News Round Up

LIBYA: Faunal remains from the Takarkori rock shelter in southwestern Libya underscore just how different the environment was there 10,000 years ago. While today the site is in the Sahara Desert, at the beginning of the Holocene period the area was…

CZECH REPUBLIC: Part of an early Neolithic well was uncovered during road construction in East Bohemia near the town of Ostrov. Researchers were impressed by the quality of its timber framing, especially given the fact that it was built and shaped…

ITALY: Neanderthals have long had the reputation of being Homo sapiens’ less sophisticated older cousins, but many recent studies have shown that they were more advanced than previously thought. Analysis of shell tools from Grotta dei Moscerini…

GERMANY: Archaeologists are accustomed to surprises, as they are never certain what lies beneath the surface. However, a German team was particularly stunned when, during their search for the remains of a Roman villa in the Hambach Forest outside…

CONNECTICUT: In a cellar in Ridgefield, construction workers unearthed the skeletal remains of 4 men who may have perished in the Battle of Ridgefield, a 1777 Revolutionary War engagement in which the Colonial forces were led by Brigadier General…

CANADA: The two ships of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, mysteriously disappeared in the 1840s on their journey to locate the Northwest Passage. It was only in the last decade that the vessels’ wrecks were finally…

The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis is one of the best-known buildings of the ancient world. Yet, despite its renown, it turns out that for more than 2,000 years, we may have been calling the temple by the wrong name. “I knew that scholars didn’…

For more than 1,000 years, Egyptians buried their dead at the Aswan necropolis, on the banks of the Nile. In one tomb, which contained as many as 30 bodies, a joint Italian-Egyptian team recently noticed a painted leopard’s face peering at them from…

Thirty lead tablets recovered from the bottom of a public well at the edge of the Kerameikos necropolis in Athens have been found to record curses cast by Athenians against their rivals some 2,300 years ago. Several of the tablets were folded and…

BRISTOL, ENGLAND—BBC News reports that a team of researchers led by Tamar Hodos of the University of Bristol used scanning electron microscopy to analyze the chemical makeup of 5,000-year-old decorated ostrich eggs discovered in burials in Italy and…

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA—According to a statement released by Macquarie University, a 3,300-year-old bronze figurine of the Canaanite god Baal, a bronze calf statue, two seals, and Canaanite and Philistine pottery have been unearthed by a team led by Gil…

ABYDOS, EGYPT—According to an Ahram Online report, a team of researchers led by Sameh Iskander of New York University uncovered foundation deposits, ten large storerooms, and niches cut into the walls of the southwest corner of the Temple of…

BERN, SWITZERLAND—Gizmodo reports that evidence for the cultivation of crops some 10,000 years ago has been discovered in southwestern Amazonia by researchers led by Umberto Lombardo of the University of Bern. Lombardo and his team used remote…

LONDON, ENGLAND—The Guardian reports that Richard Evershed of the University of Bristol and his colleagues have developed a technique to isolate fatty acids from food residues in pottery for precise radiocarbon dating. Evershed explained that the…

Researchers in the Palace of Westminster have discovered a long-forgotten doorway and passage running through the wall of Westminster Hall. The post Secret passage revealed in the Palace of Westminster appeared first on Current Archaeology.

Three weeks into museum lockdown and some museums and galleries are shifting their exhibition programmes online; here’s six newly-launched initiatives we’ve been enjoying this week The Enchanted Interior Guildhall Art Gallery, London A major…

With collections spanning natural history, archaeology and ethnography from across the globe, what better place to take a virtual trip around the world from the comfort of your home Dance mask Guerrero, Mexico Thought to have been used in the…

The mysteries of the Fabergé eggs of the Ancient world begin to be revealed in a new study Engraved, painted and embellished with ivory, precious metals and faience fittings, decorated ostrich eggs were traded around the Mediterranean during the…

From personal tales of amazement and wonder to the inspirational stories of people and places that objects can tell us, Museum staff reveal some inspiring anecdotes and powerful objects. We’ll have more staff selections coming next week! Jessica…

GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK—According to a statement released by Adelphi University, researchers led by Anagnostis Agelarakis examined the remains of four women and six men who were buried between the fourth and seventh centuries A.D. at the site of…