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Cache of tools found in Boulder yard used to butcher ice-age camels, horses. The “chink” of the impact sounded odd, so the crew poked around, and just 18 inches beneath the soil surface they made an extraordinary find: 83 stone tools left in a cache 13,000 years ago by people who used the sharpened rocks to butcher ice-age camels. “Sometimes they’re interesting things, and sometimes they’re just cool rocks,” said Bamforth, who studies the culture and tools of Paleoindians, who lived in the Boulder area at the end of the last ice age. But a good anthropologist leaves no rock...

Footprints uncovered in Kenya show that as early as 1.5 million years ago an ancestral species, almost certainly Homo erectus, had already evolved the feet and walking gait of modern humans.

Landscapers were digging a hole for a fish pond in the front yard of a Boulder home last May when they heard a "chink" that didn't sound right. Just some lost tools. Some 13,000-year-old lost tools. They had stumbled onto a cache of more than 83 ancient tools buried by the Clovis people — ice age hunter-gatherers who remain a puzzle to anthropologists. The home's owner, Patrick Mahaffy, thought they were only a century or two old before contacting researchers at the University of Colorado-Boulder. "My jaw just dropped," said CU anthropologist Douglas Bamforth, who is leading a study of...

Believed to be among the oldest brick shrines in India, Lucknow University’s department of ancient Indian history and archaeology has unearthed a 2,000-year-old Shiva temple as part of its excavation project recently in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao district. ‘‘It’s actually a complex comprising five temples,’’ Prof D P Tewari of the Lucknow University said. ‘‘While four temples belong to the Kushana period (1st-3rd century AD or 2,000 years ago), it appears that the primary temple was constructed during the Sunga period (2nd century BC to 1st century AD or 2,200 years ago).’’ The temple site is a mound in Sanchankot in...

Hunley closely guards it secretsIt could be one of the nation’s oldest cold case files: What happened to eight Confederate sailors aboard the CSS H.L. Hunley after it became the first submarine in history to sink an enemy warship? Their hand-cranked sub rammed a spar with black powder into the blockade ship USS Housatonic off Charleston on a chilly winter night in 1864 then disappeared. The Hunley’s fate has been the subject of almost 150 years of conjecture and almost a decade of scientific research since it was raised in 2000. But the submarine has been agonizingly slow surrendering her...

02.11.09Naval history buffs would find much to interest them in Guam, but unless they are divers, they rarely make the trip. Getting there requires a 6,000-mile flight from San Francisco, and most of the attractions are resting on the bottom of Apra Harbor. But if, like Wayne Abrahamson, you once served on a Navy supply ship berthed at Apra, then you too might have had an underwater epiphany like the one he had there in the early 1980s, when he entered the harbor a mere diver and emerged a future maritime archeologist. Abrahamson grew up in tiny Elroy, Wis., which...

The archaeological discovery of a French Colonial cross shows Hurricane Katrina both destroyed and uncovered history. When the storm swept away the popular Moran Art Studio in Biloxi, the exposed ground was then open for exploration and archaeologists found the cross. That artifact will be on display during the three-day Mississippi Coast History Week observance, which begins Monday at Biloxi Community Center. As the Coast celebrates its 310th birthday this week, it reflects a vast history of people, storms and events, such as the early-1700s land-grant scheme that likely brought the wearer of the cross. From the early Native Americans...

Later this month, an archaeologist at Thomas Jefferson's historic home of Monticello in Charlottesville, Va., will speak at Smith College about the use of the late president's plantation by the estate's residents, both free and enslaved. Sara Bon-Harper, archeological research manager, will lecture at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 24, in McConnell Hall, Room 103, about "Defined Spaces: Landscape on the Monticello Plantation." The event is sponsored by the Program in Archaeology and the Lecture Committee and is free and open to the public. Bon-Harper's work at Monticello focuses on an archaeological survey of the original 5,000-acre plantation and the excavation...

TRAVERSE CITY - The French government says it still owns the Griffin, a 17th century ship built by legendary explorer La Salle that may have been discovered in northern Lake Michigan. France filed a claim to the vessel Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, escalating a legal battle over who owns and has authority to retrieve artifacts from the long-lost vessel. Michigan also is seeking title, although state officials have raised doubts about whether the Griffin's gravesite actually has been found. They say federal law gives the state ownership of abandoned vessels embedded in its Great Lakes bottomlands....

The construction of the road tunnel Blanka that is underway in Prague's Střešovice has been under the supervision of archaeologists. The tunnel, which is to be part of the planned Prague ringroad and connect Malovanka with Pelc-Tyrolka, is being built on a site that used to be inhabited in prehistoric times, the news site iDnes.cz reported on Thursday. "Trained colleagues are watching the excavator digging earth, and they halt the work whenever they notice something that does not belong there," archaeologist Kateřina Tomková told iDnes.cz Archeologists expect the site, where a meandering river used to flow some 300,000 years ago,...

Israeli archaeologists say they have discovered a rare 1,800-year-old figurine in a Jerusalem excavation. Dating from the time of the Roman Empire, the five-centimeter (2-inch) marble bust depicts the head of a man with a short curly beard and almond-shaped eyes. A statement Monday from the Israel Antiquities Authority says nothing similar has been found before in the country. The archaeologists believe it could depict an athlete, possibly a boxer. They think it was used as a weight and might have belonged to a merchant. It was found in the ruins of a building destroyed by an earthquake in the...

One of the UK's largest hauls of Iron Age gold coins has been found in Suffolk. The 824 so-called staters were found in a broken pottery jar buried in a field near Wickham Market using a metal detector. Jude Plouviez, of the Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service, said the coins dated from 40BC to AD15. They are thought to have been minted by predecessors of the Iceni Queen Boudicca. Ms Plouviez said their value when in circulation had been estimated at a modern equivalent of between £500,000 and £1m, but they were likely to be worth less than that now....

2008 was a good year for archaeology.  You can read about the top ten archaeological discoveries in the world this year, but my goal here is simply to suggest what I perceive to be the most significant discoveries for understanding the Bible and its world.  Both the selection and the ranking is purely subjective; there were no polls, editorial committees, or coin tosses.  For another opinion, take a look at the list of Dr. Claude Mariottini.  1. Khirbet Qeiyafa (and inscription).  The new excavations of this fortified site in the Shephelah ranks as #1 for the following reasons: 1) The...

The remains of the 855-foot stone wall that gives Fort Mountain its name wind like a snake around the northeast Georgia park,and its very presence begs a question:Who put them there? A Cherokee legend attributes the wall to a mysterious band of "moon-eyed people" led by a Welsh prince named Madoc who appeared in the area more than 300 years before Columbus sailed to America. A plaque at the wall says matter-of-factly it was built by Madoc and his Welsh followers,but most professional archeologists give no credence to the legend. "There has been no archaeological evidence to back up stories...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Iraq – Soldiers from the 1-10 Cavalry Regiment, 172 Infantry Brigade unearthed potentially ancient pottery artifacts, while preparing to excavate a site for the building of a patrol base for the Iraqi Army in the Mahawil area Dec. 11. The Soldiers immediately stopped construction and restricted access to the site until someone with archeological expertise could be contacted and survey the site to determine if the pottery shards were of cultural importance and antiquity. Capt. Christopher Neyman, the C Troop commander, arrived at the scene and ensured the site was protected by establishing a 24 hour...

Archaeological researchers at the University of Groningen have discovered that the aurochs, the predecessor of our present-day cow, lived in the Netherlands for longer than originally assumed. Remains of bones recently retrieved from a horn core found in Holwerd (Friesland, Netherlands), show that the aurochs became extinct in around AD 600 and not in the fourth century. The last aurochs died in Poland in 1627... The aurochs was much larger than the common cows we know today, with aurochs bulls measuring between 160 and 180 cm at the withers, and aurochs cows between 140 and 150 cm. The cattle bred...

A deluge that swept the Land of Israel more than 7,000 years ago, submerging six Neolithic villages opposite the Carmel Mountains, is the origin of the biblical flood of Noah, a British marine archeologist said Tuesday. The new theory about the source of the great flood detailed in the Book of Genesis comes amid continuing controversy among scholars over whether the inundation of the Black Sea more than seven millennia ago was the biblical flood. In the theory posited by British marine archeologist Dr. Sean Kingsley and published in the Bulletin of the Anglo-Israeli Archaeological Society, the drowning of the...

However, there are at least half a dozen non-Christian (that is to say Roman or Jewish) sources that refer to Christian origins. These are sufficient to provide some confirmation of the historical picture that is painted by the Bible. Some of the most important of these sources are: Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, The Babylonian Talmud, Josephus, and the letter of Mara Bar-Serapion.

ATHENS, Greece - Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of a 6,500-year-old farming settlement in an antiquities-rich area of central Greece.

URUMQI, China — An exhibit on the first floor of the museum here gives the government’s unambiguous take on the history of this border region: “Xinjiang has been an inalienable part of the territory of China,” says one prominent sign. But walk upstairs to the second floor, and the ancient corpses on display seem to tell a different story. One called the Loulan Beauty lies on her back with her shoulder-length hair matted down, her lips pursed in death, her high cheekbones and long nose the most obvious signs that she is not what one thinks of as Chinese. The...

In the latest twist in the tug-of-war between Native Americans and anthropologists, officials at the University of California have decided not to repatriate a pair of well-preserved skeletons that are nearly 10,000 years old. Archaeology students unearthed the bones in 1976 near the clifftop home of the chancellor of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). It may be possible to extract some of the oldest human DNA in North America from the exquisitely preserved remains, say researchers. But in the past two years the bones have become a political football over US$7-million plans to demolish and rebuild the house....

An Israeli archaeologist has discovered what he says is the earliest-known Hebrew text, found on a shard of pottery that dates to the time of King David from the Old Testament, about 3,000 years ago. Professor Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem says the inscribed pottery shard -- known as an ostracon -- was found during excavations of a fortress from the 10th century BC. Carbon dating of the ostracon, along with pottery analysis, dates the inscription to time of King David, about a millennium earlier than the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, the university said. The shard contains...

The discovery of fire took place half a million years earlier than thought, Israeli archaeologists have revealed. Digs at the Gesher Benot Ya'aqov site in northern Israel near a drained lakebed uncovered burnt flakes of flint dating back 790,000 years — long before modern Homo sapiens evolved in eastern Africa.

IN a discovery straight out of an Indiana Jones movie, archeologists believe they have uncovered one of the lost mines of King Solomon. The vast copper mine lies in an arid valley in modern-day Jordan and was created in the 10th century BC - around the time Solomon is believed to have ruled over the ancient Hebrews. The mines are enormous and would have generated a huge income for the king, who is famed for bringing extraordinary wealth and stability to the newly united kingdom of Israel and Judah. The announcement will reopen the debate about how much of the...

October 22, 2008--Paintings of sailboats, ocean liners, and biplanes adorn newfound rock shelters in the remote Aboriginal territory of Arnhem Land in northern Australia. Researchers working with Aboriginal elder Ronald Lamilami discovered thousands of the paintings--including the largest rock-art site in Australia--during an expedition in August and September 2008. (See full story.) "It is the most important … rock art in the whole world" that shows contact with other cultures, said lead researcher Paul Tacon of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia.

They have confirmed the discovery of two 3,000-year-old temples in the Collud-Zarpan complex, some 500 miles north of the capital Lima. The two structures formed part of a large ceremonial area that belonged to the Cupisnique culture, according to Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva. He saids: "We have here a monumental staircase of 25m in width. The rest is a polychromatic relief with images of the spider god, and we also have a part behind of what would be a temple that extended at least 500m south." The archaeologist said the discovery ranks as one of Peru's most important religious finds...

The Life of Jesus film crew has gained rare access to an archaeological find that cements historical evidence early Christians worshiped Jesus as divine. Dr John Dickson, the series’ host and co-founder of the Centre for Public Christianity, will guide viewers through the remains of an ancient prayer hall unearthed at Megiddo in central Israel. “The inscriptions on the mosaic floor are remarkable,” Dr Dickson says. “One of them names a benefactor called Gaianus who is described as a centurion. Another mentions a woman called Akeptous who ‘…offered this table in memorial of the God Jesus Christ’.” The inscriptions cast...

Maybe it’s a trick of the mind. Maybe it’s conditioning from too many Indiana Jones movies, but Flathead County’s records building has the same feel as a rare books collection in a library or a grandparent’s attic. The gathering of history somehow reaches out from the stacked boxes and emits a feeling of mystery and depth. In less dramatic terms, the building is just a shell filled with metal shelves and white boxes. But standing in an aisle, surrounded by documents that date back to the late 1800s, the place does feel like Jones’ warehouse. Harrison Ford, however, has never...

ORANJEMUND, Namibia (AFP) - Archaeologists are racing against the little time left to salvage a fortune in coins and items from a 500-year-old Portuguese shipwreck found recently off Namibia's rough southern coast. Despite its importance, the project, in a restricted diamond mining area, is itself costing a fortune in sea-walling that cannot be sustained after October 10. "The vast amounts of gold coins would possibly make this discovery the largest one in Africa outside Egypt," said Francisco Alves, a Lisbon-based maritime archaeologist. "This vessel is the best preserved of its time outside Portugal," he said. "But the cultural uniqueness of...

TEHRAN -- The nails found around ancient skeletons at a newly discovered cemetery of Tahluj have puzzled the team of archaeologists working at the 3000-year-old site. The cemetery dating back early Islamic era was discovered during the rescue excavation, which has begun at the site near the village of Mirar-Kola in northern Iran in late August. The Tahluj site, home to several sites dating back from Iron Age to early Islamic era, will be completely submerged under water and mud when the Alborz Dam becomes operational. Tahluj is located in the Savadkuh region of Mazandaran Province. The team has discovered...

Deep inside an underwater cave in Mexico, archaeologists may have discovered the oldest human skeleton ever found in the Americas. Dubbed Eva de Naharon, or Eve of Naharon, the female skeleton has been dated at 13,600 years old. If that age is accurate, the skeleton—along with three others found in underwater caves along the Caribbean coast of the Yucatán Peninsula—could provide new clues to how the Americas were first populated. The remains have been excavated over the past four years near the town of Tulum, about 80 miles southwest of Cancún, by a team of scientists led by Arturo González,...

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian archaeologists said Wednesday they had found the long-lost capital of the Khazar kingdom in southern Russia, a breakthrough for research on the ancient Jewish state. "This is a hugely important discovery," expedition organiser Dmitry Vasilyev told AFP by telephone from Astrakhan State University after returning from excavations near the village of Samosdelka, just north of the Caspian Sea. "We can now shed light on one of the most intriguing mysteries of that period -- how the Khazars actually lived. We know very little about the Khazars -- about their traditions, their funerary rites, their culture," he...

The mummified remains of a woman who died 500 years before the Incas have emerged from the rubble of an ancient tomb beneath the bustling streets of the Peruvian capital. A mummy of the Wari prehispanic culture is seen inside a recently discovered tomb in Lima's Huaca Pucllana ceremonial complex Archaeologists working at the Huaca Pucllana site in the Miraflores neighbourhood of Lima unearthed the mummy on Tuesday along with the remains of another two adults and a child. The tombs are thought to belong to members of the Wari tribal culture who lived and ruled in Peru from 600-800...

<p>JERUSALEM — Scientists using American space technology have started a huge project to digitally photograph the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest known version of the Hebrew Bible, and post it on the Internet for all to see, Israeli authorities said Wednesday.</p>

Thames reveals forgotten wrecksMark Blunden 26.08.08   The largest-ever post-war salvage operation on the Thames has discovered seven shipwrecks up to 350 years old. They include a warship that was blown up in 1665, a yacht converted to a Second World War gunboat, and a mystery wreck in which divers found a personalised gin bottle. The vessels, in the Thames Estuary, are just some of about 1,100 ships which went down in the whole of the river. The salvage by Wessex Archaeology and the Port of London Authority, which regulates the river, was both historical and practical. Jagged metal...

Graves Found From Sahara’s Green Period By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD When Paul C. Sereno went hunting for dinosaur bones in the Sahara, his career took a sharp turn from paleontology to archaeology. The expedition found what has proved to be the largest known graveyard of Stone Age people who lived there when the desert was green. The first traces of pottery, stone tools and human skeletons were discovered eight years ago at a site in the southern Sahara, in Niger. After preliminary research, Dr. Sereno, a University of Chicago scientist who had previously uncovered remains of the dinosaur Nigersaurus there,...

Three Nazi bunkers on a beach have been uncovered by  violent storms off the Danish  coast, providing a store of material  for history buffs and military  archaeologists.   The bunkers were found in  practically the same condition as they were  on the day the last Nazi soldiers left them, down to the tobacco in one trooper‘s pipe and a half-finished bottle of  schnapps. (edit) They were located by two nine-year-old boys on holiday with their parents, who then informed the authorities. Archaeologists were able to carefully force a way, and were astounded at what they found.'What's so fantastic is...

A seal impression belonging to a minister of the Biblical King Zedekiah which dates back 2,600 years has been uncovered completely intact during an archeological dig in Jerusalem's ancient City of David, a prominent Israeli archeologist said on Thursday. The seal impression, or bulla, with the name Gedalyahu ben Pashur, who served as minister to King Zedekiah (597-586 BCE) according to the Book of Jeremiah, was found just meters away from a separate seal impression of another of Zedekia's ministers, Yehukual ben Shelemyahu, which was uncovered three years ago, said Prof. Eilat Mazar who is leading the dig at the...

Science magazine this week details the discovery of a stone block in Veracruz, Mexico, that contains a previously unknown system of writing; believed by archeologists to be the earliest in the Americas. The slab - named the Cascajal block - dates to the early first millennium BCE and has features that indicate it comes from the Olmec civilization of Mesoamerica. One of the archaeologists behind the discovery, Brown University's Stephen D. Houston, said that the block and its ancient script "link the Olmec civilization to literacy, document an unsuspected writing system, and reveal a new complexity to this civilization." "It's...

HOT SPRINGS -- Joanne Bugel is happy to be the Earthwatch volunteer who uncovered the 115th tusk at the Mammoth Site and moved the popular Hot Springs tourist site’s mammoth tally to 58. [snip] This group has been a particularly productive bunch, said crew chief Don Morris. [snip] Bones unearthed by 2008 Earthwatch volunteers include: three tusks, a tooth, a patella, six ribs, a fibula, four vertebra and assorted other bones. Neteal Graves, 18, of Kaycee, Wyo., also unearthed some coprolite – [snip] Graves has the Mammoth Site in her bloodline. In 1974, her mother, Cheri Graves, was a college...

It may sound like the escapist indulgence of a well-fed man fleeing the misery around him. But when Jawdat Khoudary opens the first ever museum of archaeology in Gaza this month, it will be an act of Palestinian patriotism, showing how this increasingly poor and isolated coastal strip ruled by the Islamists of Hamas was once a thriving multicultural crossroad. The exhibit is housed in a stunning hall made up partly of the saved stones of old houses, discarded wood ties of a former railroad and bronze lamps and marble columns uncovered by Gazan fishermen and construction workers. And while...

In the remote desert highlands of southern Yemen, a team of archaeologists have discovered new evidence of ancient transitions from hunting and herding to irrigation agriculture 5,200 years ago. As part of a larger program of archaeological research, Michael Harrower from the University of Toronto and The Roots of Agriculture in Southern Arabia (RASA) team explored the Wadi Sana watershed documenting 174 ancient irrigation structures, modeled topography and hydrology, and interviewed contemporary camel and goat herders and irrigation farmers. "Agriculture in Yemen appeared relatively late in comparison with other areas of the Middle East, where farming first developed near the...

A recent mission to Iraq headed by top archaeologists ... found that, contrary to received wisdom, southern Iraq's most important historic sites ... had neither been seriously damaged nor looted after the American invasion. This, according to a report by staff writer Martin Bailey in the July issue of the Art Newspaper. The article has caused confusion, not to say consternation, among archaeologists and has been largely ignored by the mainstream press. Not surprising perhaps, since reports by experts blaming the U.S. for the postinvasion destruction of Iraq's heritage have been regular fixtures of the news. Up to now ......

Pardubice, East Bohemia, July 11 (CTK) - Archaeologists have uncovered a 4000-year-old grave in Mikulovice, east Bohemia, with remains of what might have been considered a vampire at the time, Nova TV has reported. The experts made the terrifying find within their research of a burial site from the Early Bronze Age. One of the graves was situated somewhat aside. The skeleton in it bears traces of unusual treatment. When buried, the dead man was weighed down with two big stones, one on his chest and the other on his head. "Remains treated in this way are now considered as...

PERSEPOLIS, once the capital of the Persian empire, and the massive mud-brick Bam citadel are among the nine listed World Heritage Sites in Iran. Yet leading archaeologists are urging colleagues to refuse any military requests to draw up a list of Iranian sites that should be exempted from air strikes. "Such advice would provide cultural credibility and respectability to the military action," said a resolution agreed by the World Archaeological Congress in Dublin, Ireland, last week. Instead, delegates were advised to emphasise the harm that any military action would do to Iran's people and heritage.

An unpublicized survey last month of eight of southern Iraq's most important archaeological sites by a team of international specialists found no evidence of looting since the invasion of the country in 2003 by the U.S. coalition, despite earlier, widespread claims of extensive damage. The 25-person mission, titled the Cultural Heritage Initiative, included four international archaeologists, three Iraqi archaeologists, a helicopter crew and military personnel for protection, reported the Art Newspaper. The group began their three-day survey on June 3 from Basra, staying overnight at another airbase 180 miles southeast of Baghdad. The helicopter and armed protection was provided by...

Texas Archaeological Dig Challenges Assumptions about First Americans Ancient stone artifacts reveal the day-to-day lives of Clovis people while offering tantalizing clues of an even earlier culture By Elizabeth Lunday Excavations at the Gault site in central Texas. FLORENCE, TEX.—"Look at that—isn't it gorgeous?" Sandy Peck asks as she rinses dirt from a flaked stone about the length and width of a pinky finger. Peck runs a hose over soil on a fine-mesh screen, prodding at stubborn clods of clay with a muddy glove. "Look, there's another one." Peck, sorting soil that had been disturbed by a recent thunderstorm, is...

Research by a Valparaiso University geography professor and his students on the creation of Kankakee Sand Islands of Northwest Indiana is lending support to evidence that the first humans to settle the Americas came from Europe, a discovery that overturns decades of classroom lessons that nomadic tribes from Asia crossed a Bering Strait land-ice bridge. Valparaiso is a member of the Council on Undergraduate Research.....

Puerto Rico archeological find mired in politics Posted on Tue, Jul. 01 By FRANCES ROBLES U.S. archaeologist Nathan Mountjoy sits next to stones etched with ancient petroglyphs and graves that reveal unusual burial methods in Ponce, Puerto Rico. The archaeological find, one of the best-preserved pre-Columbian sites found in the Caribbean, form a large plaza measuring some 130 feet by 160 feet that could have been used for ball games or ceremonial rites, officials said. SAN JUAN -- The lady carved on the ancient rock is squatting, with frog-like legs sticking out to each side. Her decapitated head is dangling...

<p>June 25, 2008 -- The phrase "blame it on the weather" takes new meaning in light of research suggesting that regional climate may very well have been responsible for the evolution of lifestyle, culture and even religion in the Middle East.</p>