Historical dig at bypass site

AN archaeological dig will be carried out on the route of the A66 Temple Sowerby bypass.

Work on the £23 million bypass is due to start in the summer but may be delayed if remains are found in the dig.

A hi-tech survey has been carried out to detect underground features which indicate walls, ditches or the remains of homes.

The new bypass is designed to remove 95 per cent of traffic from the village, improving safety and reducing noise from 15,000 vehicles a day.

David Cochrane, project manager for the Highways Agency, said: “We know the area has a long and interesting history, for example there is a Roman milestone near the east end of the village, so we wait with interest to see what might be found.”

About 70 trenches will be dug by Oxford Archaeology North over a four week period. They will consult the county council’s archaeologists to decide what should happen to the finds.

That's the whole thing.

Beheaded skeletons found in tombs

Two skeletons without skulls, buried together in the same tomb, have bewildered archeologists in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, who are trying to uncover the centuries-old mystery.

Though headless, the skeletons were otherwise well-preserved, said Ma Fenglei, an archeologist with the Chifeng City Museum who headed the excavation. "Even the copper bracelets and rings they wore remain intact," he said.

It was one of the 13 tombs recently discovered in Songshan Mountain on the city's outskirts. The other 12 tombs contained just one human skeleton each, Ma said.

Archeologists, History Buffs, Homeowners Swap Ideas On Preserving Our Past

For the rest of the week, archeologists, historians and anyone interested in protecting our past are gathering for an annual conference. There'll be sessions to help homeowners, like Annette Campbell, who's doing her own projects in the Presidio Neighborhood.

"This keeps a little piece of our history that we get to share with generations after us," said Campbell.

It's all worth it, she says, even though it takes hard work and patience.

ARCHAEOLOGISTS FIND IRON AGE REMAINS

A brooch dating back more than 2,000 years has been discovered in a field which will soon be a rugby pitch for students in Truro.

A team of archaeologists have uncovered the remains of two Iron Age settlements buried below the Truro College playing field which will soon be shared with pupils from the new Richard Lander School.

The team from Cornwall County Council's Historic Environment Service (HES), led by James Gossip, is currently carrying out an archaeological excavation at the playing fields in advance of construction work for the new Fal Building at the college.

It is the biggest unenclosed settlement found in Cornwall and the work is being funded by Truro College.

Not much for now. The weekly EEF news will be out later on and we may get to blog that.

A bevy of both archaeological and semi-archaeological news items today.

But first, some sad news to report:

Wayne Prescott Suttles, 1918-2005: Indian culture 'his life's work'

His works are considered the foremost references on Northwest Indian culture:

Observations that have served as the basis for landmark court rulings in two countries; fieldwork that has revived traditions and tongues thought forever lost; and analyses that have helped to prove that peoples deemed long extinct still, in fact, live on.

Wayne Prescott Suttles, a soft-spoken scholar who in recent years walked with the aid of a cane, for decades stood high above the specialized field of Coast Salish anthropology as its towering figure.

Now, the man regarded as "the greatest living ethnographer of the Pacific Northwest" lives no longer.

Suttles unfortunately suffered from the same general lack of recognition as northwest coast history and prehistory. Which is unfortunate because the area has many unique adaptations. The main problem is a general lack of large monuments or settlement structures, not a lot of pottery, and a damp climate that tends to degrade a lot of material.

Ancient DNA Confirms Single Origin Of Malagasy Primates

Yale biologists have managed to extract and analyze DNA from giant, extinct lemurs, according to a Yale study published in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

. . .

Living lemurs comprise more than 50 species, all of which are unique to the island of Madagascar, which is the world's fourth largest island and east of Africa. Evolutionary analysis of the DNA obtained from the extinct giants reveals that they, like the living lemurs, are descended from a single primate ancestor that colonized Madagascar more than 60 million years ago, Yoder said.

Excellent example of adaptive radiation.

Prehistoric Decline of Freshwater Mussels Tied to Rise in Maize Cultivation

USDA Forest Service (FS) research suggests that a decline in the abundance of freshwater mussels about 1000 years ago may have been caused by the large-scale cultivation of maize by Native Americans.

In the April 2005 issue of Conservation Biology, Wendell Haag and Mel Warren, researchers with the FS Southern Research Station (SRS) unit in Oxford , MS, report results from a study of archaeological data from 27 prehistoric sites in the southeastern United States.

It would probably be more compelling if there were more information on how diet changed over time. Purely random collection of different shellfish seems a bit unusual.

Tut update King Tut reigns again

Here's America's true summer blockbuster: The Return of King Tutankhamun. And like Star Wars, it's bigger, louder and way more expensive than the original nearly 30 years ago, when the boy king toured the USA to universal acclaim. This time in Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, Tut returns as a blazing comet of spectacle — and unprecedented $30 tickets. When the four-city, two-year U.S. tour opens June 16 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, it will be preceded by a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign the likes of which no American museum has ever mounted.

"I'm not sure there's so much difference between Tutankhamun and Celine Dion,"

No. We just can't. . . . . .

Tse-whit-zen Site teaching Klallam tribe `who we were, who we are'

Phillip Charles never figured he'd find himself making stone fish hooks and knives from deer bone.

But after six years of working a cash register, at first one mini-mart, then another, then a gas station, Charles took a job at the Tse-whit-zen archaeological site.

They need a new name. 'Tse-whit-zen' just doesn't have enough caché, like Thebes or Rome. Kinda like Çatalhöyük.

Cave Bear DNA Sequencing Could Be Boon for Human Evolution Studies

Scientists have succeeded in retrieving and sequencing nuclear DNA from the bones of an extinct cave bear. The method they used could conceivably be applied to ancient human remains, such as those of Neandertals.

Ancient DNA has been recovered from human bones in the past. In 1997 Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and his colleagues extracted and sequenced DNA from a Neandertal bone. The team worked with DNA from the mitochondria, the cell's energy-producing organelles, which have their own DNA that is passed along from mother to child. Because cells have multiple mitochondria, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is far more common than nuclear DNA in fossilized remains and thus easier to recover in sufficient amounts for analysis. But there are limits to what mtDNA can reveal about extinct species. Nuclear DNA is what researchers have been waiting for, though many have doubted the feasibility of obtaining it.

Additional material at Nature, National Geographic, and DIscovery.

Probably will have more later today.

More on the Neferhotep statue Ancient Pharaoh's Statue Found

A life-sized statue of the 13th Dynasty Pharaoh Neferhotep I has emerged from the ruins of ancient Thebes in Luxor, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said on Saturday.

Buried for almost 3,600 years, the six-foot limestone statue shows the "beautiful and good" pharaoh — this is what Neferhotep means — wearing the royal head cloth.

The forehead bears the emblem of a cobra, which pharaohs wore on the crown as a protective symbol: they believed that the cobra would spit fire at enemies.

Today's landfills are future archaeological sites

The year is 4005.

Just north of Asheville, the spade of an archaeologist, who has excavated an enormous ancient trash pit city, falls upon something shiny among the dark soil and plastic bottles. He brushes off the dirt from his find and stares in disbelief at a cache of jewelry.

It may sound farfetched, but thousands of years from now, archaeologists could fall back on a standard method of studying previous cultures: examining their trash piles.

Okay, everyone: stop what you're doing right now and write on everything in sight what it is in indelible ink.

Fight! Fight! Repeat ad infinitum Archaeology on front line of Jerusalem tug of war

In Jerusalem, people fight over stones, and archaeology can be seen as a weapon of war.

Israeli plans to evict 1000 Arabs in occupied East Jerusalem to make way for an "archaeological park" highlight the fundamental conflict between resident Palestinians and the Jews who claim an older and superior right to the ground on which they live.

At the centre of the controversy is the Arab village of Silwan, on the steep slopes below the Old City, known to Israelis as "The City of David".

Site of the Biblical Canaanite city of Jerusalem, which was seized by the Israelites more than 3000 years ago, the area is believed by many Jews to contain the lost tomb of King David.

Updated Congratulations Sage Advice in Archaeology: Think Like a Neanderthal

About three years ago, Dr. Ana Pinto, an archaeologist at Arizona State University, was driving past a natural outcropping in northwest Spain and - screech! - she put the brake to her car.

She had just spotted a limestone cave that she sensed might have once been settled by prehistoric humans.

For the next six months, she excavated the cave by hand, pushing through animal waste, bones, mud and human artifacts. By the time she had dug some nine feet deep, she knew she had hit the archaeological jackpot.

"This cave at Sopeña is almost unique because it has signs of continuous hominid habitation for at least 60,000 years," she said. "This is an incredibly rare find."

This is an interview with Dr. Pinto who was in NY to collect her Wings WorldQuest award, which we blogged a while ago as well.

Treasure in Prague! Archaeologists make discovery in downtown Prague

Archaeologists unearthed a ceramic goblet and a large number of small, silver coins in the courtyard of a house between Stepanska and Skolska streets in the centre of Prague last week, said Vojtech Kaspar from the Archaia archaeological society.

The coins were minted in Kutna Hora in the middle or late 15th Century. According to experts, the finding is unique since such a large number of coins is seldom unearthed in Prague.

The so-called "Lostice goblet" was covered under the floor of a Gothic stone house. Archaeologists unearthed its foundations under the tarmac covering of the courtyard. There were about 700 to 1,000 0.4-gramme silver coins in the goblet.

Archaeologist believes Chinese found Cape Breton

A nine-kilometre road winds its way up an isolated mountain where a stone wall sits amid fields of wild blueberries and mayflowers. A closer look reveals a series of stone platforms.

At first glance, the scene is not an unfamiliar one in Cape Breton's sprawling wilderness.

But this one, nestled along the island's east coast, has become the latest battleground for archeologists with the startling claim it was discovered by the Chinese, long before the arrival of any European explorers.

We'll make a prediction. . . . .well, no we won't.

But we WILL, if anyone can pony up the dough, excavate the place for an exhorbitant about of money. . . .

Beer cans and old pizza boxes MSU archaeology students digging for clues about early life on campus

For a team of MSU archaeology students, the next six weeks are going to be about digging up dirt - dirt from a site in the oldest part of campus and maybe dirt on some of the school's first students.

That is, they'll excavate the site of the school's first dorm, searching for clues about how students lived in the latter half of the 19th century.

Just what they'll find, no one knows.

Research to investigate links between Ancient Greeks and modern science fiction

New research into the Ancient Greeks shows their knowledge of travel inspired early forms of fantasy and science fiction writing

There is a long tradition of fantasy in Greek literature that begins with Odysseus' fantastic travels in Homer's Odyssey. Dr Karen Ni-Mheallaigh, at the University of Liverpool's School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, is exploring fantasy in ancient literature, examining theories of modern science fiction writing and how these can be applied to texts from the ancient world.

Not archaeology, but cool Fresh look at Archimedes' theories

A long-obscured transcription of Archimedes' mathematical theories has been brought to light through x-rays, US scientists say.

The 1000-year-old parchment, made of goatskin, contains Archimedes' original work, which was written in the 3rd century BC but copied down by a 10th century scribe.

The manuscript includes the only copy in the original Greek of the treatise "Method of Mechanical Theorems", in which the Greek mathematician, physicist, and inventor describes how he developed his mathematical theorems using mechanical means.

PREHISTORIC FIND SHEDS LIGHT ON HISTORY OF CASTLE

Archaeologists from Bristol University have added 1,000 years of history to Berkeley Castle by uncovering remains of an Iron Age settlement there. The unexpected discovery was made in the kitchen gardens of the castle during a training excavation for students from the university.

Parts of a ring ditch that might have circled a barrow - a mound over an ancient burial site - prehistoric flint tools and a few fragments of human bone have been found immediately below the Victorian kitchen garden's flower beds and greenhouses.

Berkeley Castle is one of the most historic places in Gloucestershire, still inhabited and owned by the same family who were granted the castle in 1156.

Breaking news Statue of Egyptian pharaoh found after nearly 3,600 years

Buried for nearly 3,600 years, a rare statue of Egypt's King Neferhotep I has been brought to light in the ruins of Thebes by a team of French archaeologists.

Officials said on Saturday that the statue was unusual in that the king is depicted holding hands with a double of himself, although the second part of the carving remains under the sand and its form has been determined by the use of imaging equipment.

More pictures of the statue and site here.

It's been a while, but here's something from Mehr Oxford University carbon-14 dating Iranian salt men

Pieces of clothing and DNA samples from three of the four ancient salt men discovered in Iran were recently sent to Oxford University for carbon-14 dating.

Manijeh Hadian, an expert at Iran’s Research Center for the Protection and Renovation of Historical Relics, said on Monday that the Archaeological Department of Oxford University has special technology for the determination of the age of objects of organic origin by measurement of the radioactivity of their carbon content, which is known as radiocarbon dating.

We think this relates to this story which we fail to remember blogging about.

And mohr from Mehr Excavations begin at 6000-year-old Iranian mound

A team of Iranian and foreign archaeologists began a new phase of excavations on Sunday at the 6000-year-old Rahmatabad Tepe near Pasargadae in the Marvdasht region of Far Province, Masud Rezaii Monfared, the director of the Marvdasht Cultural Heritage and Tourism Office, announced.

Experts from the Parseh and Pasargadae Foundation and the Archaeology Institute of the University of Tehran led by Dr. Hassan Fazeli Nashli, and a number of U.S. archaeologists led by Reinhard Bernbeck and Susan Pollock from Binghamton University will be conducting the excavation.

Jewish home found in City of David

A Second Temple Jewish house has been uncovered in Jerusalem's ancient City of David, Israel's Antiquities Authority announced Sunday.

The 2,000 year old private home, which archeologists believe was part of a complex of homes belonging to affluent people, was discovered during an excavation at the history-rich site last month.

Ancient city threatened

THE discovery of a Greek temple in Albania has underlined the threat to the ancient city of Apollonia from development. A new road to the nearby coast, intended to open up the unexploited Adriatic coastline, would cut across former suburbs and divide the temple site from the city (The Times, April 25, 2005).

Jack Davis, of the University of Cincinnati, said: “A large stone temple, entirely unknown prior to our research, seems to have been built here in the Archaic or Classical period, between the 7th and 4th centuries BC.

“The temple at Bonjakët may be one of the earliest monumental Greek temples on the shores of the eastern Adriatic north of modern Greece.”

Saving Macchu Picchu
Peru to save Incas' Lost City from threat of tourists

Peru's National Institute of Culture has released a 10-year master plan that is aimed at conserving the ruins of Machu Picchu, where heavy tourism and nearby development hasendangered the so-called Lost City of the Incas.

With the defeat of the Shining Path terrorist movement in the 1990s, Peru has been "rediscovered" by the international tourism industry and the hordes of visitors are causing erosion and other damage to the archaeological site which extends over some 76,000 acres.

In addition, mummies dating from the Inca period are being exposed to the elements and wild orchids are threatened by the increasing pollution.

Leave those heels at home Cambodia mulls special shoes requirement for Angkor Wat tourists

Tourists to Cambodia's historic Angkor temples may soon be required to rent out special shoes to prevent further damage to the complex.

The kingdom's Apsara Authority, which manages Cambodia's premier tourist attraction, has signed a contract with an unnamed firm to provide temple-friendly shoes to Angkor's visitors, possibly for a fee.

"We have had the plan a long time already, but due to technical issues we have not yet worked it out," Tep Henn, Apsara's deputy director-general of tourism, told AFP, adding that experts were conducting tests and would provide feedback to the authority.

'Detectives' unearth secrets of the past

Artefacts dating back 4,000 years, unearthed at a burial site in Janabiya, are shedding more light on merchant movements during the Dilmun era. Dilmun seals found at the site are inscribed with an Indus Valley inscription. Indus Valley was an ancient civilisation that thrived in an area between Pakistan and India between 2,800BC and 1,800BC.

Archaeologists believe that these inscriptions may reveal that there was a merchant relationship between the Indus Valley civilisation and the Dilmun civilisation.

This is not the first time that Indus Valley inscriptions have been found on Dilmun seals, but it is rare, said archaeology and heritage acting director Khalid Al Sindi.

Hierakonpilis update Discoveries in 'falcon city'

An American-Egyptian team working on the site of ancient Nekhen -- known in Greek times as Hierakonpolis -- in the area of Kom Al-Ahmar near the Upper Egyptian city of Edfu has found what is believed to be the largest pre-dynastic funerary complex ever found. This major discovery, which dates back to the period identified as Naqada II (c. 3600 BC), is expected to cast more light on the period when Egypt was first developing into a nation.

CSI: Yellowstone


Yellowstone asks for help in graves mystery

The National Park Service is asking for help in identifying what appear to be a pair of unmarked graves in Yellowstone National Park.

The graves were pointed out several years ago by a retired park staff member concerned by their proximity to construction on the park's new Heritage and Research Center near the park's northern entrance. He told park officials that two people were buried there under a sheet of metal, but provided no further details.

Researchers combed historical and land transfer records but found nothing, and regional American Indian tribes say it's unlikely natives were buried there.

More here.

Treasure! Archaeologists find hoard of Celtic coins

Archaeologists have uncovered 17 ancient Celtic coins in a field in the south of the Netherlands, the first hoard of such coins found in the country.

Amsterdam's Free University excavated the site in April and will display the coins, which are made of silver and mixed with copper and gold, in the Limburgs Museum in the city of Venlo on Saturday.

They are estimated to date from 20-50 B.C., shortly after Julius Caesar began the Roman conquest of the region.

Leaders of local Germanic tribes "probably used these coins to reward their followers for loyalty," researchers said.

Similar finds have been made in neighboring Belgium and Germany.

That's the whole thing.

Film traces destruction of Emeryville shellmound

For thousands of years, the Ohlone people lived, fished and hunted along the shores of Temescal Creek where it flowed into San Francisco Bay.

Their visible legacy — a huge mound of shells, tools, bowls, animal bones and human burials that rose 60 feet above ground — was desecrated, first for a dance hall in the 1870s, then for a pigment plant in the 1920s.

Still, people involved in building the Bay Street shopping mall in Emeryville expected to find some ancient skeletal remains during construction. After all, the project was built directly over what was once the largest and most extensive American Indian shellmoundlining the Bay.

And now. . . .new from the EEF

Press report: "In the footsteps of Count Laszlo"
http://travel.independent.co.uk/africa/northern/story.jsp?story=641863
"Robert Twigger goes in search of rock art in the Egyptian desert, and discovers depictions of man's daily life from a time before the Pyramids were built". A travel story.

Press report: "Sailing to distant lands"
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/745/hr1.htm
"There are few material remains of this necessarily well-organised procedure and the arduous but
necessary journey to Punt. Early last month, however, at the ancient port of Marsa Gawasis, south of
Hurghada, an American-Italian team stumbled upon interesting evidence of trade between the two regions. "

Press report: "Historical Discovery? Well, Yes and No"
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/30/arts/design/30papy.html
(id and password: eefeef)
A clearheaded view at the latest developments surrounding the Oxyrhynchus Papyri.
[Eds. We commented on this earlier. Seems that, while important work is being done on these things, it's not exactly a RECENT BREATHROUGH in papyrology.]

Press report: "A race against time to dig up Sudan's past"
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/30/news/sudan.php
"Sudan is preparing to build a giant dam at the Nile's fourth cataract (...), The project risks submerging some of Sudan's lofty past (...) The affected locations, according to government scientists, include the noted towns and cemeteries from the Pharaonic period and the Napato-Meroitic era, which stretched from 900 B.C. to A.D. 350, at Gebel Barkal, the post-Meroitic tumuli, or grave mounds, of Zuma and the Christian monastery of Ghazali, among others."
[For the international appeal for missions to undertake survey and excavations in the threatened area before its inundation, see:
http://www.sudarchrs.org.uk/Appeal.doc ]

Aidan Dodson, Thutmosis III: Family Man, in: The Ostracon, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 3-7 (2004)
http://www.egyptstudy.org/Ostracon/DodsonTIIIWeb.pdf
"Tuthmosis III's image is essentially that of a warrior; if one thinks of him in a family context, it is probably to consider the nature of his relationship with his stepmother and aunt, Hatshepsut. However, the surviving data allows us to learn more about his immediate family than is known about that of many of his predecessors." - This article was abridge from Aidan Dodson, Dyan Hilton, The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, Cairo, 2004. - pdf-file: 0.7 MB

Online version of: Sarah Parcak, Finding New Archaeological Sites in Egypt Using Satellite Remote Sensing: Case Studies From Middle Egypt and the Delta, in: Paper presented at the International Conference on Remote Sensing
Archaeology, Beijing, October 18-21, 2004, pp. 136-140 - pdf-file: 130 KB
http://www.rsarch.cn/english/article/17-Sarah%20Parcak.pdf
"Utilizing a combination of satellite imagery analysis and subsequent ground-truthing techniques over broad regions in Middle Egypt and the northeast Delta, my paper will discuss how satellites can assist in not only
locating new sites, sites that have supposedly been "destroyed" and known sites, but can aid in answering larger archaeological, historical and heritage research questions."

End of EEF news

Fight! Fight! Archaeologists clash with Câmara

A RECENT archaeological dig, carried out in a protected area within Faro’s historic centre, has uncovered more remains dating back to the Iron Age and items from Islamic and Roman civilisations. Good news for archaeologists and history enthusiasts, but perhaps not for Faro Câmara, which has been hoping to have a luxury hotel built on the site.

Back to beer Archaeologists' intoxicating find

Archaeologists searching for remains of a city's medieval past have made an intoxicating discovery - a cache of World War II beer.

The hundred-or-so bottles of lager buried beneath Southampton's Guildhall Square were still capable of developing a head when they were opened.

. . .

"I think you'd be very ill if you drank that, it's absolutely rank."

Uh huh.

"Oh yes, terrible stuff, awful. Completely non-potable. No sirree, don't drink any of that. Just to be sure, we'll, um, just store it ourselves to prevent accidental consumption. Did we say 'a hundred or so' unopened bottles? We meant '75 or so'. Maybe 50. We'll let you know the exact number in a couple of days. Could be as few as, errr, none really. But let us handle it, we're the experts, you know."

When can we buy the t-shirts? Cajuns Seek Remains of Guerrilla Leader

For Louisiana's Cajuns, Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil was their Che Guevara, their Thomas Jefferson, their Moses. But the gravesite of the 18th-century guerrilla fighter has long been a mystery. Now, historians and archaeologists — some of them descendants of the Acadian leader — are hoping to find his bones.

The search is part of an Acadian renaissance movement that has sprung up since the 1960s to honor the music, art, language and customs of Louisiana's Cajun people, the Acadians' direct descendants. It also coincides with the 250th anniversary of the Acadians' expulsion from Canada during the French and Indian War.

Dunno. Just doesn't seem to work.

Forensic archaeology update Experts seek ways to find Bosnia graves

International experts in satellite imagery, geology and forensic archaeology have completed a research visit to Bosnia to investigate new methods of locating and mapping mass graves, a Bosnia-based agency dealing with missing persons and DNA identification said Monday.

The experts from Britain's University of Birmingham and Applied Analysis Incorporated, a U.S. private company specializing in processing satellite images, were part of a multidisciplinary project organized by the International Commission on Missing Persons, ICMP, based in Sarajevo.

Bit more from the BBC.

Some news from the EEF

Ummmmm. . . . . King Tut tut tut

They call him the Pharaoh, the keeper of the pyramids. He rules Egyptology with an iron fist and a censorious tongue. Nobody crosses Zahi Hawass and gets away with it. As the fabulous treasures of Tutankhamun begin a world tour, Richard Girling excavates the conspiracies, conflicts and fears that curse the world of archeology

You might as well ask a eunuch to slag off an emperor. Quite quickly you get tired of asking: phone calls not returned; e-mails not answered; questions ducked. If you're lucky, you might get the odd side-of-mouth hint; but no names, no details.

Well. Actually, if you read the first and last pages, it probably presents a pretty balanced view of Zahi. The remainder is mostly a defense of Joann Fletcher at the expense of Zahi. There is far more to the "controversy" over Fletcher's Nefertiti theory than presented here, and most Egyptologists reject it on numerous grounds.

The paper on the founding date of Naukratis, described earlier onlist (Feb. 15, '05) , is now available online (in PDF, 493 kB):
P. James, "Naukratis Revisited", Hyperboreus: Studia Classica 9:2 (2003), 235-264.
http://www.centuries.co.uk/naukratis.pdf
"Herodotus stated that the Greek settlement at Naukratis in Egypt began during the reign of Pharaoh Amasis (570-526 BC). It is usually maintained that archaeology has proven him wrong, as the presently accepted dating for Archaic Greek pottery places the colony in the late 7th century. A combination of stratigraphic and historical evidence, together with that provided by Egyptian, Cypriot and Phoenician artefacts, suggests that the Greek pottery dating is in error, rather than Herodotus. "

Egyptology's New Frontier

A documentary looks at the subject's roots and an ambitious project to document the Nile's ancient civilization.

Two shows are somewhat awkwardly stuck together in The Search for Eternal Egypt, which premieres on the History Channel, Sunday, June 12, 7 pm ET/PT. One half of the show is an overview of the development of Egyptology featuring prominent scholars, mostly filmed on-site. The other half of the show focuses on an ambitious partnership between Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities and IBM that aims at making ancient Egyptian culture available to all. The documentary bounces back and forth between these two themes, but the feel of the two parts is very different, and the transitions from talking heads in the field to computer specialists and digitized images are abrupt despite the efforts of narrator Omar Sharif.

End of EEF news

Northwest Archaeology update From tools, shells and bones, a culture emerges

Down on his hands and knees, he swept the trowel back and forth across the dirt, led only by intuition.

"Something just told me, keep digging," said Lower Elwha Klallam tribal member Mark Charles, aka "Hammer," the nickname he earned as a guard on the high-school basketball court.

But with that trowel, its handle carved in the shape of a raven with a red "H" painted on the end, he was delicate, carefully pulling back the soil until something caught his fisherman's eye. It was a disc, carved out of whale vertebra. He brushed it off and called an archaeologist over to look.

Actually, that might be a part of the series we linked to last week.

Update on an earlier story John Hawks has posted some commentary on a paper by Jody Hey on the number of New World founders based on genetic analysis. We posted about this earlier. See paper here. Read especially John's Update.

Well, we're back from a long weekend of, um, doing important archaeological research-related stuff. We're not going to bother trying to catch up on all the news from the last few days, but troll for a few items of ongoing interest, and a couple of new ones:

Homo hobbitus update Bones of Contention

Because the female skeleton looked humanoid rather than human and the brain size was small, the researchers concluded she was not a Pygmy—a short but otherwise normal version of Homo sapiens you still find in equatorial Africa and pockets of Southeast Asia—but a member of an entirely new species whom its discoverers named Homo floresiensis. This species, say the scientists, probably branched off from Homo erectus, the commonly accepted ancestor of Homo sapiens.

. . .

Now, however, the presence of small people living within strolling distance of Liang Bua has cast doubt over the separate-species theory, and sparked a bitter split in scientific circles over its validity. Battle lines have been drawn, with each side vigorously trying to discredit the other.

This is a good summary article of where things stand at this point. We admit we're starting to question whether or not this is really a new species or not. The presence of very short-statured people on the island now seems to us to seriously call into question much of the argument. It's harder to get around the brain-size issue, and this reminds us of the old Neanderthal critique -- "It's a furrowed-brow old man with the gout" schtick. Is it possible that they managed to find the one person with microcephaly? Yes, but this seems unlikely, unless due to some founder effect, the condition was more common than usually seen. So, as one researcher quoted in the article says "Show me eight more similar skulls from the site and I'll shut up." At this point, we'll just fall back on that old archaeological canard and say "We need more data."

Archaeological Controversy II Hunters Cleared in Aussie Megafauna Extinctions

Humans and ancient giant marsupials coexisted for at least 15,000 years, according to new findings that re-ignite the debate over how and when Australia's megafauna became extinct.

Archaeologist Judith Field, of the University of Sydney, says the team's findings put to rest one high-profile theory, that humans arrived in Australia and wiped out the megafauna during a relatively brief 1000-year "blitzkrieg."

"In some places people may well have had a role, but in other places they had no role at all," she says.

Probably a bit overly optimistic of a headline. We figure the blitzgrieg model is probably itself overly simplistic and won't hold out much longer as a broad explanatory model. Still, Field and other researchers are making this problem out to be more complex than the either/or-climate/hunting opposition proponents have made it out to be (itself an oversimplification in most cases). Donald Grayson, himself a strong opponent of the blitzkrieg-uber alles model has recently published some data indicating that people may have had some impact on the extinction of at least one species, Ursus spelaeus or cave bear (see this paper section 3). Do a Web search (preferably Google Scholar) on 'Pleistocene overkill' or 'Megafauna extinctions' for background.

[Update] Can't find the original paper that this article is based on (yet) but we located a couple with some background on Field's extinctions work (don't know whether they're freely accessible or not):

Megafaunal extinction in the late Quaternary and the global overkill hypothesis

Archaeology and Australian Megafauna (short summary of the Cuddie Springs site)

[Update II] And we just came across this by chance:

Small species back-up giant marsupial climate change extinction claim

Thinking small in a time when everything was big has helped Queensland researchers to unearth new evidence that climate change, instead of humans, was responsible for wiping out Australian giant marsupials or megafauna 40,000 years ago.

Instead of only excavating 'trophy specimens' such as giant kangaroos and wombats, the researchers from Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and Queensland Museum performed the first systematic analysis of a site in the fossil rich Darling Downs region of south-eastern Queensland.

Reported in the journal Memoirs of the Queensland Museum tomorrow (Tuesday 31 May) they found smaller species, dependent on a wetter environment, had also disappeared.

By systematically analysing a 10 metre deep section of creek bed, the team uncovered 44 species, ranging from land snails, frogs, lizards and small mammals to giant wombats and kangaroos including many species previously unknown to have occurred in the Darling Downs fossil record.

The results suggest that the extinction of Darling Downs megafauna was caused by a massive shift in climate rather than by the arrival of humans who over hunted animals or destroyed habitats by burning the landscape.

[Who needs new posts when you can just keep Updating. . . .]

Found original paper, probably subscriber only though:

Prolonged coexistence of humans and megafauna in Pleistocene Australia.


["When will it these Updates be ended??"]

Yet another mention in Nature.


Note: This is a new story Mutilated Bronze Age lord found in Germany

Archaeologists have discovered the skeletons of a lord and his retainers in a burial mound at Germany's most celebrated Bronze Age site.

Archaeologist Olaf Schroeder said the intact, 4 200-year-old mound was one of at least eight "barrows" within view of the ancient holy site that yielded the 3 600-year-old Nebra celestial disc, a bronze and gold depiction of the heavens, in 1999.

No blogging yesterday or today. We're, um, doing important archaeological research.

In the sun.

With, you know, beer and stuff.

Media Corner We caught the last half(-ish) of a Nova program (PBS) on the peopling of the Americas (originally broadcast back in November). What we saw was pretty good, and after looking at a transcript we found our initial impressions were correct (at least as far as we're concerned). They hit all the right themes and didn't really push one idea or the other overly hard. In a sense, it wasn't about the peopling of the Americas at all, but rather about the Clovis-first hypothesis. Consequently, we didn't hear a whole lot on the various hypotheses regarding migration routes from Asia, considerations of the ice-free corridor timing, possible maritime routes, etc. The main "hook" seemed to be the possible European connection pushed by Dennis Stanford, that is, that Clovis is derived from the Solutrean. The major new evidence presented here was some mtDNA work by Douglas Wallace who apparently found a fifth source of DNA in the Ojibwa:

When we studied the mitochondrial DNA of the Ojibwa we found, as we had anticipated, the four primary lineages—A, B, C and D—but there was about a quarter of the mitochondrial DNAs that was not A, B, C and D.

They also spent some time on the Gault site which contains thousands of Clovis-era artifacts, only a few of which have anything to do with typical Clovis points. This is probably the least-popularly known aspect of Clovis: there are numerous Clovis sites that have little to do with big game hunting. In these cases, Clovis people are seen as fairly typical hunter-gatherers utilizing a wide variety of resources, depending on their local conditions. This obviously calls into question the whole Overkill Model which the show didn't really go into, and we won't either (here). We liked this portion of the show since it lifted the veil somewhat on Clovis and showed the stereotypical big game hunter model to be not entirely accurate.

The other neat idea they presented was Clovis as a technological innovation that spread through an existing population rather than a strict equivalence between Clovis-as-artifact-type and Clovis-as-a-human-population. This is a very important decoupling, as it is usually (this goes beyond Clovis as well) assumed to be the case that people = artifact types.

Anyway, check out the transcript and especially the companion web site.

Ancient astronauts update Giant Figures in Peru Desert Pre-date Nazca Lines

A group of about 50 drawings of giant figures recently discovered in the hills of Peru’s southern coastal desert near the city of Palpa has been said to predate the famous Nazca lines nearby.

Mr. Johny Isla, director of the Andean Institute of Archaeological Studies, said the “geoglyph” figures appear to have been created by the Paracas communities between 500 and 400BC, whereas the Nazca culture developed after 50 BC. Mr. Isla and his partner Dr. Markus Reindel from the Dutch Institute of Archaeology discovered the Paracas figures using aerial photography and land-based surveys. The figures of humans, birds, monkeys and cats vary in size from 10m to 50m across, and are also grouped together in areas up to 60 m to 90 m across.

Man trying to sell skull must apologize

A man who tried to sell the 200-year-old skull of a native Hawaiian warrior on eBay was sentenced Monday to 600 hours of community service and ordered to publish an apology in several Hawaiian newspapers.

Jerry Hasson of Huntington Beach must also pay more than $13,000 and post the same apology on an eBay bulletin board dedicated to archaeological memorabilia.

Well, this is cool (non-archaeological):

Student mistakes examples of unsolvable math problems for homework assignment and solves them.

George Dantzig recounted his feat in a 1986 interview for the College Mathematics Journal:

It happened because during my first year at Berkeley I arrived late one day at one of [Jerzy] Neyman's classes. On the blackboard there were two problems that I assumed had been assigned for homework. I copied them down. A few days later I apologized to Neyman for taking so long to do the homework — the problems seemed to be a little harder than usual. I asked him if he still wanted it. He told me to throw it on his desk. I did so reluctantly because his desk was covered with such a heap of papers that I feared my homework would be lost there forever. About six weeks later, one Sunday morning about eight o'clock, [my wife] Anne and I were awakened by someone banging on our front door. It was Neyman. He rushed in with papers in hand, all excited: "I've just written an introduction to one of your papers. Read it so I can send it out right away for publication." For a minute I had no idea what he was talking about. To make a long story short, the problems on the blackboard that I had solved thinking they were homework were in fact two famous unsolved problems in statistics. That was the first inkling I had that there was anything special about them.

. . .

George Dantzig passed away at his Stanford home at age 90 on 13 May 2005.

This is way cool in and of itself. Also mentioned in the text is Donald Knuth, computer scientist extraordinaire and author of perhaps the most widely read computer science book, The Art of Computer Programming. This book probably trained the majority of our current programmers. We mention this for two reasons. First, we hung out with his daughter once when she was living with friends of ours here. Second, there was an article in the May-June American Scientist (should be open access) that mentioned something Knuth had done:

During a decade's labor on the TeX typesetting system, he kept a meticulous log of all his errors, and then he published the list with a detailed commentary.

Sheesh.

Back to archaeology

Founding fathers & mothers: How many crossed the land bridge?

Programs on the Discovery Channel and PBS have sparked fresh interest in the prehistoric peopling of the New World. Now, for the first time, we have a realistic estimate of how many ancients made that ice age trek across the long-lost land bridge from Asia to become the first Native Americans.

Jody Hey, a professor of genetics at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, has developed a computational method that uses genetic information to create models of population divergence – where a group has split off from its ancestral population to pursue its own destiny.

In a paper appearing in the June 2005 issue of PLoS (Public Library of Science) Biology, Hey disclosed his findings. "The estimated effective size of the founding population for the New World is about 70 individuals," Hey said. "Calculations also showed that this represents approximately 1 percent of the effective size of the estimated ancestral Asian population."

Could be interesting how this plays out with the archaeologists working on pre-Clovis remains. The one documented pre-Clovis site (Monte Verde) dates to only 12,500, but there are others that claim to be even earlier (we've blogged about one here, but darned if we can remember which one it is at the moment). More will no doubt follow.

Remote sensing update New city search for Roman remains

A £47,500 project using 21st-century technology could lead the way to new discoveries of ancient remains in the Chichester area.

It may help establish for the first time whether a Roman fort is buried away somewhere close to or in the city, as well as highlighting areas which archaeologists should be focussing on.

Chichester is one of 30 historic English towns chosen to make a detailed computer record of their complex archaeology.

Apart from its implications for archaeological discovery, the so-called 'intensive urban study' is intended to help with giving planning advice on the heritage implications of new developments, and on the management of the historic environment.

That's the whole thing. Too bad they don't say exactly what they'll be using.

See? Shoulda left him on ice Bacteria Eating Away at Otzi the Iceman?

Ötzi the Iceman, the world's oldest and best-preserved mummy, could be at risk of decomposition, according to the latest tests on the 5,300-year-old mummy.

Eduard Egarter Vigl, Ötzi's official caretaker, said that X-rays show suspicious grey spots on one knee.

"We noticed that these spots change aspect over time. This would indicate the formation of air or gas bubbles inside the tibia. And we know that gas is produced by bacteria," he said at a recent conference at the South Tyrol Archaeological Museum in Bolzano, Italy, where the mummy is kept.

We say that somewhat facetiously, of course. OTOH, it does allude to the all-too-common problem of curation we face these days.

Stone-Age Fashion update Exotic Deer Teeth a 'Must' for Stone Age Ladies

Grave goods found with the remains of a woman nicknamed the Lady of Saint-Germain-la-Rivière, who lived approximately 15,570 years ago in France, suggest rare animal teeth served as Stone Age status symbols that were comparable in value to today’s expensive jewelry and designer duds.

The find indicates that people within hunter-gatherer societies from the Upper Paleolithic may not have viewed everyone as a social equal, but instead recognized privilege and prestige.

The research, funded by the European Science Foundation, appears in the current Journal of Anthropological Archaeology.

Artists' conception of what a fashionable Upper Paleolithic woman may have looked like:

Tutankhamun facial reconstruction update

Aayko Eyma of the EEF sends this along:

This is not to reopen debate on the merits of such facial reconstructions, just for information purposes, as most earlier press reports only showed one or two of the reconstructions:

To the EEF BBS, a picture of all three models has been added:
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Alley/4482/Tutsface.html

It is based on a picture from the Time Magazine article 'Unmasking King Tut' (May 23, 2005), of which a text version (without pictures, but with the text with the three models) may be found online at:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1061534,00.html

Update: Oops. Latter has become "premium" content.

Also, the first link allows some comparison between the different reconstructions. Unfortunatly, they are all from different angles so it's difficult to really compare them in any detail.

Great heaping gobs of stuff today. . . . .

Digging in the NW Archaeology Enthusiasts In Southern Oregon Offered Rare Opportunity

The Southern Oregon Historical Society seeks volunteers (18 years of age or older) who would like to participate in the Fort Lane archaeology project scheduled for the week of July 11-15. SOHS is joining Southern Oregon University to provide this unique opportunity to the public. Archaeological experience is not necessary but volunteers should be prepared for hiking and working in strenuous summer weather conditions.

Not archaeology, but cool A Beetle-sized armadillo

The fossil of a giant armadillo which lived up to 2 million years ago and would have been the size of a Volkswagen Beetle has been found by builders in southern Peru.

"They were working inside a private home and stumbled upon this surprise during the digging," Pedro Luna, an archaeologist from the National Institute of Culture in the southern city of Cuzco, said.

The fossil skeleton was "almost complete" at two metres long including the tail and 1.1 metres wide.

ROMAN FIND BYPASS HITCH

AN UNDISCOVERED stretch of Hadrian�s Wall has been unearthed by archaeologists on the route of the �30 million Carlisle Northern Development by-pass.

The team of archaeologists from Cumbria County Council have discovered a section of the Roman wall and fragments of ancient pottery on the banks of the River Eden near Stainton, west of Carlisle. The discovery is directly on the line of the planned Northern Development Route and could mean further delays to the long-awaited by-pass � now more than three years late.

More from the BBC here.

China’s 5,000-Year Old Civilization Is No Bluff – Prehistoric Relics Provides New Evidence

United archaeologists from Shandong University and Chicago Field Museum of Natural History have recently come up with preliminary conclusions after 10 years of excavation and research at the Rizhao district in Shandong province. They believe that the remains of ancient monument, which have been excavated, could be the relics of a prehistoric country dating back to 4,200 or 5,000 years ago.

Furthermore, this ancient country is estimated to have had a population of around 63,000 and the area of the capital alone is estimated to be one thousand square kilometers.

Antiquities Market update I
Getty's antiquities buyer faces trial over stolen goods

The woman who for many years was in charge of buying archaeological treasures for the Getty Museum of Los Angeles is to stand trial in Rome in July, charged with receiving stolen goods.

The trial is the culmination of an investigation started nearly 10 years ago, which claims to have discovered that, of the many marvels of the ancient world purchased in Italy by Marion True, the 56-year-old curator for antiquities at the J Paul Getty Museum, a huge number had been stolen - a fact of which prosecutors say the curator was well aware.

Oxyrhynchus Papyri update NASA science uncovers texts of Trojan Wars, early gospel

The scholars at Oxford University are not sure how it works or why; all they know is that it does.

A relatively new technology called multispectral imaging is turning a pile of ancient garbage into a gold mine of classical knowledge, bringing to light the lost texts of Sophocles and Euripides as well as some early Christian gospels that do not appear in the New Testament.

Originally developed by NASA scientists and used to map the surface of Mars, multispectral imaging was successfully applied to some badly charred Roman manuscripts that were buried during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Examining those carbonized manuscripts under different wavelengths of light suddenly revealed writing that had been invisible to scholars for two centuries.

Heh. Oops: The Archilochos fragment confirms what scholars have long suspected: that the Greeks got lost on their way to invade Troy and mistakenly landed at place called Mysia. There they fought a battle, lost and had to regroup before heading off again for Troy.

More at Nature. (Sub only)
More:
Archimedes manuscript yields secrets under X-ray gaze


Antiquities Market update II 800yr-old temple unearthed

t least four statues and other priceless antiques, found in the recently discovered Shiva temple that was built in 1213 AD, at Pirapat village in Khaloo Upazila reportedly went missing some time Friday night.(The Daily Star )

Officials at the Archaeology Department and local people said some miscreants might have entered the temple Friday night by cutting an 18-foot-long tunnel. The Hindu devotees last said their prayers at the temple on Thursday.


Regional Archaeology Office sources said higher authorities have been informed of the incident and requested to declare the site protected for a preliminary excavation.

Excavation of ancient desert tombs ends, riddles waiting to answer

Chinese archaeologists finished the excavation of an ancient tomb complex in the Lop Nur Desert, northwest China, but researchers say the finds are puzzling and need more time to be understood.

By mid March, archaeologists in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region unearthed 163 tombs of the Xiaohe Tomb complex, which sprawls on a 2,500-square-meter oval-shaped dune, 174 km from the ruins of the Loulan Kingdom, an ancient civilization that vanished 1,500 years ago.

The complex contains about 330 tombs, but about 160 of them were spoiled by grave robbers, said Idelisi Abuduresule, head of the Xinjiang Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute, which launched the excavation project in October 2003 with the approval from the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

'Discovery of a lifetime' thrills mayor, archaeologists

On a forgotten hilltop sprinkled with daisies and horse manure, an astounding remnant of history was discovered recently at what was once thought to be a Cherokee graveyard.

But rather than burial ground, Stanford Mayor Eddie Carter discovered that his pasture land was once home to heavy artillery and Union troops.

"This is big time," Carter said. "This is one of the largest Civil War mound forts. They say it's a very significant find ... I'd thought for years it was an old Cherokee burial ground."

We're not usually into this sort of recent-historical stuff, but this sounds interesting.

Oaxaca Residents Battle Over Shade Trees

Two years ago, artists and architects banded together to stave off McDonald's from opening on the picturesque main square in the southern city of Oaxaca. Now some of those same activists are under attack themselves, over their plan to evict another foreign invader the towering India laurel trees that shade the historic plaza.

Opponents say the idea is political correctness run amok.

"This is almost dogmatic," said painter Francisco Verastegui, who joined the fight to oppose McDonald's but is leading the battle against the renovation project. "They're nonnative species, so we have to get rid of them? That's like botanical racism."

Local elms, when asked for comment, rustled.

Forensic stuff Something is rotting in the state of Tennessee

"You want to watch where you're walking," warns Dr Richard Jantz as he steps through a small razor-wire topped gate at the back of a Tennessee hospital car park. He might just as usefully have said to watch where you look, breathe or smell. The two-acre patch of wooded hillside that constitutes the Anthropological Research Facility of Tennessee University hides a wealth of sensory surprises.

Better known by its nickname of the Body Farm, this pastoral setting is littered with about 80 dead bodies. Their decomposition is the focus of a unique scientific project that aims to help murder investigations to establish the time-since-death of human remains.

This is probably better known to Americans, being commonly highlighted in forensic-related TV shows over the past several years.

More bioanthropology Indian Tribes Linked Directly to African 'Eve'

Two primitive tribes in India's Andaman and Nicobar islands are believed to be direct descendants of the first modern humans who migrated from Africa at least 50,000 years ago, according to a study by Indian biologists.

A team of biologists at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad studied the DNA of 10 Onge and Great Andamanese people in the Indian Ocean archipelago who lived for tens of thousands of years in "genetic isolation" from other human contact.

The findings suggest the tribes are descended from the "oldest population of the world and were among the first batch of modern humans to migrate from Africa," said professor Lalji Singh, director of the center.

Czech Homo update Prehistoric Bones Point to First Modern-Human Settlement in Europe

Scientists have confirmed that bones found in the Czech Republic represent the earliest human settlement in Europe.

The collection of bones, which include samples from two males and two females, was excavated from the site of Mladec more than a century ago. Scientists have until now failed to date the fossils accurately.

The new research, using radiocarbon dating, has shown the bones to be about 31,000 radiocarbon years old.

Ethnoarchaeology update Digs reveal the truth about trash

The nation's pre-eminent "garbologist" delights in wielding his findings from 30 years of landfill archaeological digs: Throwaway synthetics like Styrofoam and disposable diapers -- the bane of environmentalists -- don't actually make up that much of our total garbage, especially when compared to, ahem, newspapers.

What really gets him going is the concept of "biodegradables," packaging and products billed as being able to break down quickly. Rathje's research has showed that in modern, sealed landfills, almost nothing breaks down.

During an entertaining lecture Wednesday that capped a three-day meeting of the Federation of New York Solid Waste Associations, Rathje showed a photo of a reasonably well-preserved, if somewhat blackened head of lettuce -- from 1971.

Something must be breaking down since they produce so much methane. . . .

New Theory Places Origin of Diabetes in an Age of Icy Hardships

When temperatures plummet, most people bundle up in thick sweaters, stay cozy indoors and stoke up on comfort food. But a provocative new theory suggests that thousands of years ago, juvenile diabetes may have evolved as a way to stay warm.

. . .

People with the disease, also known as Type 1 diabetes, have excessive amounts of sugar, or glucose, in their blood.

The theory argues that juvenile diabetes may have developed in ancestral people who lived in Northern Europe about 12,000 years ago when temperatures fell by 10 degrees Fahrenheit in just a few decades and an ice age arrived virtually overnight.

Archaeological evidence suggests countless people froze to death, while others fled south. But Dr. Sharon Moalem, an expert in evolutionary medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, believes that some people may have adapted to the extreme cold. High levels of blood glucose prevent cells and tissues from forming ice crystals, Dr. Moalem said. In other words, Type 1 diabetes would have prevented many of our ancestors from freezing to death.

Kind of interesting. Read the whole article, as the second page gives more of the possibly adaptive values of high blood sugar.

Searching for the Queen of Sheba

The queen of Sheba was once one of the most powerful leaders in the world but there are few clues left anywhere about this woman who ruled a rich and powerful nation somewhere in Africa – perhaps, as some archeologists maintain, in what is now southwest Nigeria.

Now, in what may be the site of her last home and gravesite, a University of Toronto professor is trying to unearth the queen's story – partially told in the Old Testament – as well as honouring her in the form of a new Nigerian museum and interpretive centre.

"Each year both Muslim and Christian religious pilgrims come to this site in Ike-Eri, Nigeria, to pray and honour the queen of Sheba (also known as Bilikisu Sungbo to those of the Islamic faith) even though Ethiopia maintains that she is actually buried in their country," says professor and museologist Lynne Teather of the Museum Studies program at U of T. "Indigenous knowledge and oral traditions maintain that this is the shrine of the queen and through working with the Bilikisu Sungbo Project, we are trying to not only learn more about this fabulous queen, but to establish a feasibility study on how we can marry tourism to this heritage site."

Unearthing Tse-whit-zen

This is an almost week-long series of articles on the Tse-whit-zen village unearthed last year in Port Townsend WA during contstruction of a dry dock. Turned out to be one of the largest nearly-intact village sites in the state (they say it's the largest but we're not sure about this). At any rate, it's big. It's also intersting how many of the local tribespeople are working on it. Check it out over the next few days.

First, news from the EEF

Press report: The Egyptian Gazette, Miscallaneous:
http://www.algomhuria.net.eg/gazette/4/
"Ten years ago three stelae were stolen from Akhmim in Upper Egypt whereupon they began a long trip that covered Switzerland, France and the US. Finally, the SCA managed to retrieve the pieces, laying them to rest in the Egyptian Museum." The pages contains some other Egyptological bits as well.

A new resource is available on the AEL web site: an index to textual references appearing in popular grammars; created by Ken Saunders:
http://snipurl.com/f03r
This will be of particular interest to anyone working on the Westcar papyrus or the Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor. The index follows the sequence of the text, giving references to where the line or phrase is discussed in four major grammars. Databases for the Eloquent Peasant and the Story of Sinuhe may follow in the future.
[source: Mark Wilson]

* The On-Line Digital Archive of Documents on Weaving and Related Topics
http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/weavedocs.html
has several digitized articles relating to ancient Egypt (and I may have missed some):
-- Roth, H. Ling. "Ancient Egyptian and Greek Looms", Banksfield Museum, 1913, 45 pages, 3.6 MB
http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/monographs/rhl_anct.pdf
-- Mace, A. C, "Loom Weights in Egypt", Ancient Egypt, 1922, 3 pages, 752 KB PDF
http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/articles/mac_wght.pdf
-- Roth, H. Ling and G. M. Crowfoot, "Models of Ancient Looms", Ancient Egypt, 1921, 7 pages. 1 MB PDF
http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/articles/rhl_elom.pdf
-- Mace, A. C., "Heddle-Jacks of Middle Kingdom Looms", Ancient Egypt, 1922, 4 pages. 808 KB PDF
http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/articles/whe_hedl.pdf
[Eds. GREAT resource for weaving papers. All appear to be non-sub access.]

Bonani, G., et al., "Radiocarbon Dates of Old and Middle Kingdom Monuments in Egypt." in: AMS Radiocarbon Dating Lab, Annual Report 2001 (PDF, 31 kB):
http://www.ipp.phys.ethz.ch/research/experiments/tandem/Annual/2001/06.pdf
(An extended version appeared as an article in: Radiocarbon, 2001. 43(3): pp. 1297-1320.)

[Submitted by Kat Reece (kat@hallofmaat.com)]
Online version of: Colin Reader, "Giza before the Fourth Dynasty", from the Journal of the Ancient Chronology Forum 9 (2002), pp. 5-21.
http://www.hallofmaat.com/modules.php?name=Articles&file=article&sid=93
The age of the Sphinx has generated a certain amount of controversy. Geologist Colin Reader believes that a dating earlier than the 4th dynasty but still firmly within the dynastic period is the best solution to reconciling the geological and archaeological evidence. The Hall of Maat website presents this JACF article -- which is a follow up to the author's article "A geomorphological study of the Giza necropolis with implications for the development of the site" (Archaeometry 43: 1 (2001) 149-165) -- with a short update
by the author.

Online version of: Jean-Daniel Stanley, The Near-Destruction of Giza, in: American Scientist, vol. 93, no. 2 (2005)
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/40805#40915
"How a 19th-century French engineer saved the Egyptian pyramids from being dismantled"
[Eds. We probably linked to this earlier, but it's well worth linking again.]

Review of three books aimed at those "obsessive, Egypt-factoid-gathering kids":
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/books/review/15WOLITZE.html
(password and id: eefeef)

End of EEF news.

Ancient gods uncovered

Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of a Nabataean monument during an excavation at Jordan's ancient city of Petra, the English language newspaper Jordan Times reported on Wednesday.

It quoted Patricia Bikai, who headed the excavation team that made the discovery, as saying that they "initially thought the building was either a shrine or a royal residence".

"However, after further examination we identified the monument as a banquet hall, which was decorated with 22 stone heads of ancient gods," she added.

Fast Food, Cheap Souvenirs And A Good Fight - A Day Out At The Amphitheatre

Football just wouldn't be the same without the obligatory burger vans and stalls selling cheap scarves outside the ground.

But the latest finds by archaeologists, led by Tony Wilmott who is based in Fort Cumberland, Hampshire, working at Chester Amphitheatre suggest things may not have changed that much in the last 2,000 years.

The dig, jointly carried out by English Heritage and Chester City Council, has uncovered a large number of animal bones discarded by fast-food loving spectators in the 8,000 seater stadium.

We've heard this before. . . . Indiana Jones raids next-gen consoles

When he's not teaching students about archaeology or working on his five-o'clock shadow, Indiana Jones is buckling swashes, trotting globes, and all other manner of derring-do. According to a statement from LucasArts, come 2007, he'll be back doing it on the "next generation of gaming consoles."

. . .

This new game looks to be just one aspect in a full-on Indy resurgence, with Harrison Ford reportedly signed on to star in a fourth film in the franchise. The project will be written by George Lucas and directed by Steven Spielberg, and it's tentatively due out sometime next year.

They'd better do it quick or Indy will be wiping out bad guys with his walker. . . . .

Roman conquerors had woolly socks

The sartorial elegance of the Italians has been shattered, with news that woolly socks helped their ancestors' conquest of northern England.

The evidence has emerged among archaeological objects found in the River Tees at Piercebridge, near Darlington in County Durham.

Among the items was an unusual Roman razor handle, made of copper alloy and in the shape of a human leg and foot.

Fight! Fight! Roman soldiers help new fight against windfarm

ANCIENT Roman legions who once marched through South Yorkshire could soon be playing a part in a new battle—this time to halt a green scheme.
Image Campaigners fighting to stop three towering wind turbines springing up on green belt land at Loscar, near Harthill, say the site is surrounded by evidence of Roman settlements dating back to the first century.
Now local historian Paul Rowland has unearthed evidence to show that even the country lane along which heavy equipment for the three 311 feet high turbines will be brought is an old Roman road, once known as Ryknild Street.

Fancy that Archaeologists Find Relics at Ga. Fort

On a narrow peninsula along Georgia's marshy coast, archaeologists have uncovered relics from a forgotten piece of American history — the fort where British and U.S. troops waged the final battle of the War of 1812.

Point Peter, where cannons once pointed from the city of St. Marys toward Cumberland Island, fell to British forces days after Gen. Andrew Jackson's victory in the Battle of New Orleans on Jan. 8, 1815.

The fort was burned down by British troops and its remains had been buried until the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers required an archaeological survey by developers of Cumberland Harbour, a 1,014-acre waterfront subdivision being built on the site. Only a state historical marker, placed on the site in 1953, pointed out the fort's location.

Just a couple of items today as our network connection is kinda flaky.

Archaeologists Unearth 5,000-Year-Old Jars

Archaeologists uncovered a 5,000-year-old chamber believed to have been used for the burial rituals of Egypt’s first major pharaoh found a cache of 200 rough ceramic beer and wine jars, Egyptian authorities said today.

The mortuary enclosure of King Hur-Aha, the founder of Egypt’s First Dynasty, also included a cultic chapel where the floor and benches are stained with organic material – probably the remains of offerings made during rituals, Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said.

“It is a very important discovery because it would provide us with new information about the First Dynasty,” Zahi Hawass, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told The Associated Press.

This is probably a very important find. Not much is known about the first three dynasties. The beer jars are common throughout the Old Kingdom and are typically large parts of any site's ceramic inventory. They're a fairly crude form of vessel and in tomb contexts were generally used to contain offerings of beer, wine, or just about anything else. They are also found in settlement areas and probably carried much the same sorts of contents. Don't have any photos, but here are two drawings:


http://www.acagle.net/dissertation/figures/figureii.9.jpg
http://www.acagle.net/dissertation/figures/figureii.8.jpg

Earliest European 31,000 years old

Fossilised human bones found in the Czech Republic have been dated back to some 31,000 years, which scientists say confirms them as the oldest known examples of Homo sapiens found in Europe.

Austrian and US scientists publish their carbon-dating results in today's issue of the journal Nature.

An upper jaw, teeth and the skull of a female were found in a cave in Moravia in the 19th century, but scientists have debated how old they are.

Dig near Las Vegas continues to yield fossils

Fifty years ago, 27-year-old archaeologist Charles Rozaire had high hopes he would find clues around charcoal deposits at Tule Springs that could be linked to the earliest humans in North America.

First thought to be evidence of fire pits or hearths, the charcoal smudges that dotted cross sections along the upper Las Vegas Wash in the valley's north end were near the area where giant animals – camels, horses, lions, bison, bears, sloths and mammoths – roamed what is now southern Nevada 11,000 to 40,000 years ago.

"We were literally scratching the surface," Rozaire, 77, told students and scientists at a recent Geoscience Summit at Shadow Ridge High School, a 10-minute walk from Tule Springs. The site, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is in Floyd Lamb State Park, 10 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Don't dig in Washington Discovery of bones halts road project near Arlington

Work was halted yesterday on a highway expansion project near Arlington after construction crews unearthed what were initially deemed "ancient" human bones on the north side of state Route 530, near Arlington Heights Road.

It was the latest in a string of discoveries of human remains and ancient artifacts that have halted highway or construction work around the state.

The latest bones found were embedded in the dirt about two feet under a very large boulder, the state Department of Transportation said. Work stopped immediately. The Snohomish County Sheriff's Office, called to the scene, ruled out the possibility that the site was a crime scene, Transportation Department spokeswoman Jamie Holter said.

Yesterday sex; today alcohol "Antibiotic" Beer Gave Ancient Africans Health Buzz

Humans have been downing beer for millennia. In certain instances, some drinkers got an extra dose of medicine, according to an analysis of Nubian bones from Sudan in North Africa.

George Armelagos is an anthropologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. For more than two decades, he and his colleagues have studied bones dated to between A.D. 350 and 550 from Nubia, an ancient kingdom south of ancient Egypt along the Nile River.

The bones, the researchers say, contain traces of the antibiotic tetracycline. Today tetracycline is used to treat ailments ranging from acne flare-ups to urinary-tract infections. But the antibiotic only came into commercial use half a century ago. So how did tetracycline get into the Nubian bones?

We could have done without this: Armelagos said the Egyptians used beer as a gum-disease treatment, a dressing for wounds, and even an anal fumigant. . .

This seems like good news International alliance to unlock secrets of Egyptian mummies

Two world-renowned teams of experts on Egyptian mummies have joined forces in an international effort to better understand disease and its treatment in ancient Egypt.

The University of Manchester's Centre for Biomedical Egyptology and Cairo's National Research Center have signed a formal agreement to enhance future academic research and teaching in the field.

The Manchester-Cairo alliance will promote cooperation between the two institutions by supporting joint research activities and encouraging visits and exchanges by their staff and students.

Raiders of the Lost Bathroom Aristocrat's bathing room is unearthed

ARCHAEOLOGISTS are hoping to unearth fresh information about the lifestyle of 17th Century aristocrats after re-opening rooms at Bolsover Castle which have remained sealed for more than 100 years.

The castle is undergoing an improvement programme, and its owners, English Heritage are taking the opportunity to break through into some rooms which were sealed for safety reasons as the building crumbled into disrepair more than a century ago.

"That commode represents everything we got into archaeology for in the first place."

Archaeologists uncover scene of human sacrifice

A gruesome sight has met archaeologists engaged in excavations in central China - an altar devoted to human sacrifice, complete with the remains of an unfortunate victim.

The discovery of the 7,000-year-old cult site, near Hongjiang city in Hunan province, may make it necessary to rewrite history, as it is the earliest human sacrificial site ever found in China.

News from Mehr Burnt City’s satellite villages to shed light on ancient lifestyles

Iranian experts have determined that ten mounds located near the 5200-year-old Burnt City were once villages, archaeologist Alireza Khosravi announced on Wednesday.

“The discoveries will definitely provide us with useful information on the people living in the villages over the millennia,” added Khosravi, who is the director of the regional research center of the Burnt City in Sistan-Baluchestan Province.

The mounds are located near Iran’s border with Afghanistan, southeast of the Burnt City, which is located 57 kilometers from the city of Zabol.

This would actually be quite interesting as investigation of these satellite villages would no doubt contribute immensely to knowledge of how the larger social system worked.

Note to any fabulously wealthy individuals out there: We'll do it!

Mohr from Mehr New find at Palace of Cyrus the Great in Charkhab

Experts working at the Palace of Cyrus the Great in Charkhab recently discovered the remains of several water channels four meters beneath the ground, the head of the archaeological team announced on Tuesday.

Ali-Akbar Sarfaraz said that the team found the channels while they were attempting to drain the water that had collected in several holes from previous excavations at the site, which is located near Borazjan in Iran’s southern province of Bushehr.

Wal-Mart cleared in lawsuit

A Circuit Court judge yesterday dismissed all claims against Wal-Mart in an ongoing lawsuit alleging mishandling of human remains unearthed during construction of the retail giant's Ke'eaumoku Street store.

The lawsuit will proceed on claims against the other defendants, the state and city governments. Trial is scheduled to begin July 18 on the remaining issues of violating state law and desecration of graves.

Judge Victoria Marks yesterday granted Wal-Mart's motion for summary judgment, saying plaintiffs Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawaii Nei and Paulette Kaleikini could not seek damages for emotional distress stemming from the discovery of iwi kupuna (ancestral bones) at the construction sites in 2003.

Chinese made first use of diamond

Stone age craftsmen in China were polishing jade objects using diamond 2,000 years before anyone else had the same idea, new evidence suggests.

Quartz was previously thought to be the abrasive used to polish ceremonial axes in late stone age, or neolithic, China.

But the investigations of a Chinese-US team of scientists indicate that quartz alone would not have been able to achieve such lustrous finishes.

Archaeologists Find Artifacts Dating Back 3,000 Years

Something's got archaeologists sifting through a site in our area. While surveying the land where a new intersection will be, they found several artifacts dating thousands of years back.

The Department of Transportation is getting ready to start construction on a new intersection in the Cedar Creek area, and it must follow certain guidelines.

Tom Peronto, the WisDOT Design Project Leader, says, "Whenever you have a state or federally funded project, it's one of the historical requirements that you investigate and document any historical buildings or historical cultural sites like this."

Way cool web site alert From Peter Manuelian via EEF:

After four years of preparation (2000-2004) and thanks to the generous
support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the 'Giza Archives
Project' Web site went live in January 2005. It is located at

http://www.gizapyramids.org

This evolving resource will serve as a centralized online repository for
all archaeological activity at the Giza Necropolis, beginning with the
Harvard University - Boston Museum of Fine Arts excavations
(1902 - 1947).

Recent updates and additions (May 2005) to the Web site include the
following materials:

--2,641 individual Giza tomb records;
--22,757 original HU-MFA black-and-white excavation photos;
--21,048 records of finds
--3,105 original HU-MFA Expedition Diary pages;
--1,977 ancient & modern people records;
--9,905 plans & drawings, from overview plans to individual burial
shafts;
--over 200 free downloadable Giza books and articles in text-searchable
PDF format.

Users can search in several ways:
--by any keyword ('Quick Search),'
--by specific categories ('Advanced Search'),
or
--by browsing Giza photographically ('Visual Search').

The Visual Search page contains a zoomable aerial photo of the entire
Giza Necropolis, with tombs shown as clickable rollover buttons that
link to the relevant photos, diaries, drawings and finds for the tomb
clicked. The Visual Search page also contains at present 657 color
panoramas (QTVR files) from standpoints all over Giza, allowing the
user to view the surroundings in 360 degrees.

Thousands of additional documents, old and new, are in preparation,
along with efforts to incorporate Giza materials from other institutions
and excavations. We welcome your comments, reactions, and suggestions
at http://www.gizapyramids.org/code/emuseum.asp?newpage=contact

Seems like a great resource. The Library is an especially good use of the Web. There are a lot of out of print works here with no need of a university library membership for access. Readers should definitely send suggestions in for new volumes and papers.

SEX! SEX at ArchaeoBlog! A Critic Takes On the Logic of Female Orgasm

Evolutionary scientists have never had difficulty explaining the male orgasm, closely tied as it is to reproduction.

But the Darwinian logic behind the female orgasm has remained elusive. Women can have sexual intercourse and even become pregnant - doing their part for the perpetuation of the species - without experiencing orgasm. So what is its evolutionary purpose?

. . .

Dr. Lloyd said scientists had insisted on finding an evolutionary function for female orgasm in humans either because they were invested in believing that women's sexuality must exactly parallel that of men or because they were convinced that all traits had to be "adaptations," that is, serve an evolutionary function.

We've always been partial to the explanation that this phenomenon is at least partially due to the similarity in development. But, of course, that only explains the How, not the Why. And then there's the whole 'current utility doesn't necessarily explain past utility' argument. This is probably an excellent example to illustrate the complexities of evolutionary explanation though, since it brings a whole range of factors from embryonic development, adaptation, selection, cultural pressures, etc.

And, you know, it's kinda tittilating.

Tombs! Tombs uncovered at Peruvian ruins

Archaeologists have uncovered a multi-level grave site at Peru's ancient ruins of Pachacamac, including mummy bundles containing whole families.

There were also bodies of pilgrims who presumably sought cures from an oracle deity for diseases like syphilis, tuberculosis and cancer, the project's leader said.

"What is interesting in this cemetery is that it is totally intact, and we have mummies of different epochs, different periods, and they have their burial goods with them," archaeologist Peter Eeckhout, of the Free University of Brussels, told The Associated Press.

Archaeologists Unearth Britain's Own Miniature Coliseum

Archaeologists have discovered evidence of Britain’s own miniature Coliseum, it was revealed today.

The two-tier stone built structure, in Chester, which dates back to 100AD, hosted gladiatorial contests, floggings and public executions.

Experts say the amphitheatre is the only one of its kind in Britain and the new evidence proves that Chester must have been an important site within the Roman Empire.

Did the Vikings drive natives from the isles?

VIKING settlers may have "ethnically cleansed" Scotland's islands, waging a genocidal campaign against native Pictish tribes as they arrived, according to evidence uncovered by archaeologists.

Excavations on Orkney could finally settle a centuries-old historical debate over whether the Norsemen integrated with indigenous locals or slaughtered them at the dawn of the last millennium.

Well, you know, there is that whole "crush your enemies, drive them before you, and hear the lamentations of their women" schtick they had going.

That's one way to put it Thracian Owner of Gold Mask Axe-Chopped

The Thracian king Seutus III, whose gold mask was unearthed in 2004 by Bulgarian archaeologists, has been chopped with an axe after his death, an expert research showed.

According to archaeologists this discovery is pure sensation because it proves the theory that ancient Thracians used to chop into pieces their rulers' bodies and buried them in different places.

Fight! Fight! Archaeology chief blamed for Harappa mess:-

The head of Pakistan's archaeology department has been blamed for a controversial amusement park being established adjacent to the ruins of the 5,000-year-old Harappa civilisation, work on which has been halted after a public outcry.

Holding Director General Archaeology Fazal Dad Kakar responsible for issuing a no objection certificate for the park, Culture Minister Ajmal Khan has warned that anyone "misguiding" the ministry on the issue would be punished, The News reported Monday.