Stone Pages Archaeo News: December 2008 Archives

December 2008 index:

6 December 2008: New insight on Great Smoky Mountains' first residents; Picture a small group of men and women, say 20 to 30 people, cautiously making their way through a dense forest along a small stream, searching for a place to...
: Rare Bronze Age necklace found in England; A rare amber necklace believed to be about 4,000 years old has been uncovered in Greater Manchester (England). Archaeologists made the find while excavating a cist - a type of...
: Dental plaque gives clue to diet of ancient Peruvians; Starch grains preserved on human teeth reveal that ancient Peruvians ate a variety of cultivated crops including squash, beans, peanuts and the fruit of cultivated pacay trees. This finding by...
: Archaeologists rush to save Bronze Age sites in Iran; Five archaeological teams have been sent to East Azarbaijan to carry out rescue excavations at the reservoir of the Khoda-Afarin Dam, north of the country. "The research will be carried...
: Iceman Oetzi's last supper; From the analysis of the intestinal contents of the 5,200-year-old Iceman from the Eastern Alps, Professor James Dickson from the University of Glasgow in the UK and his team have...
: Russian site reveals 'extraordinary' Paleolithic artworks; Archaeologists in Russia have discovered an 'extraordinary' group of Stone Age artworks which appear to have been carefully buried in pits and covered with mammoth bones, researchers announced in a...
: Oregonian cave yield evidence about prehistoric America; For some 85 years, homesteaders, pot hunters and archaeologists have been digging at Paisley Caves (Oregon, USA). Until now, they have found nothing conclusive - arrowheads, baskets, animal bones and...
: Thera volcano catastrophe dated to 1613 BCE; Two olive branches buried by a Minoan-era eruption of the volcano on the island of Thera (modern-day Santorini, Greece) have enabled precise radiocarbon dating of the catastrophe to 1613 BCE,...
: 3,500-year-old spearhead found in Scotland; A 3,500 year old Bronze Age spearhead has been discovered in a stream in Dumfriesshire (Scotland). The ancient weapon-tip was found in the waters of the Mennock Pass, close to...
: Clear views ahead for British Iron Age farm; Unsightly power lines that have been on the blot on the landscape of a beauty spot in Hampshire (England) are to be removed. A total of £150,000 is to be...
: Treasures on Irish roadside; The Irish economic boom may be over, but its flurry of road building has uncovered a wealth of archaeological finds with lasting value. In particular, digs along proposed routes have...
14 December 2008: Grave of Kurgan warrior discovered in Iran; Iranian archaeological teams working at the reservoir area of the Khoda-Afarin Dam have recently discovered a burial site of a Kurgan warrior during their rescue excavations. A bull statuette, a...
: Future of British hillfort under the spotlight; The future of Shropshire's landmark hill (England), including controversial plans for a huge opencast coal mine, will come under the spotlight at a public meeting. People will also have the...
: Late Neanderthals and modern human contact in Spain; It is widely accepted that Upper Paleolithic early modern humans spread westward across Europe about 42,000 years ago, variably displacing and absorbing Neanderthal populations in the process. However, Middle Paleolithic,...
: Archaeologists find piece of string dating back 8,000 years; The fibres were discovered in a flooded Stone Age settlement just off the coast of the Isle of Wight (Great Britain). The four-and-a-half inch long string was made from tough...
: Which came first, monumental building projects or farming?; Göbekli Tepe is a hill-top Neolithic site in southeastern Turkey whose circles of huge decorated T-shaped stones are at least 5,000 years older than any other monumental structure ever found....
: Submerged Neolithic villages may have inspired the flood of Noah; A deluge that swept the Land of Israel more than 7,000 years ago, submerging six Neolithic villages opposite the Carmel Mountains, may be the origin of the biblical flood of...
: Neanderthals had a varied diet; Archaeology Professor Noreen Tuross sought to rehabilitate the image of Neanderthals as meat-eating brutes last week, presenting evidence that, though they almost certainly ate red meat, Neanderthal diets also consisted...
: Dig turns up 10,000 years old flint flakes in Texas; Many, many years ago, the area now known as Zilker Park (Austin, Texas - USA) was a settlement for some of North America's early hunter-gatherers. As many as 10,000 years...
: Prehistoric bronze hoard found off Greek beach; A hoard of 4,500-year-old copper weapons recovered off a northern beach is the largest of its kind ever found in Greece. A Culture Ministry statement says the discovery includes at...
: Stone Age Japan; "The earliest known Jomon man," writes J. Edward Kidder Jr. in "The Cambridge History of Japan," "was uncovered in 1949. He stood rather tall for a Jomon person: about 163...
: Neolithic settlement unearthed in Iran; An archaeological team working on the Kelar Tepe believes that they have found a Neolithic settlement on the prehistoric mound located in the Kelaradsht region in Iran's northern province of...
20 December 2008: Tools with handles even more ancient; In a gripping instance of Stone Age survival, Neanderthals used a tarlike substance to fasten sharpened stones to handles as early as 70,000 years ago, a new study suggests. Stone...
: World's oldest portrait in peril; The world's oldest depiction of a human face could be threatened if Australian mining companies are permitted to build an explosives factory on the remote Burrup peninsula in the northwest...
: Mystery shrouds ancient Japanese stone circle; In 1861 at Oshoro, southwestern Hokkaido (Japan), a party of herring fishermen, migrants from Honshu, were laying the foundation for a fishing port when they saw taking shape beneath their...
: Prehistoric settlement uncovered in Somerset; An unknown prehistoric settlement has been revealed during archaeological work in East Taunton, Somerset (England). The dig was commissioned by Somerset County Council before construction begins on the Park and...
: Farmer digs up ancient sanctuary in Italy; A farmer working his land south of Rome dug up hundreds of artifacts from a 2,600-year-old sanctuary, but ran afoul of police when he tried to sell the ancient hoard,...
: Ancient Syrian necropolis unearthed; An Italian-led team of experts has uncovered a vast, ancient necropolis near the Syrian oasis of Palmyra. The team, headed by Daniele Morandi Bonacossi of Udine University, believes the burial...
: Prehistoric cremation pit found on US island; The recent excavation of a prehistoric American Indian burial site on Ossabaw Island (Georgia, USA) revealed cremated remains, an unexpected find that offers a glimpse into ancient Indian culture. State...
: Danish passage graves from an astronomical perspective; Passage graves are mysterious barrows from the Stone Age. New research from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen indicates that the Stone Age graves' orientation in the...
: Anthropologist concludes 'Hobbit' represents a new species; University of Minnesota anthropology professor Kieran McNulty (along with colleague Karen Baab of Stony Brook University in New York) has made an important contribution toward solving one of the greatest...
: Relocated Dakar Rally could damage ancient sites; A top archaeologist fears that the upcoming Dakar Rally - relocated to Argentina and Chile because of security fears - could damage important archeological sites. "It will be an avalanche...
: New row hits Stonehenge; A last-gasp attempt to build a world-class visitor centre at Stonehenge in time for the 2012 Olympics is in tatters because of a major row between the country's two leading...
: Newgrange got new lease of light in 1960s 'rebuild'; Several leading Irish archaeologists have discovered that a controversial reconstruction of Newgrange passage tomb four decades ago led to the accidental detection of its key feature – the roof box....
27 December 2008: Neanderthals could have died out because their bodies overheated; Analysis of DNA obtained from Neanderthal remains has revealed key differences from modern humans that suggest their bodies produced excess heat. While in the cold climate of an ice age...
: Acoustics unlock clues to Stonehenge, lecturer says; A British lecturer says he is slowly unravelling the truth behind Stonehenge by using an innovative approach. Dr Rupert Till, an expert in music technology and acoustics, is using cutting-edge...
: Archaeologists unearth Iron Age settlement during dig in Somerset; The remains of a prehistoric Iron Age settlement have been discovered at a site in Somerset. Archaeologists found remnants of a farm and surrounding fields with evidence of human occupation,...
: Research boost for Brú na Bóinne complex; A wide-ranging new research project has been devised with the aim of developing a multidisciplinary approach to the study of one of Ireland's major archaeological landscapes. The Brú na Bóinne...
: 4,000 year-old tombs found in Vietnam; Seven tombs dating back about 4,000 years have been found recently at the site to build the reservoir of the Son La hydroelectric-power plant in Chieng Bang commune, Quynh Nhai...
: Burial mounds suspected in Wisconsin; Surveyors suspect there are ancient Native American burial mounds in the Marquette County village of Endeavor (Wisconsin, USA). Village leaders considered several development proposals for the site, but federal law...
: Bronze Age burial unearthed in Cambridgeshire; March's most earliest settlers (Cambrisgeshire, England) possibly performed gruesome funeral rituals, according to exciting and rare evidence found by archaeologists excavating the town's new highway site. The finds, which date...
: Frosty debate over bluestone mystery of Stonehenge; Long-standing theories that teams of ancient tribesmen hauled 80 giant bluestones from Pembrokeshire to build Stonehenge have been dismissed by a Welsh geology expert. It has often been claimed that...
: Scottish Neolithic site threatened by planned bypass; Transport Scotland denied claims that the discovery of a Neolithic settlement would delay a long-awaited bypass on the A96. The Scottish Government body said the Fochabers bypass, estimated to cost...