News Round Up

Egyptologists have long been puzzled by a type of figure in ancient Egyptian art depicted wearing an unusual kind of conical hat. These figures often appear in scenes depicting banquets, funerary rituals, or interactions with the gods. Scholars…

Members of northern China’s Peiligang culture practiced aquaculture well before the domestication of fish in medieval Europe. By measuring teeth from common carp remains excavated at the Neolithic site of Jiahu, an international team of researchers…

For thousands of years, in a field next to the site of the Palace of Nestor in Pylos in mainland Greece, tens of thousands of watermelon-sized stones protected two Bronze Age tombs dating to between 1600 and 1500 B.C., the very beginning of the…

A seventeenth-century silver hawking ring called a vervel has been uncovered in a field near the town of Harwich, on the southeast coast of England. An inscription on the vervel links the artifact to a man named Thomas Playters, a member of the…

An extraordinary collection of bronze tools and weapons was recovered at a construction site near the Thames in East London. Dubbed the Havering Hoard, the assemblage comprises 453 artifacts dated to between 900 and 800 B.C., making it the largest…

The remains of infants buried wearing the craniums of older children as helmets have been excavated at the site of a ritual and funerary complex belonging to the pre-Columbian Guangala culture of coastal Ecuador. The burials are believed to date to…

The remains of a Christian basilica dating to the fourth century A.D. have been discovered at the site of Beta Samati, which may once have been an important religious and commercial center of the Aksum Empire in northern Ethiopia. The Aksumites, who…

From the twelfth to the seventeenth century, the MacDermots ruled the kingdom of Maigh Luirg in the Irish province of Connacht from a small island in Loch Cé (now Lough Key) known as the Rock. They were the right-hand men—and sometime rivals—of the…

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO—The Guardian reports that researchers from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History and Spain’s National Museum of Underwater Archaeology will renew their search for Nuestra Señora del Juncal, a Spanish galleon…

The current Asahi Shimbun Displays, Disposable? Rubbish and us, begins with two very different disposable cups. Disposable and single-use objects are about convenience, but they’re also more than that. Investing valuable labour and resources in…

Analysis of Neolithic finds and a Bronze Age cemetery uncovered near Drumnadrochit in the Scottish Highlands has enhanced understanding of the site’s prehistory. The post Bronze Age burials beside Loch Ness appeared first on Current Archaeology.

EASTER ISLAND, CHILE—According to a statement released by the University of Oregon, a team of researchers led by archaeologist Robert J. DiNapoli has demonstrated that the people of Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui, continued to construct…

MAASTRICHT, THE NETHERLANDS—Science Magazine reports that a senet game board in the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose, California, has yielded new information about the ancient game's evolution. Similar to backgammon, senet seems to have been…

BLYTHBURGH, ENGLAND—A hoard of 19 gold coins unearthed last February has been declared treasure by the Suffolk County coroner, according to a report from BBC News. Many of the gold staters and quarter staters in the hoard have been attributed to…

LONDON, ENGLAND—The Museum of London has announced the discovery of imported rings, copper ingots, and a bracelet within the objects of the so-called Havering Hoard, according to a report in The Guardian. First excavated from a quarry in east London…

New research examining animal bones from Navan Fort in County Armagh (led by Dr Richard Madgwick at Cardiff University) has demonstrated that Iron Age people were travelling significant distances with their livestock to visit this ceremonial centre…

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL—According to a report in The Guardian, six of the 32 ancient date seeds planted by Sarah Sallon of the Hadassah Medical Organization and her colleagues have germinated. Some of the seeds, which were all recovered from…

DURHAM, ENGLAND—The Guardian reports that a small piece of worked glass dated to the eighth or ninth century A.D. has been discovered on the island of Lindisfarne, the home of an early monastery and site of the first major Viking raid on Britain in…

The University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute is offering a limited number of funded places on the MSc Archaeological Practice and MLitt Archaeological Studies courses. The Masters programme offers archaeology courses which equip…

An amazing private collection of letters and other material has been acquired by the Charles Dickens Museum in London Charles Dickens’ secret gin supply, his anguish while writing The Old Curiosity Shop, details of his marriage, works-in-progress,…