News Round Up

FLORINA, GREECE—Kathimerini reports that archaeologists have excavated more than 200 warriors’ graves dating to the sixth century B.C. at the Ahlada cemetery in northern Greece. Although some of the cemetery’s more than 1,300 graves were looted in…

In the remote province of Ghur in western Afghanistan, the Hari and Jam Rivers meet in a narrow valley where mountains tower 7,000 feet high over a seemingly impassable landscape. Far from any urban center, this valley is home to one of the world’s…

TAMIL NADU, INDIA—According to a report in The Hindu, the Tamil Nadu Archaeology Department announced that new radiocarbon and accelerator mass spectrometry dates have been obtained for the site of Keeladi, which is located on the banks of the…

ÇANAKKALE, TURKEY—Hurriyet Daily News reports that archaeologists led by Nurettin Arslan of Onsekiz Mart University discovered a 2,200-year-old lion carved from stone at the site of the ancient city of Assos in northwestern Turkey. Arslan said the…

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS—According to a BBC News report, Natalie Laudicina of Boston University and her colleagues examined six female fossil pelvises, which represent individuals who lived over a span of more than three million years, and found that…

Excavation in the Carrowmore complex of megalithic monuments in County Sligo, Ireland, known for its prehistoric passage tombs, has shed interesting new light on one of the supposed burial mounds on the site. The post Investigating Carrowmore’s…

When the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud left Vienna after Germany annexed Austria in 1938, he was – unlike most other refugees – able to bring many of his possessions to his new home in north London. Freud only lived at Maresfield Gardens for a…

On the plain of Pasargadae, Cyrus the Great founded a spectacular garden palace. Nothing like it had ever been seen in the region before, raising questions about where the idea came from, how the garden was maintained, and where the inhabitants…

Cyrus the Great had an eye for the finer things in life. At Pasargadae he established a fabulous palace, which boasted lavish pleasure gardens watered by ingenious hydraulic works. Today, the lush vegetation is long-gone, but the ruins testify to…

Cyrus the Great had an eye for the finer things in life. At Pasargadae he established a fabulous palace, which boasted lavish pleasure gardens watered by ingenious hydraulic works. Today, the lush vegetation is long-gone, but the ruins testify to…

The British Museum Membercast is a monthly podcast made available to ‘all studious and curious persons’. Comedian, podcaster and super-fan Iszi Lawrence (The Z List Dead List) presents snippets from exclusive Members’ lectures at the Museum,…

HAIFA, ISRAEL—According to a Live Science report, a well-preserved mosaic floor dating to the late fifth or early sixth century A.D. has been uncovered at the site of a church in the ancient city of Hippos, which is located in northern Israel on a…

LA PAZ, BOLIVIA—Ceramic vessels decorated with images of fish and birds have been discovered at the Kalasasaya temple at Tiwanaku, a spiritual and political center of the eponymous Tiwanaku culture located near the southern shore of Lake Titicaca,…

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL—The Guardian reports that researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have produced a portrait of a young Denisovan woman based upon analysis of DNA extracted from her fossilized finger bone. Liran Carmel, David Gokhman, and…

Thomas Stamford Raffles was born onboard a ship in July 1781. His family was of modest means and he began work as a clerk with the East India Company at age 14. Due to his diligence as well as special patronage, he was promoted and sent to Southeast…

HALLE, GERMANY—According to a report in The Art Newspaper, conservators have determined that a fragment of a painted wooden warrior’s shield discovered in a Germanic chief’s tomb in central Germany is 1,700 years old. Conservator Christian-Heinrich…

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK—Tange Olsen and Xénia Keighley of the University of Copenhagen radiocarbon dated the remains of 34 walruses recovered in western Iceland in an effort to learn if the island’s unique subspecies died out after the establishment of…

ST. ANDREWS, SCOTLAND—Earth.com reports that researchers led by Kirsty Graham of the University of St. Andrews have determined that as many as 90 percent of 70 identified communicative gestures used by wild bonobos and chimpanzees are shared by the…

Creating images in a changing world Today, it seems hard to imagine that the Sahara was once populated by people with large herds of domestic cattle. While the grasslands and lakes that were so important to these communities may be long gone, the…

SHROPSHIRE, ENGLAND—Excavations at Nesscliffe, an Iron Age hillfort in western England thought to date to 500 B.C., have unearthed the fort's inner rampart as well as rare guard chambers at its northeastern entrance, The Shropshire Star reports. The…