News Round Up

As this year’s dig season at the Ness of Brodgar came to an end, an international team of archaeologists uncovered a surprising subterranean structure, shedding more light on the sophistication of the first farmers who built this site 5,000 years…

In recent years, a flurry of archaeological work in the Stonehenge landscape has uncovered a wealth of spectacular new details about this area’s prehistoric use. Above all, these findings clearly show that our knowledge of the past is constantly…

WARSAW, POLAND—Researchers led by Piotr Dyczek of the University of Warsaw uncovered a fragment of an engraved bronze plate in a centurion’s home at a Roman fortress on the Danube River in what is now northern Bulgaria, according to a Science in…

SOHAG, EGYPT—Ahram Online reports that temple ruins including limestone walls and floors were discovered during a drainage project on the west bank of the Nile River in Upper Egypt. Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Mostafa…

SALERNO, ITALY—According to an ANSA report, a sculpture fragment has been uncovered in the Temple of Athena at the ancient Greek site of Paestum, which is located on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea in southern Italy. The partial human face is…

The University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute is pleased to announce the publication of an important research paper in the Nature Ecology and Evolution journal. The paper by Dr Jen Harland, Lecturer in Archaeology UHI Archaeology…

SOFIA, BULGARIA—Live Science reports that an 1,800-year-old figurative jar that may have held balms or perfumes was discovered in a grave in southeastern Bulgaria. Archaeologist Daniela Agre of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences said the grave was…

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK—Researchers from SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University suggest that the structure of Neanderthals’ ears could have contributed to their extinction. Eustachian tubes are cartilaginous structures connecting the middle ear to the…

EXETER, ENGLAND—The Guardian reports that a previously undocumented Roman military site was discovered in southwest England during an investigation of the area ahead of the renovation of a bus station built in the 1960s. Archaeologist Andrew Pye of…

NEW YORK, NEW YORK—The Associated Press reports that the Metropolitan Museum of Art handed over an ancient gilded coffin to Egyptian officials after an investigation, conducted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s department of Homeland…

KIEL, GERMANY—Live Science reports that excavation of a 2,000-square-foot Stone Age megastructure at the Tripolye site of Maidanetske in Ukraine uncovered pottery, animal bone, a polishing stone, a whetstone, and a loom weight, indicating the…

BRISTOL, ENGLAND—According to a Reuters report, traces of domesticated animal milk have been detected in three small Bronze Age ceramic vessels fitted with narrow drinking spouts that were recovered from children’s graves in Germany. Biomolecular…

TRONDHEIM, NORWAY—Archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute of Science and Technology Museum report that they have discovered a bronze cauldron in an ancient cemetery located in the path of a highway slated for construction through central Norway’…

PHOENIX, ARIZONA—According to a Science Magazine report, geologist Rualdo Menegat of Brazil’s Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul suggests that Machu Picchu and several other cities were designed by the Inca to reflect the geologic fractures and…

Did ‘the Anglo-Saxon migrations’ take place, and were Romano-British leaders replaced by those of Germanic descent? Susan Oosthuizen’s new book, The Emergence of the English, is a call to rethink our interpretations of the 5th and 6th centuries AD,…

MUIR OF ORD, SCOTLAND—The Scotsman reports that rare traces of skeletal remains have been found within the outline of a coffin in the acidic soil at a Pictish-era cemetery in the Scottish Highlands by a team of archaeologists led by Steven Birch of…

SAAREMAA, ESTONIA—Metal detectorist Jegor Klimov discovered a 1,700-year-old gold bracelet, several crossbow brooches made of silver and gold-plated silver, and belt plaques decorated with silver at a sacrificial site on the island of Saaremaa in…

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL—According to a Haaretz report, cut marks on a Paleolithic swan bone found in Qesem Cave suggest that hominins left the marks when they removed feathers from its wings sometime between 420,000 and 200,000 years ago. The research team…

CUZCO, PERU—According to a Science in Poland report, a team led by Dagmara Socha of the Center for Andean Studies of the University of Warsaw in Cuzco and Rudy Perea Chávez of the Catholic University of Santa Maria in Arequipa's Museo Santuarios…

PORTMAHOMACK, SCOTLAND—The Scotsman reports that a 600-year-old pair of leather ankle boots with a copper alloy buckle and thick leg hose made of felted wool have been recovered from a grave under Tarbat Old Parish Church in the Scottish Highlands…