Stone Pages Archaeo News: December 2017 Archives

December 2017 index:

2 December 2017: Mystery surrounds 2,400 year old find in Ontario; In the province of Ontario (Canada), lies a city called Mississauga. In the distant past, before European settlers moved here, in fact nearly 2,400 years ago, Iroquois Indians were travelling...
: Evidence grows that Neanderthals lived in a caring society; In 1957 a team of archaeologists working in the Shanidar caves in Iraqi Kurdistan, discovered the bones of a 50,000 year old Neanderthal, nicknamed Shanidar 1. Nothing extra remarkable in...
: Bronze Age site in Palestine under serious threat; Archaeologists and activists are seriously concerned that a valuable Bronze Age site on the outskirts of Gaza City (Palestine) is under threat of destruction. The site was first identified in...
: Rescue archaeology in England uncovers rare jewellery; As part of the Planning Approval for a proposed Eastern Bypass for Lincoln, in Eastern England, archaeologists from Network archaeology Ltd were called in to carry out rescue archaeology prior...
3 December 2017: Ancient textiles reveal differences in Mediterranean fabrics; One of the earliest human craft technologies and applied arts, is the production of textiles. The production of this material would represent one of the most important, time, resource, and...
: Upper Paleolithic cave painting found in the Urals; The ancient image of a two-humped camel has been discovered in the Kapova cave (Southern Urals). With the dating of cave painting being estimated to between 14,500 and 37,7000 years...
4 December 2017: 15.000-year-old statuette discovered in Croatia; During a research study of the Vlakno cave on the Dugi otok island (Croatia) archaeologists discovered an anthropomorphic statuette, estimated to be 15,000 years old, which was named Lili. The...
5 December 2017: Neolithic link between Cyprus and Lebanon; At the site of Prastio-Mesorotsos in the Paphos district (Cyrpus), a number of shallow pits were found many containing broken objects placed in a ritualistic manner, including stone vessels, human...
: Jersey calls for return of ancient dolmen rebuilt in England; Dolmen stones discovered in 1785 near the Jersey capital Saint Helier were taken to the Oxfordshire estate of Jersey governor General Henry Seymour Conway three years later as a retirement...
: Bronze Age elite forged iron weapons and jewelry from meteorites; How could people living during the Bronze Age pull off the difficult process of making iron? They didn't, concludes a new study; instead, they got the iron for the rare...
: Prehistoric graves discovered in Norway; Archaeologists from Norwegian University of Science and Technology have unearthed Bronze Age graves ahead of planned road construction at Sandbrauta in Melhus municipality (Norway). "We don't often make a find...
: Iron Age remains found during roadworks in Scotland; A possible Iron Age structure, tool and pottery pieces have been unearthed during roadworks in the Highlands of Scaotland. Archaeologists made the discoveries on the Crubenmore to Kincraig stretch of...
6 December 2017: Unique Iron Age artefacts reveal prehistoric feasting; Eleven cauldrons, an ancient sword, fine ring-headed dress pins, an involuted brooch, and a cast copper alloy object known as a 'horn-cap' are among unprecedented Iron Age finds by University...
7 December 2017: Neolithic women's arm bones stronger than today's elite female rowers; The study of ancient bones suggests agricultural work had a profound effect on the bodies of women living in central Europe between the early Neolithic and late Iron Age, from...
: Adornments tell about culture of Paleolithic people; Sungir Upper Paleolithic site is about 200 kilometres east of Moscow, and dates to 29,000-31,000 years BP - one of the earliest records of Homo sapiens in Europe. Scientists began...
12 December 2017: Glimpse of Britain's Neolithic civilization; Around 140 kilometres west-southwest of London, midway between the monuments of Stonehenge and Avebury, an extraordinary Early Neolithic long barrow known as Cat's Brain was excavated this past summer by...
: Unusual Bronze Age find in Suffolk; As part of the standard pre-construction archaeological investigations, before any major development in the UK, some remarkable finds have been made on a housing development near Bury St Edmunds in...
: Oetzi the Iceman gets the big screen treatment; There can be no more famous a person in European archaeology than 'Oetzi the Iceman'. The remains of this 5,300 year old Alpine hunter have been at the centre of...
13 December 2017: Mapping Venezuelan rock art; Rock engravings located in Western Venezuela - including some of the largest recorded anywhere in the world - have been mapped in unprecedented detail by University College London (UCL) researchers....
: Uncovering varied pathways to agriculture; Around 15,000 years ago, the Natufian culture appeared in what is today's Middle East. This culture, which straddled the border between nomadic and settled lifestyles, had diverse, complex origins. This...
: New theory: Stonehenge was built as part of a fertility cult; Accortding to a new study, Stonehenge could have been built as part of a fertility cult, with the stones positioned to cast phallic shadows inside the monument during midsummer. Archaeologist...
: Study shows how Neolithic weapons were made to kill with one strike; A weapon used by Neolithic people could kill with one blow, according to a new study which used forensic detection methods to recreate violence from the period. Experts created a...
18 December 2017: Clachtoll Broch being excavated in the Scottish Highlands; Archaeologists have been excavating an Iron Age house, known as a broch, in Assynt, in the north west Highlands (Scotland). There the experts discovered volcanic pumice stone and pottery of...
: Oldest burial Fish Hooks show prehistoric women fished, too; Archaeologists recently found evidence that 12,000 years ago, at least some women were fishing, even though that was previously believed to be largely a man's activity. The scientists say the...
: 2,500-year-old cave paintings discovered on Indonesian island; A tiny Indonesian island, previously unexplored by archaeologists, is covered in cave paintings that date back more than 2,500 years, according to a new study. Researchers from the Australian National...
: Bronze Age burials discovered near Loch Ness; Archaeologists say they are finding increasing evidence that a site near Loch Ness (Highlands, Scotland) was important for burials in the Bronze Age. A second 4,000-year-old grave has been located...
19 December 2017: Ancient tomb full of soup bowls discovered in China; A 3,100-year-old tomb containing bronze 'soup bowls' and other elaborately decorated food vessels has been discovered in Baoji, a city on China's Northern Silk Road, 1000 kilometres southwest of Beijing....
: Climate change in ancient Indian civilisations; According to a new study, climate change could have played a major role in the development of ancient civilisations on the Indian subcontinent. Using high-resolution, precisely dated records of oxygen...
: Rare Iron Age ring found in Jersey; Dated to between 200 BCE and 200 CE, a spiral copper ring found by a metal detectorist is the first of its type from Jersey, a small island located near...
: Mysterious Stone Age rocks found on Danish island; Stones discovered on the Danish island of Bornholm are covered in motifs carved some 5,000 years ago. A large number of the approximately 300 stones and fragments are being called...
20 December 2017: Ancient settlement unearthed near Istanbul's oldest burial site; The metro excavation site located in Istanbul's Beşiktaş district, where 3,500-year-old cairn-type burials were discovered, is most likely home to an ancient settlement, according to the head of Istanbul's Archaeological...
: 5,000-year-old artefacts show rise of ancient Jericho; The city of Jericho was wealthy and well connected long before its walls came tumbling down in an attack that has been associated with a well-known passage in the Bible....
: Early humans in the jungles of Borneo; A team excavating at Niah Caves in Malaysia recently uncovered stone tools, charred rocks, several human bones, marine oyster shells, and the remains of large mammals from various layers in...
: New app to help preserve British and Irish rock art; Citizen scientists can help protect some of the world's most ancient rock art using a new mobile app designed by researchers at Newcastle University. Using the smartphone's GPS, the app...
21 December 2017: Prehistoric dogs on leashes depicted on Saudi Arabian rock art; At the edge of a bygone river in the Arabian Desert, a hunter stands watch with his 13 dogs, aiming his bow at a kill. Two of the dogs have...
: Fire farming: secret to ancient life in the American Southwest?; Based on recent research, Alan Sullivan, archaeologist at the University of Cincinnati, has revealed the secret to how the ancient peoples of the Southwestern United States, ancestors of the modern...
: Neolithic granary found in Eastern China; A huge pile of carbonized unhusked rice dating back 5,000 years was found at the Neolithic site of Liangzhu City in Eastern China's Zhejiang Province. The pile was about 60...