyramids, The Sphinx and mummies dominate, eclipsing its other historic cultural and religious strands.
Now attempts are being made to redress the balance and to put the Pharaonic period in context through an ambitious renovation project in Cairo and a series of cultural events in the United States.
Tourism has flourished under the watchful eyes of the Pharaohs with the majority of foreign visitors being attracted by the prospect of viewing ancient tombs and temples.
But this rather blinkered view of Egypt's past has been criticized because it overlooks the county's debt to the heritage of the Greeks, Romans, Copts and Islam.
Much is true in that story, and some efferts at rehabbing many of the Coptic and Islamic monuments (i.e., buildings mostly) have been going on for some time under the auspices of several foreign agencies, along with their Egyptian counterparts.
This is interesting Excavators find ancient urban settlement in south Kashmir
Excavators have stumbled into the remains of a bustling ancient urban settlement in Anantnag district of south Kashmir with tiled pavements ‘stamped in colourful human and animal motifs’ and inscriptions in the now defunct Karoshti script.
“The remains of the civilisation fanning over several hectares of land was discovered during an exploration of the area by a team of the J&K Archaeology Department,” Archives Archaeology and Museum Deputy Director Mohammad Shafi Zahid said.
He said archaeology assistants Ehsan-ul-Haq, Ghulam Rasool Teli and Mushtaq Ahmad Bhat were excavating the area when they came across ‘surface evidence of the civilisation’.
Kennewick Man update Kennewick Man to be studied in Seattle
Scientists say they are wrapping up final arrangements to study Kennewick Man's remains in early July at University of Washington's Burke Museum in Seattle.
The 9,400-year-old skeleton found along the banks of the Columbia River in 1996 has been the focus of a bitter nine-year court battle between the federal government, Mid-Columbia Native American tribes that claim the bones as their ancestor and the scientists who want to study the remains.
Scientists from around the country plan to convene in Seattle for about two weeks early next month to conduct the research, said Alan Schneider, Portland-based attorney for the scientists.
Did ancient Polynesians visit California? Maybe so. Scholars revive idea using linguistic ties, Indian headdress
Scientists are taking a new look at an old and controversial idea: that ancient Polynesians sailed to Southern California a millennium before Christopher Columbus landed on the East Coast.
Key new evidence comes from two directions. The first involves revised carbon-dating of an ancient ceremonial headdress used by Southern California's Chumash Indians. The second involves research by two California scientists who suggest that a Chumash word for "sewn-plank canoe" is derived from a Polynesian word for the wood used to construct the same boat.
The scientists, linguist Kathryn A. Klar of UC Berkeley and archaeologist Terry L. Jones of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, had trouble getting their thesis of ancient contact between the Polynesians and Chumash published in scientific journals. The Chumash and their neighbors, the Gabrielino, were the only North American Indians to build sewn-plank boats, a technique used throughout the Polynesian islands.
It's a decent article, but it fails to go into any details on why the original paper was rejected (i.e., the specific criticisms). We are concerned about basing this on a few similar-sounding words. . . .
Egyptian glass Ancient Glassmakers: Egyptians crafted ingots for Mediterranean trade
When pharaohs ruled Egypt, high-status groups around the Mediterranean exchanged fancy glass items to cement political alliances. New archaeological finds indicate that by about 3,250 years ago, Egypt had become a major glass producer and was shipping the valuable material throughout the region for reworking by local artisans.
This discovery settles a more-than-century-old debate over whether ancient Egyptians manufactured raw glass themselves or imported it from Mesopotamia, say Thilo Rehren of University College London and Edgar B. Pusch of the Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim in Germany in the June 17 Science.