Time Magazine update Reader John Hardy emails to note that someone has posted most or all of the Time article on the peopling of the Americas here.

Errr, in the interests of remaining on the right side of various copyright laws, I cannot encourage readers to follow that link. But if you did. . . .

You would find a pretty decent primer on the whole issue. I didn't find any glaring ommissions or errors. They do tend to portray the Clovis-first idea as sort of coming out of nowhere though. The idea of an American Paleolithic had been around for some time, but so many outrageous claims were being made (still were for years) that a few workers -- notably WH Holmes -- more or less put the kibosh on the idea by ripping the bad work to shreds. (Prediction: much of that early work will soon be reanalyzed and some of it will be found to be valid) So, in that sense, rejection of an American Paleolithic had some justification. It's also sort of implied that Clovis-first had no real basis in fact:

The Clovis-first theory is pretty much dead, and the case for coastal migration appears to be getting stronger all the time. But in a field so recently liberated from a dogma that has kept it in an intellectual straitjacket since Franklin Roosevelt was President. . .

As if no one was out looking for earlier sites, or people were ignoring the obvious. People did look for pre-Clovis sites, many claims were made, but they all had significant problems. The Clovis-first theory was empirically based.

So anyway, read it and see what you think.

(Read the forum on that link, too, some of it's a hoot and a half)

Extinctions revisited But not human-caused ones:
Mass extinctions – a threat from outer space or our own planet's detox?

Earth history has been punctuated by several mass extinctions rapidly wiping out nearly all life forms on our planet. What causes these catastrophic events? Are they really due to meteorite impacts? Current research suggests that the cause may come from within our own planet – the eruption of vast amounts of lava that brings a cocktail of gases from deep inside the Earth and vents them into the atmosphere.

. . .

"There is scant evidence of impacts at the time of other major extinctions e.g., at the end of the Permian, 250 million years ago, and at the end of the Triassic, 200 million years ago. The evidence that has been found does not seem large enough to have triggered an extinction at these times."

Flood basalt eruptions are – he says - an alternative kill mechanism. These do correspond with all main mass extinctions, within error of the techniques used to determine the age of the volcanism. Furthermore, they may have released enough greenhouse gases (SO2 and CO2) to dramatically change the climate. The largest flood basalts on Earth (Siberian Traps and Deccan Traps) coincide with the largest extinctions (end-Permian, and end-Cretaceous). "Pure coincidence?", ask Saunders and Reichow.

I've posted about this a couple of times, that there are a few researchers (probably more than a few) who have bucked the trend of assuming the K-T extinction event has been solved conclusively by the impact theory. It's a similar problem to the overkill-climate controversy in North American post-Pleistocene extinctions in that there is evidence for both but not enough -- or at least, not one definitive piece -- to nail it down either way.

Easter Island update View of Easter Island Disaster All Wrong, Researchers Say

The first settlers on Easter Island didn't arrive until 1200 AD, up to 800 years later than previously thought, a new study suggests.

The revised estimate is based on new radiocarbon dating of soil samples collected from one of oldest known sites on the island, which is in the South Pacific west of Chile.

The finding challenges the widely held notion that Easter Island's civilization experienced a sudden collapse after centuries of slow growth. If correct, the finding would mean that the island's irreversible deforestation and construction of its famous Moai statues began almost immediately after Polynesian settlers first set foot on the island.

. . .

Lipo thinks the story of Easter Island's civilization being responsible for its own demise might better reflect the psychological baggage of our own society than the archeological evidence.

"It fits our 20th century view of us as ecological monsters," Lipo said. "There's no doubt that we do terrible things ecologically, but we're passing that on to the past, which may not have actually been the case. To stick our plight onto them is unfair."

The Science article is here for those with subscriptions. It's a fuller account of the work that was posted on a while ago. I pasted those second two paragraphs because it represents an interesting quandary within archaeology and parts of society generally. The thinking has been, since probably the '60's or '70s (with roots much earlier, obviously) that aboriginal groups by and large lived in complete harmony with their environment. I think the term that's been used is something like the 'original environmentalists'. This has been changing somewhat recently with some researchers showing/arguing that aboriginal (i.e., non Western European) groups were in many ways as rapacious as modern Euro-civ has been. For example, Jack Broughton's work on overhunting in California, and Jared Diamond's book on societal collapse through ecological devastation. This idea does have earlier renditions, such as Martin's Overkill. Heck, some researchers are even arguing that early farmers were doing global warming 10,000 years ago.

Overall, this has probably been a good corrective to the Noble Savage myth that held that all the evils of the world were strictly a western European phenomenon. After all, science doesn't work well with myths even if they do make some people feel good about themselves. We need to keep in mind, however, that going overboard the other way carries its own dangers. This work shows that the situation is far more complex than those two extremes (see mass extinctions above). Easter Islanders probably didn't go rushing headlong over an ecological cliff just so they could build pretty statues, nor was it solely due to European contact. It's a good cautionary tale that one really needs to be mindful of the limits of existing data and that exciting politically-correct (of whatever pursuasion) arguments don't make up for a lack of good radiocarbon dates.

ArchaeoBlog goes into Space

First up, more silliness involving the Ark. No, not that Ark, Noah's. From Space.com we have Satellite Sleuth Closes in on Noah's Ark Mystery:

High on Mt. Ararat in eastern Turkey, there is a baffling mountainside "anomaly," a feature that one researcher claims may be something of biblical proportions.

Images taken by aircraft, intelligence-gathering satellites and commercial remote-sensing spacecraft are fueling an intensive study of the intriguing oddity. But whether the anomaly is some geological quirk of nature, playful shadows, a human-made structure of some sort, or simply nothing at all—that remains to be seen.

Whatever it is, the anomaly of interest rests at 15,300 feet (4,663 meters) on the northwest corner of Mt. Ararat, and is nearly submerged in glacial ice. It would be easy to call it merely a strange rock formation.

Anything large and made of wood would undoubtedly have gotten so smashed up and crushed under moving ice it would be a pile of sticks by now. Besides, looking at the picture:



Shows that it really looks like a more resistant bit of rock. Note the further curved portion continuing up above the cliff wall. Plus there are more simiarly cuved sections in the upper right corner.

Better space story:
Cassini Finds Signs of Liquid Water on Saturn's Moon

Saturn’s moon Enceladus may have pockets of liquid water lurking beneath its surface, feeding great jets that spew from the satellite and hinting at the possibility of a habitable environment, researchers said Thursday.

Observations from the Cassini spacecraft currently studying Saturn and its myriad moons shows Enceladus, one of the brightest objects in the Solar System, to be a geologist’s dream, with an active plume spewing water and other material spaceward, as well as a hot spot of thermal activity at its south pole.

“This finding has substantially broadened the range of environments in the solar system that might support living organisms, and it doesn't get any more significant than that,” said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, in an e-mail interview. “I'd say we've just hit the ball right out of the park.”

Apparently, the energy for the acivity comes from gravitational flexing where the planet's (Saturn) gravity acts differentially on the body of the moon causing the whole thing to flex producing friction, thereby heat, resulting in liquid water. Very neat that far away.

Mammoth Fossil Uncovered At Skagit Gravel Pit

A 4-foot section of a mammoth tusk has been uncovered in a gravel pit in Skagit County.

Belfast Gravel owner Earl Curry realized he had uncovered something special Feb. 28 and was trying to be careful, but a piece of the water-logged fossil broke off as he tried to move it.

Curry called in Western Washington University researcher George Mustoe who is drying the tusk slowly so it doesn't fall apart.

Triva from this story: The Washington state fossil is the Columbia mammoth. Further, the state gem is silicified (petrified) wood (Silicified wood is a gem???). Other exciting official Washington State symbols can be found here.


This week's news from the EEF

The al-Ahram column of Dr Hawass is this time dedicated to Bruce Ludwig, "the new Lord Carnarvon":
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/785/hr2.htm


More reports on KV63:
-- The KV63 dig diary confirms the 28th jar, which at the time
of our interview was yet marked as uncertain:
http://www.kv-63.com/pages/1/index.htm

-- The jar is also confirmed in an interview with Roxanne Wilson,
by Mark Rose for Archaeology Magazine March/April 2006:
http://www.archaeology.org/online/interviews/wilson/index.html

-- Interview with Dr Zahi Hawass about the tomb:
http://www.egypttoday.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=6468

"Much of the speculation could end on March 10, when the tomb
is officially opened and the contents of the seven sarcophagi inside
are examined and photographed by Hawass, Schaden and their staffs."
-- Interview with Dr Otto Schaden:
http://www.egypttoday.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=6469

"We had decided that we would not just do the tops of the huts,
we would check underneath. What I didn't want was for someone
to come by 10 or 20 years later and say, "Boy, were they stupid
for missing this!"
-- Dr Szafranski's opinion on the tomb:
http://snipurl.com/nd65


The Leiden Excavations in the New Kingdom necropolis
at Saqqara has put up Week 5 (February 25- March 2, 2006)
of its dig dairy:
http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/saqqara/Introduction/2006/DiggingDiary2006.html


[Eds. This looks interesting for those non-Dynastic people out there]
Shannon R. McPherron, Deborah Olszewski, Harold A. Dibble,
Jennifer Smith, Abydos Survey for Prehistoric Sites. Preliminary
Report of the 2002-2003 Season. Prepared for the Supreme
Council for Antiquities. iii, 31 pp. With contributions by Dawn
Landua-McCormick and Isabelle Couchoud - pdf-file (2.9 MB)
http://pech.museum.upenn.edu/osa/pdfs/asps_2002_report.pdf
"The Abydos Survey for Paleolithic Sites (ASPS) is a long-term
effort to investigate the distribution and character of Paleolithic
occurrences in the high desert adjacent to Abydos, Egypt ...
The 2002/03 season consisted of 18 field days in the high desert.
During this time 60 sites were identified ... In addition to the
survey for Paleolithic occurrences, a preliminary investigation
of historic period sites was also undertaken. This work resulted
in the identification of monastic and Roman period sites, quarry
sites, and potential burial sites ..."
Website of this project:
http://www.oldstoneage.com/abydos/


Kimberly Williams, Alexandria and the Sea: Maritime Origins
and Underwater Explorations. (2004). Free e-book; in PDF
(seperate files; total is 12 MB):
http://www.hccfl.edu/facultyinfo/kwilliams/

"This is the story of the rise, fall, and rediscovery of Alexandria."
Introduction and TOC (166kB):
http://www.hccfl.edu/facultyinfo/kwilliams/files/ascontents.pdf


Digitizied book from the Travelers in the Middle East Archive (TIMEA)
-- Karl Baedeker, Egypt. Handbook for Travellers. pt. 1. Lower Egypt, with
the Fayum and the peninsula of Sinai, 2nd ed., K. Baedeker, Leipsic / Dulau
and Co., London, 1885. xiv, 538 pp., 16 maps, 30 plans, 7 views, and 76
vignettes. - html-file (3.2 MB!)
http://timea.rice.edu/texts/BaeEg2/BaeEg2.html

"The present volume is the second of a series of HANDBOOKS FOR THE
EAST now in course of preparation, and designed, like the Editor's European
handbooks, for the guidance of travellers ... Owing to its distance from the
homes of most travellers, and to the expense involved in exploring it, Egypt
will never be overrun by tourists to the same extent as Switzerland or
Italy; but it is now reached without difficulty by one of the numerous
Mediterranean steamboat lines, and increased facilities are afforded to
travellers by the recent construction of railways (p. 11) within the country
itself, while its unrivalled attractions abundantly reward the enterprising
traveller and supply him with a subject of life-long interest."

End of EEF news

More Pompeiis Think Pompeii got hit hard? Worse eruptions lurk

The preserved footprints and abandoned homes of villagers who fled a giant eruption of Mount Vesuvius 3,800 years ago show the volcano could destroy modern-day Naples with little warning, Italian and U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

The eruption buried entire villages as far as 15 miles (25 kilometres) from the volcano, cooking people as they tried to escape and dumping several feet (metres) of ash and mud.

New excavations show far more extensive damage than that found at the more famous site of Pompeii, buried in A.D. 79.

Suppose it should have been obvious that there were probably previous massive eruptions and that there would be more buried settlements elsewhere.

Tools 'may be 250,000 years old'

Stone tools found at one of the South's most important early prehistoric sites could date back 250,000 years, archaeologists claim.
The historic finds were uncovered at a former gravel quarry on the Isle of Wight during digs last summer.

Flint axes found near Great Pan Farm, Newport, are thought to be of the sort used by Neanderthal man. Elephant teeth from the same period were also found.

Elaborate cave paintings stun scientists

Chilean and French scientists have discovered, for the first time, elaborate pre-Columbian cave paintings by indigenous Alacaluf people on an isolated island in Patagonia.

More than 40 stunning paintings were located inside the so-called "Pacific Cave" on Madre de Dios island, in Chile's far south, expedition head Bernard Tourte of France said.

The Alacaluf, a nomadic and seafaring people indigenous to the area, were not previously known to have produced such art.

Doesn't really say how old they are so it's hard to judge what the heck the importance really is.

This is good Joint mission will see Luxor tombs renovated

Ancient tombs in the Valley of Queens on the west bank of Luxor, 700km south of Cairo, are set to be renovated by a team of Egyptian and American experts, an Egyptian antiquities official said on Tuesday.

Head of the Supreme Antiquities Council Zahi Hawas said that the council would co-ordinate with the US-based Getty Conservation Institute to renovate sites in the valley over a six-year period.

Getty Conservation Institute director Deborah Marrow said that the US team has been working on the restoration of Egyptian heritage since 1985.

New Wisdom on Ancient Skeleton's Teeth

For years, these bones dating from 13,000 to 15,000 years ago were thought to be from a girl because her wisdom teeth had not yet erupted, something that typically should happen between the ages of 18 and 22. But new analyses provide evidence that she was in fact a 25- to 35-year-old woman at the time of death.

. . .

Because the coarse diet of early humans required a lot of chewing, there was more growth stimulation of the jawbone and more room for wisdom teeth to emerge. But when they started cooking their food and making it softer, the wisdom teeth had more trouble surfacing.


"Finding impacted wisdom teeth 15,000 years ago indicates that the human diet might have already changed, some would say 'deteriorated,' earlier than previously thought," said Robert Martin, Field Museum provost and primatologist.

That sounds interesting, but it is, after all, a sample size of 1. Still, the key observation in here is: "Magdalenian Girl has once again proven the value of museum collections, which often contain unexpected secrets that are only revealed as new methods and techniques emerge," Which is very true in a lot of cases. There is a lot of junk sitting in museums that was excavated earlier in the last century that has not been analyzed using modern techniques. And the techniques don't even have to be all that high-tech either; a lot can be gleaned just from reexamining such things as the spatial distributions, co-occurrences, and a lot of other fairly straightforward statistical techniques that just weren't used very much way back when. The big problem in using museum collections is, of course, a statistical one, since obtaining representative samples wasn't one their radar a lot of the times. Often they just collected what they thought was significant/important (usually the cool, well-preserved stuff) rather than getting a representative sample of everything. So, it's got problems, but it's no doubt still useful for a variety of projects.

Kennewick et al. update Who Were The First Americans?

It was clear from the moment Jim Chatters first saw the partial skeleton that no crime had been committed--none recent enough to be prosecutable, anyway. Chatters, a forensic anthropologist, had been called in by the coroner of Benton County, Wash., to consult on some bones found by two college students on the banks of the Columbia River, near the town of Kennewick. The bones were obviously old, and when the coroner asked for an opinion, Chatters' off-the-cuff guess, based on the skull's superficially Caucasoid features, was that they probably belonged to a settler from the late 1800s. . . .

Dangitall, it's sub-only. I used to have a back door into Time's web site that allowed all reading of the articles, but it has since been lost to the mists of . . .errr, Time, as it were. It's the cover story this week though so it may have to be purchased.

Many human genes evolved recently

Human genes involved in metabolism, skin pigmentation, brain function and reproduction have evolved in response to recent environmental changes, according to a new study of natural selection in the human genome.

Researchers at the University of Chicago, US, developed a statistical test to find genomic regions that evolution has favoured over the last 15,000 years or so – when modern humans dealt with the end of the last ice age, the beginning of agriculture, and increased population densities.

Many of the 700 genes the researchers identified – especially those involved in smelling, fertility, and reproduction – are also suspected of having undergone natural selection during the divergence of humans and chimpanzees millions of years ago.

KV-63 not that big a deal
Well, so sayeth Zahi and Otto, to one degree or other. I believe I might have mentioned this in an initial post. Kings or Cooks?

Hawass has heard and even been the center of similar hype countless of times before and admits that “only 30 percent of our monuments have been excavated,” but doesn’t see this particular find as lastingly significant.

Otto Schaden, leader of the team that uncovered the find, generally agrees with Hawass’ estimation. Standing in front of the site, Schaden told et, “For all we know, even though they are buried here in the Valley of the Kings, they could be the king’s favorite cooks. It could be one of his nephews who never had a chance for a higher position. Who knows? You can speculate endlessly.”

Much of the speculation could end on March 10, when the tomb is officially opened and the contents of the seven sarcophagi inside are examined and photographed by Hawass, Schaden and their staffs.

More Egyptian boats story Red Sea timbers provide a raft of knowledge

THE oldest known remains of seafaring ships have been identified in a series of cave stores on the Red Sea coast of Egypt. Built of cedar and acacia wood, the ships had been attacked by marine worms, and the site seems to have been a shipbreaker’s yard dating to the middle of the second millennium BC.

The discovery, at Wadi Gawasis near the modern port of Safaga, also yielded boxes which give vital clues on Egyptian contact with the mysterious kingdom of Punt (The Times, January 31). The ship timbers there suggest that parts of pharaonic seagoing vessels were fabricated in the Nile Valley and transported overland for assembly on the coast, according to Cheryl Ward of Florida State University.

Might be some new information here, but basically it's the same discovery that's been heralded for months now.

And one more from Egypt Ancient war goddess statues unearthed in Egypt

A team of Egyptian and German archeologists has unearthed six statues of the lion-headed war goddess Sekhmet during restoration work at an ancient temple in the southern city of Luxor, officials said.

The team found the artifacts in the Kom Hitan area on the location of the 18th dynasty (1580-1314 BC) temple of pharaoh Amenhotep III on the west bank of the Nile, said Egyptian antiquities boss Zahi Hawas.

The black granite statues show Sekhmet sitting on a throne holding the "key of life" in her left hand. They were buried under the eastern wall of the temple's courtyard, Hawas said in a statement.

UD anthropologist finds signs of evolution in ancient skeleton

Recent analysis of a Stone Age skeleton shows that human brain size relative to body size had increased dramatically from ancestors by the Middle Pleistocene, about 260,000 years ago, Karen Rosenberg, chairperson and associate professor of anthropology at the University of Delaware, said.

Rosenberg, who analyzed the fossil with Lü Zuné of Peking University in Beijing and Chris B. Ruff, director of the Center for Functional Anatomy and Evolution at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, said the female skeleton, which was found at a site called Jinniushan in northeastern China 22 years ago, sheds new light on human evolution.

“This fossil belonged to one person from a time and place we didn't know very much about,” Rosenberg said. “What we were really interested in was what could this person tell us about relative brain size [and] body shape, and we could look at all of that in this specimen.”

1,700-year old tombs excavated in Anhui

Chinese archaeologists have discovered five tombs dating back more than 1,700 years in east China's Anhui Province.

Located in Huaibei City, the tombs were found during construction of a local project.

Archaeologists unearthed a bronze sword, some pieces of chinaware and painted earthenware from the five tombs, believed tobe built in the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220).

Book review Spirits from the sky

Archaeologists took a great leap forward in understanding the past as soon as they were able to look at the Earth from the air: for the first time, they could map the overall design of ruinous sites, establish connections between apparently diverse details, and see the relationship between buildings and the natural environment. The first significant breakthrough was made in 1906 by PH Sharpe, who snapped Stonehenge from a war balloon during an exercise flight. By the late 1930s, and thanks to better cameras, let alone more reliable aircraft, Osbert Guy Crawford, who is generally described as the inventor of aerial photography in archaeology, had developed methods of producing and analysing the results which have stayed pretty much the same ever since. He realised that it was sensible to work at times of day when the angle of sunlight showed other-wise hidden elements, he was able to understand the patterns created by lighter and darker patches of vegetation, and he began to reconstruct ancient farming systems as well as town-scapes. "Aerial photography," he said in 1938, "has provided archaeology with a research tool that is as valuable to it as the telescope was for astronomy."

Petrie exhibit Artifacts from ancient Egypt show influence of pioneering archaeologist

The 27-year-old British archeologist was making his first trip to Egypt, on a mission to uncover the truth about the Great Pyramid. When he moved into an abandoned tomb at Giza and slept on a hammock, everyone noticed the unconventional William Matthew Flinders Petrie.

Petrie became even harder to ignore after his 1880 adventure as he brought a scientific approach to excavations and, as a result, changed what the world knew about the ancient civilization.

Petrie was somewhat overlooked by history outside of academic circles because of Carter and Tutankhamun. But he, along with Champollion, are probably the biggest single figures in Egyptian archaeology (as opposed to the more restrictive Egyptology). He worked in material from nearly all periods -- Predynastic, Dynastic, even some prehistoric -- and framed many of the most basic questions about Egyptian history that we are still arguing about today. There was a good biography of him written a few years back -- the name of which I haven't got handy, but it makes a good read.

They found it?
Local dig produces the 'Holy Grail' of archaeology

One little arrowhead has caused quite a stir among local amateur archaeologists.

But one arrowhead is all it took to turn Ebberts Spring Site 36FR367, two miles south of Greencastle, from a typical archaeological dig into a super site.

The artifact, which can be hidden in the palm of your hand, is a paleo point — a stone point from a spear used during the Paleo-Indianperiod from 10,000 to 8000 B.C., just after the last ice age. It's identifiable from later styles of points by the groove chipped into each side. These grooves helped in slipping the stone into a split wood shaft.

It's a rare find, said Doug Stine, president of Cumberland Valley Chapter 27 Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology Inc.

"A paleo point is the Holy Grail of archaeology," he said.

Okay, not The Grail. Not even a piece of pottery. Interesting find though, and anything Paleoindian is significant.

Survivorman on TV Been meaning to do a small post about this show, to which I have become mildly addicted recently. Web site here. It's about a guy (Les Stroud) who takes camera gear into various wildnerness areas and stays for a week without supplies. He does all the filming himself (see FAQ on the web site) so that means working with camera equipment while at the same time carrying out the basic necessities of surviving.

The reason I bring it up is because he often makes reference, in some cases actually visiting the sites of, aboriginal (archaeological) people who lived in the very same habitats. This makes clear the idea that, at one time, people really did live off the land like this, and watching Stroud attempt to find both water and food really gives one an appreciation for the level of ecological knowledge and simple, yet effective, technology required to make a living in these locales.

This only goes so far though. Obviously, yer basic early Holocene hunter-gatherer wouldn't be wandering around the mountains in winter; they'd go down into the valleys to hunt game and gather whatever they can. They would know where the game was at that time, what other resources were available, etc., not to mention having a tool kit available for actually acquiring the resources. So watching Les struggle to find food along a frozen lake obviously doesn't give you a good idea what a Paleoindian would be doing (that's not really the point of the show anyhow). He's also generally not going to go out and bring down a large game animal which would probably turn off a lot of his audience and make the animal rights people have a collective thrombo. But still, it brings something of an immediacy to the problems of acquiring resources when you're without modern technology.

Might it not be interesting to have Les or someone else (hey, Josh Bernstein. . .) do something similar and follow an archaeological lifestyle for a week? Make some pottery, collect some grains, grind it up into flower, collect and dry salmon, etc. You could even not restrict yourself to being a H-G; say, live as a 12th Dynasty Egyptian for a week or a month? That would be cool.

Stroud's web site is here, BTW.

Prehistoric Milling Site Found in Calif.

Archaeologists excavating a housing development site found a prehistoric milling area estimated to be 8,000 years old, officials said.

Large arrowheads, hearths and stone slabs used to grind seeds and acorns were among the items found at the site at the base of the Angeles National Forest, according to archeologists from Cogstone Resource Management Inc.

No human or animal bones were discovered, the company said.

Archaeologists to establish true value of Roman silver coins

An archaeologist at the University of Liverpool is examining more than 1,000 Roman silver coins from museums around the world in order to establish their true economic value.

Dr Matthew Ponting, from the University's School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, is investigating the chemical composition of the coins to further understanding of how and where they were made. Dr Ponting believes that analysis of the coins will also shed more light on the political and economic issues of the Roman Empire.

Dr Ponting and his colleague Professor Kevin Butcher from the American University of Beirut, are using unique analysis techniques to examine the make-up of the coins and establish their silver content. The analysis will also identify particular chemical elements which will help the archaeologists establish where and how the coins were made.

And now. . . .the news from the EEF

Press report: "Ancient Manuscripts Found In Egyptian Monastery"
http://www.forbes.com/2002/05/29/0529conn.html
"A cache of manuscripts up to 1,500 years old has been
discovered in a Coptic monastery in the Western Desert
of Egypt. The find was made at Deir al-Surian, the Monastery
of the Syrians (..). A single completed manuscript [a
9th-century Book of the Holy Hierothos] and hundreds
of fragments [ca. 600; the earliest one from ca 500 A.D.]
were found when reconstruction work was undertaken. "

Another press report on the new sun temple found in Heliopolis
with the statues of Ramesses II, with more detail and a nice
picture of the [usurped] 12th Dynasty style seated statue:
"Giant Ancient Egyptian Sun Temple Discovered in Cairo"
http://snipurl.com/n3d1
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0301_060301_
egypt.html?source=rss]
""Perhaps the most exciting [find] is an unusual seated statue that
shows Ramses II in the leopard skin of a priest, showing that he
built this temple as the high priest of Re," Hawass said. " (2 pages)
Some other reports:
http://www.inform.kz/txt/showarticle.php?lang=eng&id=140197
http://snipurl.com/n3nu
[http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8AFA4E17-
30EB-4C73-8BD2-7F3A8592C51C.htm]
In the latter report, some photos of the site and of an artefact
may be found.
A more elaborate photo gallery (photos 2-11!) is at:
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/sc/021903anthroarchaeo/
[Earlier links posted on the forum:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060226/sc_nm/egypt_archaeology_dc
http://snipurl.com/mzfj
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=qw1140990304502R131]
http://www.livescience.com/history/ap_060227_sun_temple.html ]

Press report: "Desert fathers in the limelight"
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/783/heritage.htm
Report on the Third Symposium on Coptic Studies that
took place at the White Monastery of St Shenoude west of
Sohag early this month.

A Q&A session about KV63 with Roxanne Wilson, an
artist/recorder with the KV10/KV63 mission, may be found
on the EEF BBS as a PDF-file:
http://www.egyptologyforum.org/bbs/KV63Q&A.html

Note that a photo of the mentioned youth coffin has appeared
at the bottom of the KV63 website:
http://www.kv-63.com/pages/1/index.htm
Note that the ARTP issue mentioned is further clarified
in a new statement by Dr Nicholas Reeves:
http://www.valleyofthekings.org/vofk/default.htm


Online version of: Jean-Daniel Stanley, Franck Goddio, Thomas
F. Jorstad, Gerard Schnepp, Submergence of Ancient Greek
Cities Off Egypt's Nile Delta - A Cautionary Tale, in: GSA [The
Geological Society of America] Today, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 4-10 (2004)
http://snipurl.com/n1f5
[http://www.gsajournals.org/gsaonline/?request=get-document&doi=
10.1130%2F1052-5173(2004)014%3C4:SOAGCO%3E2.0.CO%3B2]
"Two ancient Greek cities, Herakleion and Eastern Canopus, originally
occupied low-lying delta coastal areas along the Canopic channel of the
Nile. Both were unprotected against flooding, earthquake, tsunami, and
consequent subsidence. These sites, recently discovered in Abu Qir Bay on
the northwestern margin of Egypt's Nile delta, were lowered a total of 8 m
during the past 2500 yr, and now lie at water depths of 5-7 m ... Processes
leading to their submergence are interpreted on the basis of integrated
archaeological, physiographic, geological (including cores), and geophysical
(side-scan sonar, nuclear resonance magnetometer, high-resolution seismic)
information ... Ancient cities discussed here cause us to reflect on
present-day site selection and construction practices in modern deltaic and
associated wetland settings, and potential challenges related to substrate
failure and other coastal hazards."

* Online version of: Bonnie M. Sampsell, The Statuary of Tuthmosis III, in:
The Ostracon, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 8-13 (Summer 2004) - pdf-file (716 KB)
http://www.egyptstudy.org/Ostracon/SampsellStatuesSummer2004.pdf
"One of my favorite Egyptian sculptures is a statue of Tuthmosis III in the
Luxor Museum ... The figure is carved from a fine-grained greywacke and
polished to a smooth luster. The king, whose face is miraculously intact,
appears as a handsome and noble monarch. I think this must be one of the
greatest artistic achievements of ancient Egypt. And yet my admiring
reaction may not have been what the ancient sculptor was striving for, and a
museum was definitely not the setting for which this statue was intended."

* Online version of: Kathleen Nicoll, Recent environmental change and
prehistoric human activity in Egypt and Northern Sudan, in: Quaternary
Science Reviews, vol. 23, pp. 561-580 (2004) - pdf-file (590 KB)
http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/~knicoll/ww/qsr_nicoll_eg_sud.pdf

"Converging lines of evidence from various geoarchaeological and
interdisciplinary investigations conducted in Egypt and northern Sudan
suggest that significant environmental changes have influenced human
activities throughout antiquity ... This paper compiles available
palaeoenvironmental records from the Late Quaternary in Egypt
and northern Sudan, and describes the spatial and temporal context
of local cultural activities when the region west of the Nile River valley
was most hospitable B9000-6000 BP. During this critical period in
prehistory, rapid hydroclimatic changes played a key role in
geomorphic evolution andre source availability."

End of EEF news

Few more items before calling it a day (EEF news will be posted tomorrow):

Early Andean maize is unearthed

Archaeologists say they`ve found evidence that ancient Peruvians grew maize more than a millennium earlier than previously thought.

Maize was originally cultivated in Mexico and archaeologists have evidence the crop was grown as early as 7,000 years ago in Ecuador. But they had not known how quickly the practice spread southward into the Andes.

The evidence was found at a dig at the Waynuna Site in Peru`s Catahuasi Valley.

Hmmm. Don't say what the date is exactly. Before 7,000? Or just 1000 years earlier than thought in this area?

Pit of shells may lend clues to Calusa culture

Fifteen chipped and broken 1,300-year-old lightning whelk shells lay jumbled together Tuesday like a pile of wadded paper in a shallow pit on Useppa Island.

Beside them lay a fractured horse conch shell.

A University of California-Los Angeles doctoral candidate thinks the shells are what remains of an early Calusa tool-making workshop and might mark a turning point in Southwest Florida’s prehistory.

“The whelks are a pile of failures, rejects — these people were making whelk axes,” said John Dietler, who is investigating early Calusa tool making and politics for his doctoral dissertation. “The horse conch was used to shape the tools. We’ve got the smoking gun and the scraps.”

Polish archaeologist unearths Europe's most ancient graves

Five of Europe's most ancient graves, dating back 10,000 years, have been unearthed in the village of Dwreca, central Poland.

Archaeologist Marian Marciniak found the graves on the site of ancient post-glacial dunes, the Rzeczpospolita daily reported. In them, a young woman, believed aged 18 to 21, was put to rest with a baby, a child aged 5 to 7 and another aged 7 to 11.

An adult male found at the site was buried sitting upright, as if on a throne or chair.

Seems like excellent organic preservation if all the stuff about skins and tree bark is correct.

Sun temple update Giant Ancient Egyptian Sun Temple Discovered in Cairo

Archaeologists announced Sunday that they have discovered an ancient sun temple containing large statues of the pharaoh Ramses II under an outdoor marketplace in Cairo, Egypt.

The temple was found in a suburb of Cairo called Ain Shams. The site was once part of the ancient city of Heliopolis, which served as the center of sun worship in ancient Egypt. The chief sun god, Re, was the patron sun god of Heliopolis.

Ramses II, who is believed to have ruled Egypt from around 1279 to 1213 B.C., is known for his military exploits and monumental building projects. To celebrate his victories, he erected statues and temples to himself all over Egypt.

Bit more detail than earlier stories. Hopefully, more and earlier remains will be found (Hawass is quoted as saying the cult there could go back to the Old Kingdom).

KV-63 update KV-63 has its own web site!

Chock full o' picures of the crew and tomb itself. Definitely chec it out now and in the future. I've worked with several of these people and they're all excellent.

Nubi has been with several expeditions in the VK:


Otto story: The Cairo subway/metro has a separate car in the front and back of each train reserved for women only. Otto didn't know this and got on one once. He couldn't figure out why everyone kept staring at him.

I, of course, have no embarassing field stories, uh-uh, nooooooo sirree.

Yes, that would be a good idea Archaeologists urge museums to help curb looting of ancient art

The global debate over the black market in ancient art is heating up.

At issue is whether art museums encourage looting of ancient sites when they buy works without detailed ownership histories, such as the large bronze statue of "Apollo the Lizard Slayer," bought in 2004 by the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Tuesday, the Archaeological Institute of America criticized guidelines on collecting of antiquities issued by the Association of Art Museum Directors, of which the Cleveland museum is a member.

Pompeii Principle writ large Excavation reveals a village buried by 1815 volcanic blast

The remains of a village and its inhabitants, destroyed by a volcano nearly 200 years ago, have been uncovered under 10 feet of volcanic ash on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa.

The eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 was the largest in recorded history, spewing enough dust into the atmosphere to cause "The Year without a Summer" across the world the next year as temperatures fell and crops died. The eruption buried perhaps 10,000 people, preserving their homes and remains, much like what happened to Italy's Pompeii, says volcanologist Haraldur Sigurdsson of the University of Rhode Island in Narragansett. Pompeii was destroyed by Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.

Archaeology around Lesser Slave Lake

Ray Le Blanc spent parts of seven field seasons scouring the perimeter of Lesser Slave Lake for evidence of pre-historic human activity. He found plenty, and the results are all down on paper, in the University of Alberta professor’s 2004 book, ‘Archaeological Research in the Lesser Slave Lake Region; a Contribution to the Pre-Contact History of the Boreal Forest of Alberta.’

Between 1979 and 1990, Le Blanc and his crews excavated numerous sites - mostly around the west end of the lake, but also north shore, south shore and east end - and found an abundance of stone implements or stone flakes associated with tool-making. Additionally, he noted several fine local collections of stone implements around the lake.

Ministry of Silly Walks update Early Humans Walked Peculiarly?

At least two species of early humans were knock-kneed and walked rather uniquely, according to a new study on seven anklebones that belonged to various early human ancestors from eastern and southern Africa.

The study, which will be published in the April issue of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, suggests that although the early humans walked on two feet, they did not always do so with our relatively smooth stride.

"This is hard to explain, but easy to demonstrate," said Dan Gebo, who co-authored the paper with Gary Schwartz, an Arizona State University anthropologist.

Boy, I dunno. The picture included doesn't seem to make a good case. The two hominid bones (left two) sure seem pretty similar:

Evo-med update Study of dinosaurs part of Pitt Medical School plan to graduate better doctors

Back pain, knee problems, hernias – these are just a few of today's more common medical ailments whose roots can be traced back millions of years, when our human ancestors evolved from walking on all fours to standing on their two hind legs. Cancer can be dated back even further – Carnegie Museum of Natural History researchers have proof by way of a 150-million-year-old Jurassic dinosaur bone, its tumor still preserved.

Understanding the origins of human diseases could help identify fresh avenues toward their prevention and treatment. At the very least, an appreciation of the evolutionary history of humans and other animals should make for better medical doctors and physician-scientists, which is why the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is collaborating with Carnegie Museum of Natural History to offer its students educational and research opportunities unlike any available at other medical schools. The partnership, the Natural History of Medicine Initiative, is the first of its kind involving a medical school and natural history museum.

Younger Dryas update A paper discussing possible causes of the Younger Dryas. In recent years, opinion has been that the Younger was initiated by an influx of fresh water from Lake Agassiz that shut down the Gulf Stream; the so-called "thermohaline shutdown" model:

TESTING THE LAKE AGASSIZ MELTWATER TRIGGER FOR THE YOUNGER DRYAS

Preliminary results indicate that ice recession at both outlet areas is later than supposed, and that large volumes of meltwater were not catastrophically released from Lake Agassiz at the beginning of the Younger Dryas. Thus, if the Lake Agassiz floods did not upset the circulation pattern, the question becomes: What did? Could other pathways of the hydrological cycle alter the thermohaline circulation pattern at the beginning of the Younger Dryas, or alter other climate fluctuations that preceded Lake Agassiz?

These investigations indicate that the geological understanding of past abrupt climate changes is only preliminary. This does not bode well for predicting future, abrupt climate changes.

This just in Thanks to Mark Morgan we now have (non-)exclusive photos of the first blonde, anatomically modern (and how). . .errrr, Cavegirl we first described in this post:



There you have it.

Apparently, a BBC series appealing to teens, thuogh it appears to be one of those filmed-in-Australia things that is largely cheesy, but chock full o' scantily clad nubile young females and buff, manly men. See, for example, Cleopatra 2525 (note archaeological connection) or The Lost World (note faint archaeological connection). Maybe they're filmed in New Zealand, I dunno.

There's something fishy about human brain evolution

Forget the textbook story about tool use and language sparking the dramatic evolutionary growth of the human brain. Instead, imagine ancient hominid children chasing frogs. Not for fun, but for food.
According to Dr. Stephen Cunnane it was a rich and secure shore-based diet that fuelled and provided the essential nutrients to make our brains what they are today. Controversially, according to Dr. Cunnane our initial brain boost didn't happen by adaptation, but by exaptation, or chance.

"Anthropologists and evolutionary biologists usually point to things like the rise of language and tool making to explain the massive expansion of early hominid brains. But this is a Catch-22. Something had to start the process of brain expansion and I think it was early humans eating clams, frogs, bird eggs and fish from shoreline environments. This is what created the necessary physiological conditions for explosive brain growth," says Dr. Cunnane, a metabolic physiologist at the University of Sherbrooke in Sherbrooke, Quebec.

Hmmm. Kinda short on detail and no commentary from critics. Seems as interesting a hypothesis as any.

Ann Althouse has a post up on the scholarship potential of law blogs.

One lawprof is quoted as saying blogs "have nothing to do with scholarship". This is probably overstating things. Archaeologists/anthropologists don't seem to generally like blogs. Perhaps it's too public. Email lists tend to be quite popular and get a lot of use for discussing the minutae of archaeological issues. John Hawks uses his for throwing his ideas out in kind of a semi-formal way (providing references, making fairly detailed discipline-centered arguments), and also includes commentary on more mundane and entertaining matters.

Archaeologists should use blogs. There. I said it. It would be a GREAT way to communicate what we do to a larger lay audience. It can create a space where your average person can, through Comments, ask a professional archaeologist a question. We can let people know why we do what we do, what we get out of the sites we excavate, what the controversies are and what we think of them. It would humanize us, especially if we include some more personal stuff on our blogs. It's really easy to blast someone for holding a particular (but probably heavily stereotyped) view on some issue or other, but harder when you've just finished reading how their kid just learned to walk. Well, maybe not for some. But still, any archaeology blog is almost bound to be less full of fireworks than your typical political blog.

Archaeology Team Discovers Oldest Remains of Sea-faring Ships in the World

A team of archaeologists from Boston University and the University of Naples l’Orientale recently uncovered the oldest remains of sea-faring ships in the world and cargo boxes containing goods from the lost-land of Punt – a fabled southern Red Sea trading center. The discoveries were made during a round of excavations inside two man-made caves previously found by the team at Wadi Gawasis on Egypt’s Red Sea coast.

In remarkable condition, the unique artifacts of cedar planks and decking timber – some with the mortises and tenons, and copper fastenings still in place – demonstrate that the Ancient Egyptians were excellent ship builders and provide further evidence that they reached Punt by sea. The findings may also help researchers determine the location of Punt, a long-time source of debate among scholars.

Not much new here from previous stories on this find, but it's a good reminder anyway.

Chinese find 3,000-year-old hand painting

A 3,000-YEAR-old painting made with human hand prints and believed to depict a dancing man and woman has been discovered by archaeologists on a cliff in south-west China.

The painting, measuring about 4ft by 5ft and created using a mixture of iron ore and animal blood, was found near the Jinsha river in Yunnan province, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Local people guided three archaeologists to the scene, according to Ji Xueping, an associate professor with the Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology.

That's the whole thing. There are more stories around, but all seem to be similarly short.

Archaeologists discover Saint Chad's Burial Place and Shrine

In a discovery hailed as being of “European significance” and the “foundation of English art”, archaeologists working at Lichfield Cathedral have uncovered the church built to house the grave of St Chad; together with the “Lichfield Angel” - part of the shrine created around AD700 by Bishop Hedda to mark the resting place of Lichfield’s first Bishop.

And now the remains of the shrine are to be reunited for the first time in more than 1,000 years with the Lichfield Gospels – an illuminated manuscript commissioned in the eighth century to adorn the shrine. And, thanks to collaboration between the Cathedral, the British Library and the Parish of Llandeilo, members of the public will be able to ‘turn the pages’ of the precious Lichfield Gospels as they have been digitised – digital versions of the St Chad Gospels will be on display in the Cathedral and also available to tour across the diocese.

Never heard of him, but it seems to be quite important.

CRM update State Archaeologist: The future can wait for some work on our past

All the Utah state archaeologist has the power to do is slow things down a bit. And because the things he or she might want to slow down are the destruction of priceless human artifacts, the loss of irreplaceable fossils and the creation of huge gaps in our understanding of the land that gives us life, that is hardly too great a burden.
Of course, deliberation and thought have few friends in our modern world, least of all among legislative bodies that are motivated to hurry things along so they can bring revenue to both private investors and public tax collectors.
Thus HB139, which passed a lopsided Utah House Tuesday and went to the Senate. It would eliminate the position of state archaeologist and move what remained of the function of preserving our unwritten past from its natural home in the History Division of the Department of Community and Economic Development over to the Governor's Public Lands Policy Coordination Office.

It's another editorial against this particular bill.

But it's still flat Prehistory of Kansas is not what you thought

If pressed, most Kansans would guess the Kansa Indians were the state’s first farmers and corn was their first crop.

And they’d be wrong.

“There were people farming here a thousand years before the Kansa got here,” said Robert Hoard, state archaeologist at the Kansas State Historical Society. “Corn didn’t really kick in as a crop until about 1000 A.D.”

Euro C-14 dating update John Hawks has some comments on the Mellars paper that caused some stir recently.

Hawks also alerts us to the falsity of the Blonde Extinction Event that's mentioned near the bottom of that article:

The World Health Organization says there is no such study -- and that most journalists didn't call to check.

"We've certainly never conducted any research into the subject," WHO spokeswoman Rebecca Harding said yesterday from Geneva. "It's been impossible to find out where it came from. It just seems like it was a hoax."

Don't remember if I posted that story or not. I recall it, but I don't even know if ArchaeoBlog was around then.

Big Woman with a Distant Past: Stone Age gal embodies humanity's cold shifts

A 260,000-year-old partial skeleton excavated in northwestern China 22 years ago represents our largest known female ancestor, according to a new analysis of the individual's extensive remains.

This ancient woman puts a modern twist on Stone Age human evolution, say Karen R. Rosenberg of the University of Delaware in Newark, Lü Zuné of Peking University in Beijing, and Chris B. Ruff of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. The fossil individual's large size and the apparent adaptation of her body to cold conditions are "consistent with the idea that patterns of human anatomical variation that we see today have deep evolutionary roots," Rosenberg asserts.

2200-year old graveyard of children discovered in Inner Mongolia

Chinese archaeologists have found a 2200-year-old graveyard containing the remains of children in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

According to Chen Yongzhi, vice director of the regional archeological research center, nearly 20 tombs at the 100-square meter graveyard were unearthed at the ruins of ancient Tuchengzi Town in Helinger County.

The archaeologists spotted many earthenware jar-shaped coffins for housing the children's remains inside the tombs, which date back to the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC - 24 AD).

Qasr'e Shirin's 6,000-Year-Old Mystery

Discovery of some clay relics from Obeid Site (an ancient site in Mesopotamia and current Iraq belonging to the 4th Millennium BC) in the city of Qasr'e Shirin has laid the origin and destination of this city�s migrants about 6,000 years ago under ambiguity.

Archeologists want to know whether these migrants came to this region from Mesopotamia or they were traveling among different regions of Zagros Mountains. "Continuation of the surveys and identifications in this city led to the discovery of 75 ancient sites most of which belong to the Obeid Site," said Ali Hajbari, head of archeology team in Qasr'e Shirin.

"Archeologists are also trying to find out whether these clays are indicators of a kind of economic and cultural connection between this region and Mesopotamia," added Hajbari.

Power of the Internet, Part 4,397 Ancient maps to soon go online

While they may study places and people that are thousands of years old, scholars at UNC are at the forefront of modernizing antiquity.

Researchers long have had to dip into hefty and static atlases to study the stomping grounds of Alexander the Great or the Roman emperors, but they soon will be able to do so on a comprehensive, open-source database on the Internet -- thanks to UNC's Ancient World Mapping Center.

The group started the project this month with the help of a $390,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Mapping center leaders hope the online project will serve as a template for other humanities scholars to incorporate technology into their research.

Desert site holds centuries of culture

On Tammera and Clay Walker's property east of Bend, a shallow wash bracketed by basalt walls suggests nothing more than a typical desert draw.

But closer inspection reveals a legacy of at least 13,000 years of human habitation, documented by more than 200 panels of rock art, obsidian tool bits and potential burial sites. Northern Paiute tribal members, who still worship at the site, consider it sacred ground.

The Walkers want to place the site, which experts call the most important archaeological site in Deschutes County, on the National Register of Historic Places.

Towers of stone – the brochs of Scotland

Today they provide some of our most impressive archaeological remains, yet they still retain an air of mystery – there is a lot to learn about brochs.

Brochs comprise circular stone towers, apparently built to house the elite of a community and also to provide safety for everyone in a time of need. There is an element of display in their size, as well as an element of defence. They developed out of a tradition of circular stone dwellings, enhanced by master builders who knew exactly how to make the most of local stone resources.

Yet another object/strucure I'd never heard of.

Bronze Age Sky Disc Deciphered

A group of German scientists has deciphered the meaning of one of the most spectacular archeological discoveries in recent years: The mystery-shrouded sky disc of Nebra was used as an advanced astronomical clock.

The purpose of the 3,600 year-old sky disc of Nebra, which caused a world-wide sensation when it was brought to the attention of the German public in 2002, is no longer a matter of speculation.

A group of German scholars who studied this archaeological gem has discovered evidence which suggests that the disc was used as a complex astronomical clock for the harmonization of solar and lunar calendars.

Aha. Well, this is how it is proposed to operate: The Bronze Age astronomers would hold the Nebra clock against the sky and observe the position of the celestial objects. The intercalary month was inserted when what they saw in the sky corresponded to the map on the disc they were holding in their hands. This happened every two to three years.

I like that. Fairly simple.

Anatomically modern gentlemen prefer blondes Cavegirls were first blondes to have fun

THE modern gentleman may prefer blondes. But new research has found that it was cavemen who were the first to be lured by flaxen locks.

According to the study, north European women evolved blonde hair and blue eyes at the end of the Ice Age to make them stand out from their rivals at a time of fierce competition for scarce males.

The study argues that blond hair originated in the region because of food shortages 10,000-11,000 years ago. Until then, humans had the dark brown hair and dark eyes that still dominate in the rest of the world. Almost the only sustenance in northern Europe came from roaming herds of mammoths, reindeer, bison and horses. Finding them required long, arduous hunting trips in which numerous males died, leading to a high ratio of surviving women to men.

The study itself and some of the ancillary findings (the Japanese study where the blonde gene is thought to have arisen 11k BP) are certainly interesting. However, the scenario about blondes being far more attractive to men, men getting killed hunting, etc., seems more like one of the "just-so" stories usually created to "explain" a particular trait (Gould and Eldridge's spandrels again). It seems as if a trait like this were to become truly fixed in a population, it would have to be far more functional in nature than simply a 'gentlemen prefer blondes' issue. No doubt the reading on the distribution of hair and eye colors geographically will be worthy in and of itself.

Do we really need another Scarlett Johanssen picture to demonstrate what a blonde cave-woman might have looked like?

Yes, I believe we do:

Artists' conception of what the first blonde northern European female might have looked like:

More breaking news out of Egypt

Aayko sends this along from the EEF lists regarding some earlier reports on Ramesses II statues that were found (we didn't post that; you can hardly dig a hole in Egypt without finding a statue of R-II):

Press report: "Ancient temple found beneath Cairo market"

http://snipurl.com/mzfj

[http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=qw1140990304502R131

"Archaeologists discovered a pharaonic sun temple with large
statues believed to be of King Ramses II under an outdoor
marketplace in Cairo (..) The partially uncovered site is the
largest sun temple ever found in the capital's Aim Shams
and Matariya districts. "

This report is a bit clearer about the amount of statues
than previous ones.