Egypt’s Meidum pyramid to undergo restoration

The Meidum Pyramid in Beni Suef, Egypt, is set to undergo restoration work to make the site more tourist friendly.

The Meidum pyramid consists of large mud-break mastabas which were originally built for the last third dynasty king Huni. Construction continued during the reign of his successor King Senefru.

The architect who continued Meidum construction was the successor to well-known ancient Egyptian architect Imotep, who built the Djoser step pyramid. However, the modification made Imotep’s design and attempts to extend the structure led to its partial collapse.

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

Prehistoric camps found in Tetons

30 previously unrecorded prehistoric camps have been found on the western slope of the Teton Range.

Archaeological surveys in the Tetons go back to the ’70s, but new technology and new ideas about how prehistoric people might have used the area inspired a new round of inquiry. The result, Stirn said, is 30 previously unrecorded sites probably ranging from 11,000 years ago to “proto-history,” or about when “new Americans” began to enter the picture.

The findings stand to dramatically change archaeologists’ ideas about how ancient residents of the region used the mountains.

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Story: Richard Nderson, Jackson Hole News & Guide | Photo: Jackson Hole News & Guide

Prehistoric barbeque found in Cyprus

A prehistoric barbeque site has been uncovered at the Prastio-Mesorotsos site in Cyprus.

Archaeologists have uncovered what could be a prehistoric barbeque pit used by large bands of hunters at the Prastio-Mesorotsos site in the Paphos district.

According to the antiquities department the team of archaeologists led by a University of Edinburgh professor, examined the prehistoric remains from the site, which was later settled during various other eras in antiquity.

It said the earliest deposits on the site dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period – around 8000 BC to 7000 BC – and revealed storage pits and food preparation areas.

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Story: Jean Christou, Cyprus Mail | Photo: Cyprus Mail

3,300-year-old cult complex found in Israel

A cult complex dating back 3,300 years has been found at Tel Burna in Israel.

While archaeologists have not fully excavated the cult complex, they can tell it was quite large, as the courtyard alone was 52 by 52 feet (16 by 16 meters). Inside the complex, researchers discovered three connected cups, fragments of facemasks, massive jars that are almost as big as a person and burnt animal bones that may indicate sacrificial rituals.

The archaeologists said they aren’t sure who was worshipped at the complex, though Baal, the Canaanite storm god, is a possibility. “The letters of Ugarit [an ancient site in modern-day Syria] suggest that of the Canaanite pantheon, Baal, the Canaanite storm god, would have been the most likely candidate,” Itzhaq Shai, a professor at Ariel University who is directing a research project at Tel Burna, told Live Science in an email.

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Story: Owen Jarus, Live Science | Photo: Professor Itzhaq Shai

Possible Neanderthal remains found near French river

200,000-year-old arm bones that may belong to a Neanderthal have been found in the silts close to the River Seine in France.

Not much can be said about the individual because it is represented solely by the three long bones of the arm – the humerus, ulna and radius.

Their robustness would support a Neanderthal interpretation, says the team, and they could have come from a juvenile or young adult.

One interesting observation is a raised crest, or ridge, on the upper-arm bone that may be the result of muscle damage at the shoulder.

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Story: BBC News| Photo: BBC News

Celtic chariot fittings found at Iron Age fort

Celtic chariot fittings dating back to the Iron Age have been found at a hillfort in Leicestershire.

After cleaning, decorative patterns became visible in the metalwork – including a triskele motif showing three waving lines, similar to the flag of the Isle of Man. It is thought the chariot would have belonged to a high-status individual, such as a “noble” or “warrior”.

One of the students, Nora Battermann, described the moment she and her colleagues found the remains.

“Realising that I was actually uncovering a hoard that was carefully placed there hundreds of years ago made it the find of a lifetime,” she said.

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Story: Richard Moss, Culture24 | Photo: University of Leicester

Viking hoard found in Scotland

A metal-detectorist has uncovered a hoard of Viking artifacts in Scotland.

Among the objects within the hoard is an early Christian cross thought to date from the ninth or tenth centuries. The solid silver cross has enamelled decorations which experts consider to be highly unusual. Derek believes they could represent the four evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. He says “I think they are remarkably similar to the carvings you can see on St Cuthbert’s coffin in Durham Cathedral. For me, the cross opens up the possibility of an intriguing connection with Lindisfarne and Iona.”

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Story: Church of Scotland | Photo: Church of Scotland

Mosaic floor uncovered in Macedonian tomb

A 4th-century B.C. mosaic floor has been uncovered in the antechamber of a Macedonian tomb in Amphipolis, Greece.

Made from small white, black, gray, blue, red and yellow pebbles, the mosaic emerged as archaeologists led by Katerina Peristeri removed dirt and soil filling the tomb’s second chamber behind two colossal female statues known as Caryatids.

The colorful mosaic dates back to the last quarter of the 4th century BC. It covers the whole floor of the chamber — a 14.7-foot wide by 9.8-foot long area — and depicts a chariot in motion famed by a 23-inch-wide border with a double meander, squares and spiral shapes.

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

Medieval Vampire burial found in Bulgaria

The 13th-century remains of a skeleton with an iron rod plowed through his chest has been unearthed in southern Bulgaria.

We have no doubts that once again we’re seeing an anti-vampire ritual being carried out,” said Professor Ovcharov. He explained that the metal was driven through the corpse to stop a “bad” person from rising from the dead and terrorising the living.

“Often they were applied to people who had died in unusual circumstances – such as suicide.”

The skeleton, thought to be of a man aged between 40 and 50, had a heavy piece of ploughshare – an iron rod, used in a plough – hammered through its chest. The left leg below the knee had also been removed and left beside the skeleton.

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Story: Matthew Day, The Telegraph | Photo: Rex

Artifacts recovered from Antikythera shipwreck

3D-mapping of the Antikythera shipwreck site has lead Archaeologists and divers to recovered a collection of artifacts and cargo.

Greek and international team of divers and archaeologists has retrieved stunning new finds from an ancient Greek ship that sank more than 2,000 years ago off the remote island of Antikythera. The rescued antiquities include tableware, ship components, and a giant bronze spear that would have belonged to a life-sized warrior statue.

The Antikythera wreck was first discovered in 1900 by sponge divers who were blown off course by a storm. They subsequently recovered a spectacular haul of ancient treasure including bronze and marble statues, jewellery, furniture, luxury glassware, and the surprisingly complex Antikythera Mechanism. But they were forced to end their mission at the 55-meter-deep site after one diver died of the bends and two were paralyzed. Ever since, archaeologists have wondered if more treasure remains buried beneath the sea bed.

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Story: ScienceDaily | Photo: Brett Seymour, Return to Antikythera 2014

Remains of Alexander the Great’s father identified

Cremated remains found in a royal tomb discovered in Greece have been identified as belonging to King Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great.

The anthropological investigation examined 350 bones and fragments found in two larnakes, or caskets, of the tomb. It uncovered pathologies, activity markers and trauma that helped identify the tomb’s occupants.

Along with the cremated remains of Philip II, the burial, commonly known as Tomb II, also contained the bones of a woman warrior, possibly the daughter of the Skythian King Athea, Theodore Antikas, head of the Art-Anthropological research team of the Vergina excavation, told Discovery News.

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Story: Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News | Photo: Theodore Antikas

5,000-year-old Harappan stepwell found in India

A stepwell, dating back 5,000 years, has been found in Dholavira, one of the largest cities of the Indus Valley civilization.

It’s rectangular and 73.4m long, 29.3m wide, and 10m deep. Another site, the ornate Rani ki Vav in Patan, called the queen of stepwells, is already on Unesco list.

“This is almost three times bigger than the Great Bath of Mohenjo Daro that’s 12m in length, 7m in width, and 2.4m in depth,” said V N Prabhakar, visiting faculty at IIT and superintending archaeologist, ASI.

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Story: Ankur Tweari, TNN | Photo: TNN

World’s oldest art identified in Indonesian cave

Ancient cave art found in a cave in the 1950s on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi has undergone uranium-thorium dating, revealing that the art was made 40,000 years ago.

The researchers dated 12 stencils of human hands and two images of large animals. Because they sampled the top layer of calcium carbonate, the uranium dating technique gave them a minimum age for each sample.

They found that the oldest stencil was at least 39,900 years old — 2,000 years older than the minimum age of the oldest European hand stencil. An image of a babirusa, or ‘pig-deer’, resembling an aubergine with stick-like legs jutting from each end, was estimated to be 35,400 years old — around the same age as the earliest large animal pictures in European caves.

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Story: David Cyranoski, Nature | Photo: Nature

3,000-year-old knife unearthed in Denmark

A 3,000-year-old flint knife, complete with wooden handle, has been uncovered in Denmark.

While Stone Age flint knives are a somewhat common find, finding a flint knife with a wooden handle, an improvement that first appeared in the Bronze Age (which fizzled out in about 1200 BC), has never happened before.

“A dagger of this type has never before been found in Denmark,” Anders Rosendahl, an archaeologist at the Lolland-Falster Museum, told Jyllands-Posten. “It is exciting to find such a magnificent specimen.”

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Story: Ray Weaver, The Copenhagen Post | Photo: Lolland-Falster Museum

Head of goddess statue found at Roman Fort

The head of a statue of the goddess Brigantia has been found at the Roman fort of Arbeia in England.

The face of a goddess who was worshipped on the banks of the Tyne has seen the light of day for the first time in 1,800 years.

The small, finely carved stone female head was unearthed by a volunteer on the community archaeology project WallQuest at Arbeia Roman fort in South Shields.

The eyes, nose, mouth and hairstyle are all delicately carved, and traces of pink paint still survive on the statue’s face and red.

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Story: Tony Henderson, Chronicle Live | Photo: Chronicle Live

Prone burial of young girl found in Italy

The remains of a 13-year-old anemic girl, found buried face down, has been unearthed by archaeologists working in northern Italy.

Dubbed by Italian media as “the witch girl,” the skeleton was unearthed at the complex of San Calocero in Albenga on the Ligurian Riviera, by a team of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology at the Vatican.

The site, a burial ground on which a martyr church dedicated to San Calocero was built around the fifth and sixth centuries A.D., was completely abandoned in 1593.

The prone burial, which has yet to be radiocarbon dated, is thought to date from the late antiquity or the early Middle Ages.

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Story: Rosella Lorenzi, Discovery News | Photo: Stefano Roascio

Iron Age cooking mound excavated in Wales

An Iron Age cooking mound found on Skomer Island in Wales has undergone excavation, revealing the teeth of cattle among the fire-cracked stones.

A cattle tooth left in a cooking mound and fire-cracked stones used for boiling water have paved the prehistoric way to dating the sweeping settlement of Skomer Island in Pembrokeshire, where archaeologists say the ancient, well-preserved field systems date from between 520 to 458 BC.

This was the first time archaeologists had been allowed to excavate on the island. Opening a trench, they aimed to explore the “long and complex” history of settlements and farming on Skomer, informed by three years of careful research by wildlife and science experts and universities.

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Story: Ben Miller, Culture24 | Photo: Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales

Location of Columbus’ departure for the New World found

Location of Columbus’ departure for the New World found

Archaeologists working in southwestern Spain believe they have found the exact location of Christopher Columbus’ departure for the New World in 1492.

The discovery of tell-tale objects during excavations at Palos de la Frontera in southwestern Spain has allowed scholars to determine the exact location from which Christopher Columbus’s three ships set off to discover the New World in 1492.

The discovery is of international importance, as it sheds light on one of the most important chapters of history.

For years it had been suspected that the remains of the port’s long-vanished infrastructure was located in the area known as “the trough,” but until Monday, there was no evidence to confirm it, said Professor Juan Manuel Campos, who led the team that made the discovery.

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Story: Latin American Tribune | Photo: Latin American Tribune

Ancient ritual bath and WWII graffiti found in Israel

A ritual bath dating back 1,900 years, as well as graffiti left by Australian soldiers during WWII have been found at Ha-Ela Junction in Israel.

During the course of the excavation the archaeologists were surprised to discover some contemporary yet intriguing finds: graffiti engraved on the ceiling of the cistern indicating the place had been exposed until the 1940’s. The inscriptions were read by Assaf Peretz, an archaeologist and historian with the Israel Antiquities Authority, who said, “Among other things, two English names were identified that are carved in the rock: Cpl Scarlett and Walsh. Next to the names are carved the initials RAE and two numbers – NX7792 and NX9168. The date 30/05/1940 appears below the graffiti. Since the initials Cpl signify the rank of corporal, we can assume that these were soldiers who wanted to leave their mark there. An inquiry with the proper authorities revealed that the numbers engraved inside the cistern are actually soldiers’ serial numbers and that RAE stands for Royal Australian Engineers. A search in the Australian government archives revealed the following information: Corporal Philip William Scarlett was born in Melbourne in 1918, was drafted into the army in 1939, survived the war and died in 1970, shortly before his fifty-second birthday. His comrade, Patrick Raphael Walsh, was born in 1910 in Cowra, was drafted in 1939, survived the war and passed away in 2005 at the age of 95.

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Story: Israel Antiquities Authority | Photo: Israel Antiquities Authority

Neolithic settlement found in England

A Neolithic settlement, complete with loads of pottery and artifacts, has been found in the southwest of England.

“We found about 30 post holes which might have been successive structures. There weren’t any coherent buildings, however, like neat rectangles, which is always a bit annoying, but is the way it is.

“Also found were thousands of pottery shards and flint, and one pit yielded thick layers of charcoal about which we are not sure – containing material, rock crystals and a pierced pebble necklace or amulet.”

A series of test pits in an adjoining field “had more post holes and absolutely loads of material” but overall the best find was “a nice Cornish greenstone stone mace head, like a Neolithic axe, with a hole through the middle”.

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Story: The Cornishman | Photo: The Cornishman

Early image of Jesus found in Spain

A fourth century depiction of Jesus and the apostles Paul and Peter have been found at the site of a religious building in Spain.

The green glass paten, the plate which holds the Holy Eucharist in churches, is the earliest depiction of Jesus found in Spain and is in excellent condition compared to similar pieces discovered around Europe.

“We know it dates back to the 4th century, in part because popes in the following centuries ordered all patens to be made out of silver,” Marcelo Castro, head of the Forum MMX excavation project, told The Local.

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Story: The Local | Photo: FORVM MMX

Haitian shipwreck is not that of the Santa María

Experts from UNESCO who examined the remains of a ship found off the northern coast of Haiti believe the vessel is not that of the Santa María, Christopher Columbus’ flagship.

“We are still awaiting the final report, but so far what we have seen … tends to lead us to think it is a later ship,” she said of the wreckage found by Barry Clifford in about 15 feet of water near the northern city of Cap-Haitien.

She said the wreckage identified by the U.S. explorer with great fanfare in May appeared to be from a 17th or 18th century ship.

Clifford, known for discovering a pirate ship off Cape Cod in 1984, stands by his belief that he found what’s left of the Santa Maria. He said in phone interview that he has heard the UNESCO report raises doubts about the claim but said the organization’s team of experts never consulted with him and did not even request his surveys and photos from the dive site. “I think it’s going to be highly, highly prejudiced,” he said.

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Story: Pierre-Richard Luxama, Phys.org | Photo: Wikimedia Commons

1,300-year-old villages found in Arizona

Two villages dating back 1,300 years have been found in northern Arizona.

“Last year we found a large habitation site, and this summer we found a match, less than a mile away, a site that has dozens and dozens of different features,” Reitze said.

“We have now two large groups of pithouse structures, both of them with probably more than 50 structures associated with them.”

In addition to the distinctive sandstone architecture, both sites turned up fragments of brown ceramics and stone points that are indicative of the late Basketmaker period, a cultural phase that prefigured the Ancestral Puebloans who went on to build the monuments of Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde.

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Story: Western Digs | Photo: NPS

Fragments of marble door found in Greece

Fragments of a marble door have been found in the second chamber of a Greek tomb.

Made from marble brought from the island of Thasso, like most of the features uncovered so far in the underground space, the door fragments were found as archaeologists removed dirt from the second chamber.

According to Katerina Peristeri, the excavation’s director, the discovery leaves no doubt the structure is indeed a tomb dating to the time of Alexander the Great of Macedonia.

“Based on our findings, we are absolutely sure about our dating to the last quarter of the 4th century B.C.,” Peristeri said.

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

Parthenon in danger of crumbling

After a boulder of “considerable size” fell off of the Acropolis in Athens, researchers have found that there is instability over a wide area of the flat-topped rock on which the Parthenon sites.

Work to shore up the southern slope of the hill on which the 2,500-year-old temple complex sits will be necessary, the agency reported, blaming rainwater pipes from the old Acropolis museum.

Despite sharp cuts elsewhere, the restoration work on the site that has been going on since the 1970s has remained sacrosanct, a symbol of the country’s glorious past.

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Story: Phys.org | Photo: Phys.org

Franklin Expedition shipwreck identified as HMS Erebus

A shipwreck found last month in the Arctic has been identified as the HMS Erebus, one of the doomed ships that ventured out with the Franklin Expedition in 1845.

Two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, were part of Sir John Franklin’s doomed expedition in 1845 to find the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic Ocean to Asia.

The ships disappeared after they became locked in ice in 1846 and were missing for more than a century and a half until last month’s discovery by a group of public-private searchers led by Parks Canada. It was not known until now which of the two ships had been found.

Franklin commanded the expedition from the Erebus and is believed to have been on the ship when he died. The wreck of HMS Terror has not yet been found.

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Story: CBC News | Photo: Thierry Boyer, Parks Canada

Ancient earthquake victims found in Israel

The remains of people crushed when the roof of a basilica caved in during an earthquake 1,700 years ago have been found in Israel.

Eisenberg’s team found a number of skeletons crushed under a collapsed roof in the northern section of the Basilica, the largest structure in the city. Built at the end of the 1st century A.D. during the peak of Roman building in the city and the region, it served as marketplace and main seat of the judge.

Among the bones of the people killed in the collapse, the archaeologists found the skeleton of a woman with a golden pendant in the shape of a dove.

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Story: Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News | Photo: Michael Eisenberg

Students unearth remains of sweat lodge at Cahokia Mounds

A team of students from Saint Louis University have uncovered the remains of a burned sweat lodge at Cahokia Mounds in Illinois.

Generally, a sweat lodge is a domed hut made of natural materials. They were — and continue to be — used by American Indians as steam baths for physical cleansing as well as for ritual purification.

The sweat lodge discovered this summer is three meters in diameter and superimposes the corner of a large rectangular structure. Within the basin of the sweat lodge several large deposits of charcoal suitable for radiocarbon dating were found. As word spread of the discovery, archaeologists in the area came to visit and were impressed by the careful work done by SLU students.

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Story: Saint Louis University | Photo: Wikimedia Commons

4,000-year-old ritual site found in Poland

A ritual site dating back 4,000 years has been found on a hilltop in Poland.

The discovery was made on a sands and gravels elevation covered with oaks, formed as a result of a moving glacier. Dr. W?odzimierz Kwiatkowski of the Knyszy? Forest Landscape Park suggested that in terms of the environment and vegetation, the area looked similar at the time of the creation of the ritual place.

At the highest point of the elevation, archaeologists stumbled upon fragments of cups and bowls, belonging to the Bell Beaker community, named after the culture’s distinctive pottery drinking vessels that resemble inverted bells. This culture inhabited large areas of Europe and even North Africa, but can not be identified with one particular people. Vessels discovered in Supra?l were decorated with incised ornament on both the outer and inner surface.

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Story: Science & Scholarship in Poland | Photo: K. Januszek

Vascular imprints found inside Egyptian mummy’s skull

The imprints of blood vessels have been found inside the skull of a Egyptian mummy found in the Kom al-Ahmar/Sharuna necropolis.

An ancient Egyptian mummy is sparking new questions among archaeologists, because it has one very rare feature: The blood vessels surrounding the mummy’s brain left imprints on the inside of the skull.

The researchers are trying to find what process could have led to the preservation of these extremely fragile structures.

The mummified body is that of a man who probably lived more than 2,000 years ago, sometime between the Late Period and the Ptolemaic Period (550 – 150 B.C.) of Egyptian history, the researchers said.

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Story: Bahar Gholipour, Live Science | Photo: Elsevier Ltd.

Medieval Friary excavation unearths human remains

Archaeologists in Scotland at working to excavate the remains of a medieval friary that was destroyed during the Reformation in 1559.

Archaeologists say it is unclear if the skeletal parts of the individual, discovered opposite Stirling Railway Station, date from the foundation of the nearby medieval friary, in 1233, or several centuries later.

“This is an exciting and totally fascinating find,” said Murray Cook, the Archaeologist for Stirling Council.

“For Stirling, this is the first time that a medieval site has been subject to modern excavation on this scale.

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Story: Ben Miller, Culture24 | Photo: GUARD Archaeology Ltd

Luxury artifacts uncovered at Roman camp in Bulgaria

Hundreds of artifacts ranging from coins to objects made out of antlers have been found at the site of a Roman camp in Bulgaria.

“The building was very luxuriously equipped. Although the area was rebuilt several times over the centuries and then plundered, we found pieces of furniture made of bronze, in the form of applications and legs in the shape of lion’s paws, and well-preserved large metal lamp” – said Prof. Dyczek.

According to head of the research project, the greatest discovery this season are three unique, finely crafted bronze figurines. One depicts a sitting, singing actor in a comic mask, the other two – speakers dressed in togas. Statue date back to II century AD. They were ornaments of luxury furniture, or household shrine.

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Story: Science & Scholarship in Poland | Photo: J Reclaw

Music chamber found in ancient city in Turkey

Archaeologists working at the ancient city of Isos have discovered a 5,000-year-old music chamber.

Isos is mentioned in history books as a trade city and was a multicultural city where the Roman, Byzantine, late Hittite, Persian and Ottoman empires all settled.

A 20-person excavation team, headed by the Hatay Museum archaeologist Ömer Çelik, unearthed some parts of a Roman road in the ancient city this year, revealing that shops at the time were reached through the northeast of the road. Excavations in this area revealed Odean architecture, as well as the music chamber that was discovered. Officials think sick people were treated in this chamber.

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Story: Hurriyet Daily News | Photo: Hurriyet Daily News

Cremation burials with rare artifacts uncovered in Poland

100 cremation burials dating back between the 6th-7th centuries A.D. have been found in Burdag, Poland.

The large number of finds surprised the scientists. They included bronze and silver ornaments, costume pieces, such as fibulas, pendants, rings, beads, buckles and belt fittings. The largest group of objects, as in the case of most archaeological sites in Poland, were ceramics. Archaeologists discovered numerous vessels in various states of preservation, including many very elaborately ornamented vessels, which, according to Dr. Rudnicki, distinguishes them from the products of the surrounding cultures in this period, both Slavic and Baltic. All items come from the VI-VII century AD.

“We also came across rare items. Among them was a tinder and flint with the remains of the fabric in which they were wrapped, a fragment of a glass vessel, most likely originating from Frankish workshop, knives with preserved parts of wooden handles” – said Dr. Rudnicki, head of the expedition.

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Story: APAP| Photo: R. Hejnowski

Frescoes restored at home of Emperor Augustus

A project to restore the frescoes at Palatine Hill is now complete after years of restoration work.

Lavishly frescoed rooms in the houses of the Roman Emperor Augustus and his wife Livia are opening for the first time to the public Thursday, after years of painstaking restoration.

The houses on Rome’s Palatine hill where the emperor lived with his family are re-opening after a 2.5 million euro ($3.22 million) restoration to mark the 2,000 anniversary of Augustus’s death — with previously off-limit chambers on show for the first time.

From garlands of flowers on Pompeian red backgrounds to majestic temples and scenes of rural bliss, the rooms are adorned with vividly coloured frescoes, many in an exceptional condition.

[Full story]

Story: ArtDaily | Photo: Filippo Monteforte, AFP

Teutonic battle axes found in Poland

Three Teutonic battle axes that date back to the late Middle Ages have been found in a forest in Poland.

Engineers stumbled upon the historic axes by chance, while searching the woods metal detectors. The weapons have been initially identified by an archaeologist as late-medieval Teutonic battle axes.

Iron axes were close to each other, shallow underground, among the roots of trees. “It can be assumed that this is a deposit that someone left for better times. Perhaps the person fled, hid the weapons and never returned to this place” – told PAP Agata Trzop-Szczypiorska, responsible for archaeological supervision of the engineers’ work.

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Story: PAP | Photo: Tomasz Waszczuk, PAP

Spain’s Iberian pig genome unchanged over five centuries

Genetic research carried out on a pig who lived in Spain during the early 16th century suggests that today pig is very closely related to the regions ancient pigs.

A team of Spanish researchers have obtained the first partial genome sequence of an ancient pig. Extracted from a sixteenth century pig found at the site of the Montsoriu Castle in Girona, the data obtained indicates that this ancient pig is closely related to today’s Iberian pig. Researchers also discard the hypothesis that Asian pigs were crossed with modern Iberian pigs.

[Full story]

Story: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona | Photo: Wikimedia Commons