Pre-Hispanic mortuary bundle found in Mexico

A mortuary bundle containing the remains of a young adult has been found in a rock shelter in Mexico’s Sierra Gorda region.

Toxtle Farfan added that the finding is not a mummy, because it would still conserve bland tissue, as skin, muscles and tendons, whereas these remains do not. The only thing left are bones, but in an excellent state of conservation.

The specialists detailed that the osseous remains, found last 10th of july, are covered in a pigmented fabric and a mat. The cranium still has hair, and some teeth can be glimpsed, as well as other parts of the skeleton.

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Story: Art Daily | Photo: Juan Manuel Toxtle/INAH

3D-recreation of Paleolithic skull reveals trauma

Researchers have created a 3D model of a Paleolithic child’s skull, revealing a violent head trauma that likely led to brain damage.

A Paleolithic child that lived ~100 thousand years ago found at Qafzeh in lower Galilee, Israel, was originally thought to have a skull lesion that resulted from a trauma that healed. The child died at about 12-13 years old, but the circumstances surround the child’s death remain mysterious. To better understand the injury, the authors of this study aimed to re-appraise the child’s impact wound using 3D imaging, which allows scientists to better to explore inner bone lesions, to evaluate their impact on soft tissues, and to estimate brain size to reconstruct the events surrounding the skull trauma.

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Story: PLOS | Photo: Coqueugniot H, Dutour O, Arensburg B, Duday H, Vandermeersch B, et al. (2014) Earliest Cranio-Encephalic Trauma from the Levantine Middle Palaeolithic: 3D Reappraisal of the Qafzeh 11 Skull, Consequences of Pediatric Brain Damage on Individual Life Condition and Social Care. PLoS ONE 9(7): e102822.

Road survey in Illinois leads to discovery of ancient village

The remains of an ancient village, which dates back between 700-900 years ago, has been found during road construction surveys near the Southern Illinois Airport.

“It’s sort of unclear if these groups spread out and became parts of what we know as the tribes today,” Durst said. “Or if they stayed in this location and became something else, or if they moved away entirely. And that’s part of our goal as an archaeologists.”

Durst said the group would also pre-date recognized tribes. Historically, organized tribes came later than the remnants of what are found at this dig site.

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Story: Giacomo Luca, KFVS | Photo: Giacomo Luca, KFVS

Inscription on Spanish church is Gaelic

An inscription found on a 14th-century church in Spain has been identified as Gaelic, making it the first written evidence of the link between Spain and Ireland.

Researchers working for a private association called the Gaelaico Project now believe they’ve finally deciphered what it reads: “An Ghaltacht” or “Gaelic-speaking area”.

“If our interpretation is right, the inscription isn’t related to religious matters, but rather to the language that was spoken in Galicia at the time,” Proxecto Gaelaico head Martín Fernández Maceiras told local daily La Voz de Galicia.

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Story: The Local | Photo: Castro de Baroña by Feans/Flickr

Documenting Medieval graffiti in England’s churches

A new project is underway in England to record medieval graffiti in England’s churches.

Whereas in the modern era graffiti is often considered destructive and a plain nuisance, in medieval times it was an “acceptable thing to do”, according to Mr Champion.

He said medieval graffiti had largely remained unscathed and only symbols of heraldry tended to be rubbed away.

Compass-drawn designs are among the most common types of inscriptions recorded in medieval parish churches.

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Story: Neil Heath, BBC News | Photo: Lincolnshire Medieval Graffiti Project

Medieval linen found at Northampton dig

Rare scraps of medieval linen have been found at a dig in Northampton, England.

A “very nice piece of serpentine marble” was excavated and it is “not beyond the realms of possibility” that it could have been part of a portable altar, according to Mr Brown.

“Some very nice pieces of antler, a lovely collection of honestones for sharpening knives, two scraps of medieval linen and a good preservation of industrial features have been uncovered,” he added.

“Due to the rarity of [linen] being preserved, it doesn’t turn up very often, and when found is usually in dockland places.”

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Story: Bruce Bower, Science News | Photo: MOLA/NCC

Human footprints found in cave may be Europe’s oldest

New dating carried out on human footprints found in a Romanian cave have revealed the prints were made 36,500 years ago, making them Europe’s oldest.

About 400 footprints were first discovered in the cave in 1965. Scientists initially attributed the impressions to a man, woman and child who lived 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. But radiocarbon measurements of two cave bear bones excavated just below the footprints now indicate that Homo sapiens made these tracks around 36,500 years ago, say anthropologist David Webb of Kutztown University in Pennsylvania and his colleagues. Analyses of 51 footprints that remain — cave explorers and tourists have destroyed the rest — indicate that six or seven individuals, including at least one child, entered the cave after a flood had coated its floor with sandy mud, the researchers report July 7 in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

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Story: Bruce Bowser, Science News | Photo: Science News

8,000-year-old brain matter found in child’s skull

Archaeologists working in Norway have found a child’s skull which may contain brain matter that dates back 8,000 years.

The team thinks the skull is too small for an adult and is instead probably from an infant of a maximum of ten years of age, which explains the thin and poorly preserved top of the skull.

‘As the skull is badly preserved, we had to be very gentle, using small tools that we seldom use on Stone Age sites,’ Reitan explains.

‘Having spent nearly 8,000 years in the pit, we had to keep it from drying out quickly. Then it would have turned to dust.’

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Story: Jonathan O’Callaghan, Daily Mail | Photo: G. Reitan/Museum of Culture History, University of Oslo

Medieval Turkish bath found in Albania

Archaeologists working in Albania have uncovered a Turkish bath which dates back to the 14th century.

The first, most important room is the open bath has the shape of semicircle. The room floor was supported by a dozen or so solid bricks with stone slabs on top. The hot air from the furnace fires entered a small vaulted atrium, where the convection and temperature equalization took place. Then it would flow through four channels under the floor. At the floor was also probably a heated platform and hot water tank, the researchers speculate. The water was taken from cisterns, also discovered by Polish archaeologists, and then poured into the tank, from where it flowed through ceramic water supply system placed in the hypocaust system. There it was heated and returned to the utility part of the bath.

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Story: Science & Scholarship in Poland | Photo: Martin Lemke

Children’s skulls found at edges of Bronze Age villages

The skulls of children have been found at the edges of Bronze Age villages built on stilts in Germany and Switzerland.

The children’s skulls were discovered encircling the perimeter of ancient villages around lakes in Switzerland and Germany. Some had suffered ax blows and other head traumas.

Though the children probably weren’t human sacrifices killed to appease the gods, they may have been offered after death as gifts to ward off flooding, said study co-author Benjamin Jennings, an archaeologist at Basel University in Switzerland.

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Story: Tia Ghose, LiveScience | Photo: Benjamin Jennings et al, Antiquity 2014

Roman bath house found at end of Hadrian’s Wall

A bath has been found at the Roman Sugedunum Fort at the end of Hadrian’s Wall in Wallsend, England.

“We’ve seen enough of the remains now to be 100 percent certain that we have the site of the fort bath house.

“In particular, we’ve got a Roman cement-lined cold plunged bath, which absolutely puts the tin lid on it.

“We’ve only got a tiny fragment of it exposed at the moment – because of where it is we might never get the whole of it exposed – but it looks to be in good condition.”

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Story: Ben Miller, Culture24 | Photo: Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums

2000-year-old tools found in Finland

Surveys in northern Finland have led to the discovery of 2,000-year-old stone tools.

The most exceptional part of the archaeological find was a stone spear tip or a possible prehistoric knife, which was discovered close to the Norwegian border. The stone implement has been uncovered by high winds as it lay in a sand pit. Experts estimate that the rough blade had been used during the Stone Age or the early metal age, making it at least two thousand years old.

“It’s amazing to find an intact object, because when we map ancient artefacts we usually only find fragments generated during the creation of these objects, in other words waste,” archaeologist Sami Viljanmaa said in a Metsähallitus statement.

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Story: YLE | Photo: Metsähallitus Sami Viljanmaa

1,500-year-old case of Down Syndrome unearthed

The 1,500-year-old remains of a child who had Down Syndrome has been unearthed at a medieval cemetery in France.

Down’s syndrome is a genetic disorder that delays a person’s growth and causes intellectual disability. People with Down’s syndrome have three copies of chromosome 21, rather than the usual two. It was described in the 19th century, but has probably existed throughout human history. However there are few cases of Down’s syndrome in the archaeological record.

The new example comes from a 5th- and 6th-century necropolis near a church in Chalon-sur-Saône in eastern France. Excavations there have uncovered the remains of 94 people, including the skeleton of a young child with a short and broad skull, a flattened skull base and thin cranial bones. These features are common in people with Down’s syndrome, says Maïté Rivollat at the University of Bordeaux in France, who has studied the skeleton with her colleagues.

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Story: Colin Barras, NewScientist | Photo: SPL

19-century fort discovered in Florida Everglades

The remains of Fort Harrell, built by the U.S. Army in 1837, has been found in the Everglades of Florida by a high school Chemistry teacher.

Fort Harrell was one of the more obscure outposts, wedged into a rugged swamp area, accessible mainly by boat. No great battles were waged there and no famous generals used it.

Yet three amateur explorers, led by a high school chemistry teacher, believe they have found its exact site and consider it an important historic find.

“It needs to be preserved and memorialized,” said Shawn Beightol, who led the expeditions to the site in the Big Cypress Preserve in Collier County. “I’d like to see a monument placed there for the people who served in that godforsaken location 170 years ago. Their story needs to be told.”

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Story: The Japan Times | Photo: Chris Harris

Hoard of coins found in English cave

A collection of coins from the Late Iron Age and the Roman Republic have been found in a cave in Derbyshire.

A precious hoard of Roman and Late Iron Age coins has been discovered in a cave in the Peak District where they have lain undisturbed for more than 2,000 years.

The treasure trove was initially unearthed by a member of the public, who stumbled across four coins in the cavern in Dovedale, sparking a full-scale excavation of the site.

Experts say the find is highly unusual as it is the first time coins from these two separate civilisations have been buried together.

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Story: Press Association Ltd. | Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Five skeletons found at Roman villa in England

Five skeletons have been unearthed at a late-Roman Villa in north Dorset.

It’s thought the remains, which date back to the mid-4th century, could belong to three generations of the same family who owned the villa.

The skeletons of two adult males, two adult females and one elderly female were discovered at the farm, which is currently being excavated as part of the Durotriges Big Dig project.

Miles Russell, senior lecturer in archaeology at Bournemouth University and one of the archaeologists leading the dig, said: “The discovery is of great significance as it is the only time where evidence of a villa and the villa’s occupants have been found in the same location in Britain.

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Story: Gayle McDonald, Daily Echo| Photo: Daily Echo

Jade casket found in northern China

A farmer plowing a field in Hebei,China has unearthed a small jade casket containing relics of a prominent Hinayana Buddhist.

A farmer accidentally found a cushion-sized “stone” when he was ploughing fields in the historic site of Yecheng, a 2,500-year-old ancient city located in what is now Linzhang County of Handan City, according to the county’s cultural relics protection department.

The casket is 22 cm long, 19 cm wide and 9 cm high. It is believed to be an artifact of Hinayana, a branch of Buddhism that prevailed in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand, said He Liqun, an archaeologist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

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Story: The Standard | Photo: Wikimedia Common

11th Dynasty Egyptian chapel discovered

A chapel belonging to King Mentuhotep that dates back to the 11th Dynasty has been would on the west bank of the Nile in Sohag, Egypt.

Ali El-Asfar, head of the ancient Egyptian Section at the MAH, told Ahram Online that the chapel is in a very well preserved condition and is located 150 metres north to the temple of King Seti I.

Early studies on the hieroglyphic text engraved on the chapel’s walls suggest that it belongs to the 11th Dynasty king Mentuhotep II, in honour of the god Osiris after his unification with the local god of Sohag, Khenti-Amenty.

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Story: Nevine El-Aref, Ahram Online | Photo: Ahram Online

Remains of palace found opposite the Taj Mahal

The remains of a summer palace has been found at the Mehtab Bagh garden located opposite from the Taj Mahal.

“The remains of the baradari-like structure have been found just opposite the Taj Mahal which strengthens our belief that the Mughal emperor must have built this place to enjoy the view of the Taj sitting near the bank of river.

The place seems to have sunk beneath the surface either due to floods or because of the presence of hollow space under the structure,” said a senior ASI official.

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Story: Aditya Dev, Times of India | Photo: PTI

Gallic tomb containing chariot found in northern France

Road construction in northern France has uncovered a Gallic wood-lined tomb that contains a chariot.

Starting on 3 June for a three week period, archaeologists and an anthropologist have been working to uncover this chariot tomb. This type of aristocratic tomb emerges in the 7th century B.C. – during the first Iron Age – and ends with the end of the Gallic period. The oldest chariots have four wheels (like that found at Vix), while those from the second Iron Age have only two. The deceased person – who could be male or female – was generally inhumed on the chariot, which was an object of prestige and a symbol of social status. Champagne-Ardenne is famous for such tombs (particularly at Bourcq and Semide in the Ardennes), which are generally dated to the start of the second Iron Age (5th-4th century B.C.).

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Story: Art Daily | Photo: Denis Gliksman, Inrap

Medieval dwellings found in Rome’s Colosseum

Excavations in the Colosseum in Rome have led to the discovery of late Medieval dwellings.

Archaeologists from Roma Tre University and students from the American University of Rome unearthed evidence showing that ordinary Romans lived within the Colosseum from the ninth century until at least 1349, when the building was seriously damaged by an earthquake.

During a three-week excavation beneath some of the arched entrances that lead into the arena, the archaeologists discovered terracotta sewage pipes, potsherds and the foundations of a 12th-century wall that once enclosed one of the properties.

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Story: Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News | Photo: Wikimedia Commons