Stone Pages Archaeo News: February 2010 Archives

February 2010 index:

1 February 2010: Evening walks at Stonehenge; Next June 2010, David Dawson (Director of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society) will lead a series of 1-hour long tours within the stones at Stonehenge, providing an opportunity...
: 5th Megalithomania Conference; The 5th Megalithomania conference is planned at Glastonbury (Somerset, England) next May 8th and 9th, 2010. Among the speakers, Aubrey Burl will give a glimpse into his new research on...
: Amputation is evidence of medical knowledge in the Neolithic; Scientists unearthed evidence of surgery carried out in ancient times during work on an Early Neolithic tomb discovered at Buthiers-Boulancourt, about 65km south of Paris (France). They found that a...
: Last Neanderthals in Europe died out 37,000 years ago; A new paper, by Professor João Zilhão and colleagues, builds on his earlier research which proposed that, south of the Cantabro-Pyrenean mountain chain (Spain), Neanderthals survived for several millennia after...
: Prehistoric archaeological project in Dorset gets lottery grant; An archaeological scheme to investigate an area of Blandford in Dorset (England) where ancient settlements have been found has been given £23,100 of lottery cash. In 2008 a dig was...
: Skeleton of western man found in ancient Mongolian tomb; DNA extracted from a gentleman whose skeleton lay in one of more than 200 tombs recently excavated at a 2,000-year-old cemetery in western Mongolia pegs him as a descendant of...
: A thousand new sites discovered off the British coast; Nearly a thousand new archeological sites have been discovered off the North East British coast as part of an English Heritage-funded project. The survey was conducted by EH archaeologists along...
: Great deal of Bronze Age findings in Syria; Chairman of the Ruins Excavation Section in Aleppo Ruins and Museums Department Youssef Kanjo reported that the Syrian-Japanese joint expedition working in Didarieh Cave, northern Aleppo (Syria), unearthed lots of...
: Iron Age settlement unearthed in Kent; The remains of an Iron Age settlement have been unearthed by archaeologists working along the route of a new £1.3m water pipeline in Kent (England). Evidence of a dwelling, postholes,...
16 February 2010: Danish bog woman given a face; The female known as the Auning Woman, found in a northeastern Jutland bog 1886, and housed at the Museum for Culture and History in Randers (Denmark), has finally got a...
: Long lost theory on Silbury Hill is uncovered; Letters that lay undiscovered in national archives for more than 230 years suggest that Silbury Hill, the enigmatic man-made mound that stands between Marlborough and Beckhampton (Wilthsire, England), may have...
: Bronze Age hut circle uncovered in Cornwall; A Bronze Age hut circle near Lanlivery, on Helman Tor (Cornwall, England), has been revealed by conservationists. Recently, nine volunteers met at the Cornwall Wildlife Trust's largest nature reserve, which...
: Stonehenge 'hedge' found, shielded ancient rituals?; Stonehenge may have been surrounded by a 'Stonehedge' that blocked onlookers from seeing secret rituals, according to a new study. Evidence for two encircling hedges - possibly thorn bushes -...
: 8,000-year-old skeleton unearthed in Malaysia; Archaeologists have stumbled upon human skeletal remains believed to be from the Mesolithic Age in the Bewah Cave in the Kenyir Lake area (Malaysia), according to a university professor. The...
: Stonehenge proposed centre heavily criticized; Its footpaths are 'tortuous', the roof likely to 'channel wind and rain' and its myriad columns - meant to evoke a forest - are incongruous with the vast landscape surrounding...
: Cattle and humans evolved side-by-side; A new early bull species shows that cattle and humans evolved side-by-side. The fossil skull is a missing link between modern cattle and their African ancestors. Although there is no...
: Ancient tree carving in California may point to the stars; On the trunk of a gnarled, centuries-old oak tree, about 90 miles southwest of Phoenix, Arizona (USA), are odd carvings of six-legged, lizard-like beings. The tree is located at Painted...
: Stone Age Siberians settled in Greenland; A 4,000-year-old Greenland man just entered the scientific debate over the origins of prehistoric populations in the Americas. A nearly complete sequence of nuclear DNA extracted from strands of the...
: Scrub clearance at Old Sarum; English Heritage has hit back at criticism of its management of Old Sarum (the site of the earliest settlement of Salisbury, in England, containing evidence of human habitation as early...
: Could Neanderthals live again?; Researchers are closer than ever to having a first draft of a complete sequence of the genome of a Neanderthal woman who lived some 30,000 years ago, and this means...
: Sea levels erratic during latest Ice Age; Cave formations along the coast of an island in the Mediterranean Sea hold evidence that sea level can rise and fall abruptly during an Ice Age, a finding that casts...
: New tool improves accuracy of radiocarbon dating; Researchers at Queen's University in Northern Ireland have helped produce a new archaeological tool which could answer key questions in human evolution. The new calibration curve, which extends back 50,000...
: Society supports road closures at Stonehenge; The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society supports without reservation the proposed Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) prohibiting motorised vehicles, with exceptions, on part of the A344 road and the Byways...
: Bronze Age shipwreck found off Devon coast; One of the world's oldest shipwrecks has been discovered off the coast of Devon (England) after lying on the seabed for almost 3,000 years. The trading vessel was carrying an...
21 February 2010: Orkney Islands Council cash for archaeology projects; Thirteen projects look set to receive money from Orkney Islands Council's fund for archaeological investigations in 2010. Members of the OIC development committee have backed recommendations to award funding to...
: Archaeological dig in grounds of a Cambridgeshire college; Students at a Cambridgeshire (England) college have begun an archaeological dig of their 'artefact-rich' grounds. Previous excavations at Linton Village College have revealed evidence of a Roman settlement and Bronze...
: Many objectors to bypass near Irish prehistoric sites; Former Irish attorney general John Rogers SC, who lives in the Boyne valley, will be among the objectors to plans by Meath County Council and the National Roads Authority (NRA)...
: Primitive humans conquered sea, finds in Crete suggest; Last January we reported that the discovery of stone hand axes on the Mediterranean island of Crete indicate that an ancient Homo species had used rafts or other seagoing vessels...
: Megalithic site found in South Sumatra; A megalithic settlement has recently been unearthed at Skendal village, 10 kilometers from the town of Pagaralam in South Sumatra. Irfan Wintarto, an official at the Lahat Culture and Tourism...
: The seeds of written communication on cave walls; The first explorers to brave the 7-metre perilous crawl leading to the Chauvet caves in southern France were rewarded with magnificent artwork to rival any modern composition. Stretching a full...
: Bronze Age ritual stone enclosure unearthed in Italy; Italian archaeologists claim to have found a stone enclosure which once protected the legendary 'Golden Bough'. In Roman mythology, the bough was a tree branch with golden leaves that enabled...
: 7000-year-old bricks discovered in China; Bricks dating back 5,000 to 7,000 years have been unearthed in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, adding between 1,000 to 2,000 years onto Chinese brick-making history, archaeologists claimed. "The five calcined...