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* The earliest known modern humans from southeast Europe wore shell and mammoth jewelry. * The same early humans also likely practiced cannibalism. * The cannibalism was tied to funeral rituals, since the bones were not butchered like meat. Early humans wore jewelry and likely practiced cannibalism, suggest remains of the earliest known Homo sapiens from southeastern Europe. The remains, described in PLoS One, date to 32,000 years ago and represent the oldest direct evidence for anatomically modern humans in a well-documented context. The human remains are also the oldest known for our species in Europe to show post-mortem cut...

Thousands of human bones have been found inside a Stone Age tomb on a northern Scottish island, archaeologists say. The 5,000-year-old burial site, on South Ronaldsay (map) in the Orkney Islands, was accidentally uncovered after a homeowner had leveled a mound in his yard to improve his ocean view. ~~~snip~~~ The underground grave consists of a 4- by 0.75-meter (13- by 2.5-foot) central chamber surrounded by four smaller cells hewn from sandstone bedrock. Capping the central chamber are large water-worn slabs supported by stone walls and pillars. At least a thousand skeleton parts belonging to a mix of genders and...

A mysterious cache of dozens of humans skulls discovered earlier this year in Dorset, England belonged to Viking raiders. Anthropologists figured this out when they examined the teeth, and found that elaborate patterns had been filed into them. That's right — the Vikings filed their teeth, and probably put pigment into the designs to make them look even more badass. No other European groups were known to file their teeth at the time these Vikings were beheaded about a millennium ago, though it was a common practice in Africa and Paleoamerica. Were the filed teeth these Norsemen's attempt to make...

TEL EL-SAFI, Israel At the remains of an ancient metropolis in southern Israel, archaeologists are piecing together the history of a people remembered chiefly as the bad guys of the Hebrew Bible. The city of Gath, where the annual digging season began this week, is helping scholars paint a more nuanced portrait of the Philistines, who appear in the biblical story as the perennial enemies of the Israelites. Close to three millennia ago, Gath was on the frontier between the Philistines, who occupied the Mediterranean coastal plain, and the Israelites, who controlled the inland hills. The city's most famous resident,...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican archaeologists have found two 1,300-year-old limestone sculptures of captured Mayan warriors that they say could shed light on the alliances and wars among Mayan cities during the civilization's twilight. The life-size, elaborate sculptures of two warriors sitting cross-legged with hands tied behind their backs were found in May in the archaeological site of Tonina in southern Chiapas state along with two stone ballgame scoreboards. The 5-foot (1.5-meter) tall sculptures have hieroglyphic inscriptions on their loincloths and chest that say the warriors belonged to the city of Copan, archaeologist Juan Yadeun said in a news release...

It is well understood that projectile weapons allow lethal killing power at a safe distance and their use is near universal among human groups. Before the firearm began it’s rise to prominence over the last 500 years the most popular projectile weapons systems were the atlatl (spearthrower/dart) and the bow and arrow. Most researchers consider these as ‘‘true’’ projectile technologies, distinguishing them from thrown spears, throwing sticks and other hurled weapons. There is considerable archaeological consensus that projectile weapons were in use by the Late Palaeolithic at least 30,000 years ago. However, last year, anthropologist Marlize Lombard of South Africa’s...

Archaeologists have discovered one of the victims of a suspected mass Viking burial pit found in Dorset had grooves filed into his two front teeth. Experts believe a collection of bones and decapitated heads, unearthed during the creation of the Weymouth Relief Road, belong to young Viking warriors. During analysis, a pair of front teeth was found to have distinct incisions. Archaeologists think it may have been designed to frighten opponents or show status as a great fighter....

A 1996 expedition resulted in conclusions that the ancient early human species, Homo erectus, coexisted for a time with modern humans in Indonesia. The most recent expedition suggests otherwise, challenging a widely held hypothesis of human evolution. Homo erectus, an ancient human ancestor that lived 1.8 million - 35,000 years ago, is said by theorists of human evolution to have lived alongside Homo sapiens (modern humans) in Indonesia, surviving most other Homo erectus populations that became extinct in Africa and most of Eurasia by 500,000 B.P. Perhaps not so, according to an international team of researchers, after conducting archaeological investigations...

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The legend of El Dorado was definitely not set on the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple. But the seven-member panel, which is drawing up a list of assets at the famed shrine here, had a feel of the lost city of gold as they set foot in one of the two secret vaults located inside the sprawling granite structure which gives the Kerala capital its name. On Thursday, the team assisted by personnel from the fire services and archeology department opened the locks of vault A to find a narrow flight of stairs leading down to an underground granite cellar. Oxygen...

Researchers from the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Florida have announced the discovery of a bone fragment, approximately 13,000 years old, in Florida with an incised image of a mammoth or mastodon. This engraving is the oldest and only known example of Ice Age art to depict a proboscidean (the order of animals with trunks) in the Americas. The team's research is published online in the Journal of Archaeological Science. The bone was discovered in Vero Beach, Fla. by James Kennedy, an avocational fossil hunter, who collected the bone and later while cleaning the bone, discovered the engraving. Recognizing...

Archaeologists are beginning the most detailed ever study of a Western Front battlefield, an untouched site where 28 British tunnellers lie entombed after dying during brutal underground warfare. For WWI historians, it's the "holy grail".When military historian Jeremy Banning stepped on to a patch of rough scrubland in northern France four months ago, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. The privately-owned land in the sleepy rural village of La Boisselle had been practically untouched since fighting ceased in 1918, remaining one of the most poignant sites of the Battle of the Somme. In his hand was...

Dr. Eilat Mazar of Hebrew University, one of the most prominent Israeli archaeologists, believes that remains from the First and Second Jewish Temple periods are currently below the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Mazar believes that the remains do include the Second Temple itself, in fact, and that with the technology available today, archaeologists can, at minimum, ensure that artifacts are not disturbed until a future excavation can be safely conducted. "I am absolutely sure,” said Mazar in an interview with “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on New York’s ABC Radio, “in light of my very rich experience excavating Jerusalem for 30...

South Americans helped colonise Easter Island centuries before Europeans reached it. Clear genetic evidence has, for the first time, given support to elements of this controversial theory showing that while the remote island was mostly colonised from the west, there was also some influx of people from the Americas. ~~~snip~~~ Now Erik Thorsby of the University of Oslo in Norway has found clear evidence to support elements of Heyerdahl's hypothesis. In 1971 and 2008 he collected blood samples from Easter Islanders whose ancestors had not interbred with Europeans and other visitors to the island. Thorsby looked at the HLA genes,...

JUNE 8, 2011 4:00 A.M. The Coordinates of Radicalism Sharia compliance correlates with violent attitudes among American Muslims. What is it that radicalizes Muslims, including American Muslims? Is it American foreign policy? Israeli “occupation” of the ancient Jewish territories of Judea and Samaria? Cartoons depicting the warrior-prophet as a warrior? Korans torched by obscure Florida pastors? The life of Osama bin Laden, or, perhaps, his death? Any of a thousand claimed slights, real or imagined, that purportedly provoke young Muslims to “conflagrate” — if we may borrow from the forgiving rationalizations of Faisal Rauf, would-be imam of the would-be Ground...

The males of two bipedal hominid species that roamed the South African savannah more than a million years ago were stay-at-home kind of guys when compared to the gadabout gals, says a new high-tech study led by the University of Colorado Boulder. The team, which studied teeth from a group of extinct Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus individuals from two adjacent cave systems in South Africa, found more than half of the female teeth were from outside the local area, said CU-Boulder adjunct professor and lead study author Sandi Copeland. In contrast, only about 10 percent of the male hominid...

Italian archaeologists have discovered the first-ever intact Etruscan house, complete with furniture, bricks and terracotta tiles identical to the ones still used in Tuscany today. Found at an archaeological site called Poggiarello Renzetti in the Tuscan town of Vetulonia, some 120 miles north of Rome, the 2,400-year-old building has been only partially excavated. Constructed in the Hellenistic period between the third and first century B.C., the house, about 33 by 50 feet, consisted of a basement to store foodstuffs and a residential area where the rather wealthy owner lived with his family. Although only a storage room has been brought...

In 1280, victorious Teutonic Crusaders began building the world's largest castle on a hill overlooking the River Nogat in what is now northern Poland. Malbork Castle became the hub of a powerful Teutonic state that crushed its pagan enemies and helped remake Medieval Europe. Now, ancient pollen samples show that in addition to converting heathens to Christians, the Crusaders also converted vast swathes of Medieval forests to farmlands. In the early-13th century, Prussian tribes living in the south-eastern Baltic became a thorn in the side of the Monastic State of Teutonic Knights, which was formed in 1224 in what is...

Researchers found a tunnel under the Temple of the Snake in the pre-Hispanic city of Teotihuacan, about 28 miles northeast of Mexico City. The tunnel had apparently been sealed off around 1,800 years ago. Researchers of Mexico's National University made the finding with a radar device. Closer study revealed a "representation of the underworld," in the words of archaeologist Sergio Gomez Chavez, of Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History. Experts found "a route of symbols, whose conclusion appears to lie in the funeral chambers at the end of the tunnel." The structure is 15 yards beneath the ground, and...

Note: On May 3rd, Daniel Gordis addressed the “J-Street Leadership Mission to Israel and Palestine.” The following column is based on his remarks that day.] Good morning and welcome to Jerusalem. It’s a pleasure to meet with this Leadership Mission; I understand that there are some first time visitors to Israel among you, so a particular welcome to those of you who’ve never been here before. Before we got seated, one member of your group conveyed a message from the Israeli Consul General in his home community. The message was that I shouldn’t speak to you. As you can imagine,...

On May 12, 2011, Bill Warner spoke at the Cornerstone Church in Nashville, TN. His speech was part of Geert Wilders’ event, “A Warning to America”, sponsored by the Tennessee Freedom Coalition.