Stone Pages Archaeo News: May 2011 Archives

May 2011 index:

5 May 2011: 'Bog butter' from 3,000 BCE found in Ireland; Over 100 pounds of 'bog butter' have been discovered in Tullamore, County Offaly (Ireland). This ancient food substance, thought to been buried as a form of refrigeration, is thought to...
: Celtic grave examined by German archaeologists; German experts are carefully taking apart a complete grave of a Celtic woman in the hope of finding out more about her way of life, 2,600 years ago, in their...
: Ancient broch settlement occupied for 1,000 years; The site of one of Scotland's most important mainland broch settlements may have been home to early people for up to 1,000 years, evidence suggests. Archaeologists and volunteers have uncovered...
: 25,000-year-old cave paintings discovered in Spain; Paintings depicting horses and human hands made by prehistoric humans around 25,000 years ago have been discovered in a cave in northern Spain. The red paintings, found by chance by...
6 May 2011: Oldest remains of Caspian Horse discovered in Iran; In Gohar Tappeh, in the northern Iranian province of Mazandaran, archaeologists have discovered the remains of the oldest breed of horse in the world still in existence - the Caspian,...
: Heidelberg Man links humans and Neanderthals; The last common ancestor of humans and Neanderthals was a well-traveled species called Heidelberg Man, according to a new study. The evolutionary split between Neanderthals and modern humans may have...
7 May 2011: Early humans assembled weapons in China 700,000 years ago; At a time when China's climate was chillier than it is today, a group of Homo erectus with heavy brow ridges, large robust teeth and a brain size approaching our...
: Ohio's mounds are works of art; For many people, the earthen mounds of eastern North America are nothing like the architectural wonders of Europe and Asia. Compared to the Parthenon in Athens or Hagia Sophia in...
8 May 2011: An ancient 'lost civilization' in Cuba?; During the 1950s Cuban divers and underwater archaeologists found extensive artifact evidence of a Native American civilization on the western end of Cuba that was different and more advanced that...
: 7,000-year-old village unearthed in Kurdistan; At the end of 2010, archaeologist Nadir Babakir carefully looked at a hill in the Hasarok quarter, a new area on the eastern outskirts of Erbil (Kurdistan, Iraq). After some...
: Cornish Bronze Age hoard on display; A Bronze Age hoard uncovered by a gardener on an island off Cornwall (England) in 2009 is now on public display. The collection of 47 artefacts, found on St Michael's...
13 May 2011: Neolithic tomb excavated in Orkney; Excavations have recently been carried out at a Stone Age tomb in South Ronaldsay in the Orkney Islands (Scotland). The team is from the Orkney Research Centre for Archaeology, commonly...
: Did the Japanese come from Korea?; A team of researchers have been delving into the origins of the Japanese people, with some interesting findings. The research was centred on a study of Japanese dialects with the...
18 May 2011: Debate continues over growth of Aboriginal population; A great debate is under way following the use of a new mathematical model, which has been used to predict the growth pattern of the native Australian Aboriginal population, in...
19 May 2011: Costa Rica's ancient cultures and prehistory; Three archeological sites in Costa Rica, Central America, give a glimpse into life before European conquest: Guayabo in Turrialba, Lake Arenal, and the Nicoya Peninsula. Ceramics dating from 300 BCE...
: Reindeer teeth hold clues to Neanderthal hunting tactics; Analysis of subtle chemical variations in reindeer teeth suggest the Neanderthal employed sophisticated hunting strategies similar to the tactics used much later by modern humans. Kate Britton, an archaeologist now...
20 May 2011: North America settled by a handful of people; A new study of DNA patterns throughout the world suggests that North America was originally populated by no more than 70 people. Most experts agree that, around 14,000 years ago...
: More on prehistoric cave art discovered in Basque Country; In the locally well-known cave of Askondo, near the industrial town of Mañaria in northwest Spain, researchers unexpectedly discovered faint red images of horses and hand prints, dating back some...
21 May 2011: Stone Age mystery near Arctic Circle; New findings in the north of the Russian Urals, at Byzovaya near the Arctic Circle, have the experts baffled. A team from the Universitie de Toulouse le Mirail, in France,...
: New rock art found in Sudan; New rock art sites have been found in Wadi Abu Dom, a valley in northern Sudan. The problem is that no one seems to know what they mean! The carvings...
22 May 2011: Bronze Age site in Wales badly damaged by motorcyclists; A Welsh archaeology group has called for the site of a 3,500-year-old settlement in the Vale of Glamorgan to be protected. The remains of a Bronze Age village at Bendrick...
: 25,000-year-old Aboriginal burial site found; Heavy rainfall earlier this year has helped to uncover an Aboriginal burial site near Condobolin (New South Wales, Australia) believed to be more than 25 thousand years old. The remains...
: Huge dolmen discovered in India; An interesting archaeological structure dating back between 1000 and 500 BCE has been discovered at Dannanapeta and Pandavulametta in Amudalavalasa of Srikakulam district (north-eastern Andhra Pradesh, India). Archaeology department director...
: Ancient burial mounds excavated in Dorset; Work has started to excavate three Bronze Age burial mounds on Golden Cap in Dorset (England). The 4,000-year-old mounds are at risk from coastal erosion and are being excavated by...
24 May 2011: Pakistani rock carvings under threat; Between the western Himalayas, the Karakoram in the east and the Hindukush in the west, a mountainous northern region of Pakistan is the junction of the ancient routes which made...
: Oldest 3-D statue in the Americas; A 4000-year-old statue in Peru gives new insight into an ancient agricultural society. Robert Benfer, a professor emeritus of anthropology, said the mud plaster bust of a figure blowing a...
: Fight to study rare skeletons discovered in California; Two of the oldest known skeletons in the Americas - uncovered in 1976 on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean during construction at the home of a University of California,...
25 May 2011: Modern rock art is unwelcome; Some unwelcome modern rock art is being attacked and removed, in an area which is sacred to a native North American tribe. The 'art' in question is graffiti, which has...
: Major German Bronze Age battle site uncovered; Evidence has been found in Northern Germany of a possible Early Bronze Age battle. Various human and animal (horse) bones have been found, together with the remains of weapons. The...
29 May 2011: Paleolithic handaxe discovered in Orkney; A flint axe, recovered on a stretch of shore in St Ola, looks like being the oldest man-made artefact found in Orkney (Scotland) to date. Dating from the Paleolithic, the...
30 May 2011: Population genetics reveals shared ancestries; A Harvard study casts new light on the intermingling and migration of European, Middle Eastern and African and populations since ancient times. While previous studies have established that such shared...
: A civilisation as old as Indus valley?; In what could be a major discovery, researchers have found a wall-like structure, 24km long, 2.7m in height, and around 2.5m in width, below the sea waters of the Konkan...