News Round Up

SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA—The Khmer Times reports that 141 statue fragments were uncovered in Angkor Wat by Apsara Authority workers who were installing an irrigation system. The statue fragments are thought to make up 21 Buddha statues, although no heads…

A visit to Winchester’s cathedral and City Museum offers a chance to explore the ecclesiastical life and early days of this historic Hampshire city, as Lucia Marchini finds out. The post Review – Winchester Cathedral and City Museum appeared first…

The University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute and the Art Department at Orkney College are now enrolling students for a new Contemporary Art & Archaeology Masters course. The course can be accessed online across the world or…

Analysis of medieval skeletons from two sites, one in Chichester and another in Raunds Furnells, has identified the presence of Mycobacterium leprae DNA – signs of leprosy in medieval England. The post Science Notes – Leprosy in medieval England…

LENDBREEN, NORWAY—Gizmodo reports that archaeologists investigating a mountain pass in central Norway’s Lomseggen Ridge, at an altitude of 6,300 feet, have recovered artifacts dating from the Iron Age through the medieval period, including mittens,…

NOVOSIBIRSK, RUSSIA—According to a report in The Siberian Times, a team of researchers led by Natalia Polosmak of the Russian Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography and Konstantin Kuper of the Institute of Nuclear Physics used fluoroscopy to…

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI—According to a statement released by Washington University in St. Louis in St. Louis, Katherine M. Grillo of the University of Florida, Fiona Marshall of Washington University, and Julie Dunne of the University of Bristol…

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND—According to a UPI report, a team of researchers including Stephen McGarvey of Brown University analyzed the genomes of some 1,200 people living on the Pacific island of Samoa in an effort to reconstruct the island's…

RUSE, BULGARIA—Archaeology in Bulgaria reports that a fourteenth-century Christian church decorated with murals has been discovered in northeastern Bulgaria’s medieval city of Cherven. The church is the sixteenth to be uncovered in the Cherven…

EXETER, ENGLAND—The Guardian reports that Exeter City Council has voted to repatriate a buckskin shirt, a pair of leggings, a knife with a feather bundle, two beaded bags, and a horse whip that belonged to Crowfoot, a late nineteenth-century chief…

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL—According to a Haaretz report, an international team of researchers led by Ella Assaf of Tel Aviv University suggests that stone spheres unearthed in central Israel’s Qesem Cave were used to break up large animal bones in order to…

KYOTO, JAPAN—According to a report in The Asahi Shimbun, eight massive stones, including one that weighs nearly ten tons, have been unearthed in the garden at Muromachi-dono, the so-called Flower Palace built by the Ashikaga Shogunate in A.D. 1381.…

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA—According to an Anchorage Daily News report, archaeologist Jeff Rasic of the National Park Service has investigated archaeological sites at Howard’s Pass, a several mile–wide tundra plateau located in the mountains of northern…

Recent scientific tests on human remains kept for centuries in the church of St Mary and St Eanswythe in Folkestone, Kent, have suggested that they are likely to be those of Eanswythe herself. The post Remains of St Eanswythe found in Folkestone?…

If you’re longing for new vistas, you might enjoy a wander through these lovely landscapes. From the blissful tranquillity of Turner’s Tintern Abbey, to the depiction of marshes in the tomb of Egyptian nobleman Nebuman over 3,000 years ago, they…

EXETER, ENGLAND—Naomi Sykes of the University of Exeter and her colleagues suggest that when chickens and brown hares arrived in Britain sometime between the fifth and third centuries B.C., Britons associated them with gods and revered them,…

KOSTOLAC, SERBIA—Ars Technica reports that coal miners in eastern Serbia discovered three boats in what may have been a branch of the Danube River some 1,300 years ago. The site where the vessels were uncovered is near the ancient Roman city of…

Fifteen years ago, retired archaeologist Ronald Messier, who had spent much of his career excavating the site of Sijilmasa on the northern edge of the Sahara, got a phone call from Frederick Vreeland, a former American ambassador to Morocco and the…

VANUATU: Oceania was the last region on Earth colonized by humans. When the first settlers from the Lapita Culture arrived in Vanuatu 3,000 years ago, they transported certain plants with them that aided their ability to survive, including the…

AUSTRALIA: Some very old rock art, such as the Gwion-style paintings that are found in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, is notoriously difficult to date because the pigments no longer contain organic material. However, experts were able…