Lake Michigan is clear enough to spot shipwrecks from the air

The time between when Lake Michigan’s ice melts and the algae blooms in the summer makes the water clear enough to spot shipwrecks from the air.

For NPR.org, Bill Chappell reports that spotting wrecks from the air is “fairly common,” according to one of the pilots on the patrol, Lieutenant commander Charlie Wilson, “but not in the numbers we saw on that flight.” Chappell also notes that the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality writes, “An estimated 6,000 vessels were lost on the Great Lakes with approximately 1,500 of these ships located in Michigan waters.”

Other wrecks in the Manitou Passage include The Francisco Morazan, an ocean-going freighter driven aground during a snowstorm on November 29, 1960. The Morazan sank right on top of the remains of the Walter L. Frost, a wooden steamer lost on November 4, 1903. Both wrecks are in shallow water just a few hundred yards from shore, the preserve’s website reports.

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Story: Marissa Fessenden, Smithsonian Magazine | Photo: U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Traverse City

Woolly mammoth genome sequenced

An international team of researchers have successfully sequenced the genome of woolly mammoths who lived in Siberia 45,000 years ago.

This discovery means that recreating extinct species is a much more real possibility, one we could in theory realize within decades,” says evolutionary geneticist Hendrik Poinar, director of the Ancient DNA Centre at McMaster University and a researcher at the Institute for Infectious Disease Research, the senior Canadian scientist on the project.

“With a complete genome and this kind of data, we can now begin to understand what made a mammoth a mammoth—when compared to an elephant—and some of the underlying causes of their extinction which is an exceptionally difficult and complex puzzle to solve,” he says.

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Story: Michelle Donovan, McMaster University | Photo: Debi Poinar

Ancient African elephant figurine found in India

A figurine resembling an African elephant has been found at Tarighat, in India.

Unearthing of terracotta figurines of elephant at 2,500-year-old Tarighat site at Durg district is being believed as another indication that complements connection of Chhattisgarh’s ancient traders with South Africa. Archaeologists claim Tarighat was one of the richest international trading centres in central India.

They feel that the shape of elephant figurine is indisputably like those found in South Africa.

However, with Indo-Scythian and Indo-Greek coins excavated, the site is said to be not only one of the richest trading centres of import-export in Chhattisgarh, but also a hotspot of affluent lifestyle. Earlier, figurines of Giraffe-like animal and women with unique-knotted hairstyle excavated from the site supported the idea of traders having some connection with South Africa.

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Story: Rashmi Drolia, The Times of India | Photo: The Times of India

Old Kingdom mastaba found in Egypt

A mastaba, a mud-brick tomb, dating back to the Old Kingdom has been found in Quesna, Egypt.

This little known king of the 3rd Dynasty, who probably reigned for as little as six years, is best known from the stone vessels with his serekh inscribed on them from mastaba Z500 at Zawiyet el-Aryan (ZeA). The unfinished Layer Pyramid at ZeA was probably built for this king, although no remains of his burial were found. This newly-discovered mastaba is the first tomb excavated in over 100 years that can be assigned to the reign of King Khaba with any certainty – an exciting find indeed. We look forward to hearing more from Dr Rowland at the upcoming “Delta discoveries” day on 6th June at Doughty Mews.

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Story: Egypt Exploration Society | Photo: Egypt Exploration Society

Iron Age brooch found in Denmark

A Roman Iron Age brooch depicting an owl has been found in Bornholm, Denmark.

“There are very few of these types of buttons,” said archaeologist Christina Seehusen from Bornholms Museum. “It is likely that someone travelling to the island carried it there.”

The owl was produced in regions along the Roman frontier that ran along the Danube and the Rhine at the time, so it may originate from ancient Cologne or another nearby town. The clasp was usually worn by men to hold their cloaks closed, so it is possible that a man from the island was a Germanic mercenary in the Roman army and brought the owl back to Bornholm with him.

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Story: The Copenhagen Post | Photo: Bornholm’s Museum

Remains of sacrificed Thracian children found

The remains of three children believed to have been sacrificed by the Thracians in the 6th century B.C. have been found in southwest Bulgaria.

The skeleton of a third child sacrificed by Ancient Thracians has been discovered by Bulgarian archaeologists in the same ritual pit at the prehistoric site near Bulgaria’s Mursalevo where last week they found the remains of two Thracian child skeletons.

The discovery of the 2,700-year-old Ancient Thracian child sacrifice was announced on April 15, 2015, after the archaeologists conducting rescue digs along the planned route of the Struma Highway in Southwest Bulgaria found two crushed skulls and a shoulder bone in one of the some 20 Thracian ritual pits located on top of the 8,000-year-old Early Neolithic city near the town of Mursalevo.

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Story: Ivan Dikov, Archaeology in Bulgaria | Photo: BGNES

Fragments of 5,200-year-old Memphis city wall found

Archaeologists working in Egypt have uncovered fragments of the 5,200-year-old wall that surrounding the Old Kingdom capital of Memphis.

“Several white limestone fragments of the ancient capital’s wall were discovered during excavation work carried out by an archaeology team of the Russian Institute of Egyptology at Kom Tuman, south of Giza Pyramids,” said Damaty.

Memphis was founded from the end of the fourth millennium B.C. by the first Dynasty Pharaoh Menes, who was the first to unify Upper and Lower Egypt kingdoms into a unified state in ancient Egypt history, Director of the Russian archaeological team Galina A. Belova was quoted by the Antiquities Ministry Friday.

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Story: Rany Mostafa, The Cairo Post | Photo: Heide Vanderfort, The Cairo Post

The oldest evidence of mushrooms as food

Analyses of ancient dental calculus from the Upper Palaeolithic has revealed that mushrooms were consumed as a food source 18,000-12,000 years ago.

Archaeologists know almost nothing about the early use of fungi. Although their use is poorly understood in prehistory, ethnographers have noted that recent hunter-gatherers have often used fungi as food, flavouring and medicine. Mushroom use has firmly been identified from as early as the European Chalcolithic. The Chalcolithic Tyrolean Iceman “Ötzi” carried several types of fungi on his person. “This finding at El Mirón Cave could be the earliest indication of human mushroom use or consumption, which until this point has been unidentified in the Palaeolithic”, says Robert Power.

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Story: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft | Photo: MPI f. Evolutionary Anthropology/ R. Power

Homo erectus footprints reveal ancient hunting party

1.5 million-year old footprints made by Homo erectus males in Kenya may belong to a hunting party.

Roach and his team propose that the tracks represent group hunts for antelope or wildebeest. “What we can say is that we have a number of individuals, probably males, that are moving across a lake shore in a way that is consistent with how carnivores move,” he says. The researchers now plan to study the movement patterns of present-day subsistence hunters in Africa to get a better idea of what their footprints look like. “Hunting is a difficult thing to prove in human evolution,” Roach says. The presence of numerous adult males also points to some level of cooperation.

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Story: Ewen Callaway, Nature | Photo: Brian Richmond, Nature

Nine new sections of Great Wall found in China

Archaeologists working in northwest China have discovered nine sections of the Great Wall.

The findings, made in March and April by Zhou and other researchers, give historians fresh insight into where the wall was built. “Finally, we’re able to see the whole picture of the Qin Great Wall,” said Zhou.

Among the ruins, six sections, constructed with stones or loess, stretch about 10 km between Nanchangtan Village of Ningxia and Jingyuan County of Gansu on the southern bank of the Yellow River. Because of flooding and natural degradation, the height of these sections of the Great Wall has been reduced to one to five meters.

The other three loess-made sections are located in Damiao region of Jingyuan County. They are 50 meters long in total and five meters high.

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Story: China Daily | Photo: China Daily

WWII-era aircraft carrier mapped with 3D sonar

The shipwreck of the USS Independence aircraft carrier has undergone 3D sonar scanning, revealing a remarkably intact vessel.

Independence (CVL 22) operated in the central and western Pacific from November 1943 through August 1945 and later was one of more than 90 vessels assembled as a target fleet for the Bikini Atoll atomic bomb tests in 1946. Damaged by shock waves, heat and radiation, Independence survived the Bikini Atoll tests and, like dozens of other Operation Crossroads ships, returned to the United States.

While moored at San Francisco’s Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, Independence was the primary focus of the Navy’s studies on decontamination until age and the possibility of its sinking led the Navy to tow the blast-damaged carrier to sea for scuttling on Jan. 26, 1951.

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Story: Sarah Marquis, NOAA | Photo: NOAA, Boeing, and Coda Octopus

The origin of chins

A new study suggests that our chins evolved as human faces shrank.

We have one feature that primates, Neanderthals, archaic humans—any species, for that matter—don’t possess: a chin.

“In some way, it seems trivial, but a reason why chins are so interesting is we’re the only ones who have them,” says Nathan Holton, who studies craniofacial features and mechanics at the University of Iowa. “It’s unique to us.”

New research led by Holton and colleagues at the UI posits that our chins don’t come from mechanical forces such as chewing, but instead results from an evolutionary adaptation involving face size and shape—possibly linked to changes in hormone levels as we became more societally domesticated.

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Story: Richard C. Lewis, University of Iowa | Photo: Tim Schoon

3.3-million-year-old tools found in Kenya

Stone tools dating back 3.3 million years have been found near Kenya’s Lake Turkana, making them the oldest tools yet found.

Researchers at a meeting here say they have found the oldest tools made by human ancestors—stone flakes dated to 3.3 million years ago. That’s 700,000 years older than the oldest-known tools to date, suggesting that our ancestors were crafting tools several hundred thousand years before our genus Homo arrived on the scene. If correct, the new evidence could confirm disputed claims for very early tool use, and it suggests that ancient australopithecines like the famed “Lucy” may have fashioned stone tools, too.

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Story: Michael Balter, Science Magazine | Photo: Nigel Pavitt, Corbis

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

The 5,000-year-old remains of four individuals from the Harappan civilization have been found in an ancient cemetery in northern India.

Jadhav said: “The skeletons of two adult males, a female and a child have been found. With the help of forensic experts, we will try to reconstruct their DNA. We tried doing the same with the help of a Japanese anthropologist five years ago, when a Harappan-era graveyard was discovered at Farmana village in Rohtak district, but failed. Now, scientists from South Korea, equipped with advanced technology, will attempt to reconstruct the DNA.” Malavika said they also found potteries and other belongings at the site.

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Story: Deppender Deswal, Tribune of India | Photo: Excavation Team

Ancient Egyptian shrine found in Cairo

An Egyptian shrine dating back 2,400 years has been unearthed from beneath Cairo’s modern districts of Ain Shams and Mataria.

“The finds were discovered during the ongoing excavation work carried out by an Egyptian-German archaeology mission. The shrine belonged to the 30th Dynasty Pharaoh Nectanebo I (379 B.C.-360 B.C.,)” said Damaty.

Nectanebo I was the founder of the 30th Dynasty: the last native Egyptian royal family to rule ancient Egypt before Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 B.C., Archaeologist Sherif el-Sabban told The Cairo Post Tuesday.

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Story: The Cairo Post | Photo: Antiquities-Ministry

Roman burial found in England by metal detectorist

A Roman burial dating back to 200 A.D. has been excavated by archaeologists in North Hertfordshire, England.

Once the dig was underway, glass bottles, an iron lamp and wall mounting bracket, two layers of hobnails from a pair of shoes and a box with bronze corner bindings were uncovered. Two shattered, but otherwise complete, mosaic glass dishes stood on top of a decayed wooden box which held two broken clear glass cups and a pair of blue glass handles. The largest glass bottle was hexagonal, and contained cremated bone and a worn bronze coin dating from AD 174-5. A rare octagonal bottle stood next to it. A major find was mosaic glass dishes likely made in Alexandria, Egypt, around AD 200.

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Story: North Hertfordshire District Council | Photo: Reuters

Mass grave found at Nazi concentration camp

A mass grave has been detected at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany.

The mass grave measures 16m by 4m (52ft by 13ft), and is believed to be the final resting place of Dutch Resistance activist Jan Verschure.

It was found using testimonies from ex-inmates of the camp, who were interviewed by Verschure’s grandson Paul, a history teacher and researcher on the project.

“One of them gave me a map on which he marked where my grandfather was buried,” Verschure told Dutch television news program Nieuwsuur.

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Story: Yasmin Kaye, International Business Times | Photo: Reuters

Britain’s oldest cremated remains

Cremated bone dating back to the Mesolithic period has been found in southeastern England, making it the oldest cremation in Britain.

Burnt material, including 118g of cremated bone, was placed into a pit with a diameter of about a metre, and then backfilled with soil. Three radiocarbon dates, two from bone fragments and one from charcoal, have confirmed a date of 5,600BC for the deposit. Dr Louise Loe, head of burials at Oxford Archaeology, analysed the bone and determined that it represents the remains of at least one adult, although the total weight of bone is only about 7% of what would be expected from a complete individual. This, together with the large amount of charcoal present, suggests that the material represents a deposit of some of the remains from a pyre, and not all of the cremated bone from it.

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Story: Oxford Archaeology | Photo: Oxford Archaeology

Roman villa unearthed in Yorkshire

The remains of a vast Roman villa have been unearthed in North Yorkshire.

Archaeologists say they have been given a “rare glimpse” into a vast Roman villa with winged corridors and a pavilion-style room with an underfloor heating system on the proposed site of a new bypass in North Yorkshire.

Small sections of tessellated mosaic and a concrete floor, covered by wall plaster lying face down on top of it, have been discovered in Bedale, where an excavation of the villa, launched in November 2014, has unearthed pottery from between the mid-3rd and 4th centuries and a nearby ditched enclosure from the late Iron Age Romano-British period.

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Story: Ben Miller, Culture24 | Photo: North Yorkshire County Council

Tuberculosis found in Hungarian mummies

Strains of TB have been discovered in 18th-century Hungarian mummies found in a 200-year-old crypt.

Professor Pallen said: “Microbiological analyses of samples from contemporary TB patients usually report a single strain of tuberculosis per patient. By contrast, five of the eight bodies in our study yielded more than one type of tuberculosis – remarkably from one individual we obtained evidence of three distinct strains.”

The team used a technique called “metagenomics” to identify TB DNA in the historical specimens—that is direct sequencing of DNA from samples without growing bacteria or deliberately fishing out TB DNA. This approach draws on the remarkable throughput and ease of use of modern DNA sequencing technologies.

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Story: Warwick | Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Bronze harpy figurine found in England

A four-inch tall depiction of a harpy has been found at a quarry in southeastern England.

We think that the figurine represents a harpy. It is quite finely detailed, and is in the form of an upright bird with a woman’s head and with small wings which are fully open. The figure has feathers and talons, and braided hair; however, it seems to have a serpent’s tail which functions as a support. It is standing on a damaged base and also seems to have been attached at the top of the support. A harpy was a figure in Greek and Roman mythology and harpies are often represented in ancient art and literature.

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Story: The Colchester Archaeologist | Photo: The Colchester Archaeologist

Human sacrifice found in ancient Korean tomb

The remains of a young man believed to have been sacrificed has been found in the tomb of a woman in Korea.

Burying the dead with a human sacrifice was a common custom in ancient Korea.

But in a peculiar case, Korean archaeologists have uncovered a 5th- to 6th-century tomb from Korea’s Silla Dynasty (57 B.C. to A.D. 935) in which a young woman and man are buried together – lying next to each other – raising the possibility that it represents an image of two people making love.

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Story: Korea JoongAng Daily | Photo: Cultural Heritage Administration

171 mummies found in Peru tombs

At least 171 mummies have been found in seven tombs uncovered in the Cotahuasi Valley in Peru.

Before rigor mortis set in, the mummies had their knees put up to the level of their shoulders and their arms folded along their chest, the researchers found. The corpses were then bound with rope and wrapped in layers of textiles. The mummies range in age from neonate fetuses to older adults, with some of the youngest mummies (such as infants) being buried in jars. While alive the people appear to have lived in villages close to Tenahaha.

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Story: Owen Jarus, Live Science | Photo: Matthew Edwards

Roman Villa excavated in Yorkshire

The remains of a Roman villa has been uncovered during construction of a bypass in North Yorkshire.

Archaeologists say they have been given a “rare glimpse” into a vast Roman villa with winged corridors and a pavilion-style room with an underfloor heating system on the proposed site of a new bypass in North Yorkshire.

Small sections of tessellated mosaic and a concrete floor, covered by wall plaster lying face down on top of it, have been discovered in Bedale, where an excavation of the villa, launched in November 2014, has unearthed pottery from between the mid-3rd and 4th centuries and a nearby ditched enclosure from the late Iron Age Romano-British period.

[Full story]

Story: Ben Miller, Culture24 | Photo: North Yorkshire County Council

17th-century camel skeleton found in Austria

The complete skeleton of a camel from the Second Ottoman War has been found in Austria.

In addition to horses, the Ottoman army also used camels for transportation and as riding animals. In cases of scarcity, the soldiers also ate the animal’s flesh. But the skeleton found in Tullnwas complete. “This means that the animal was not killed and then butchered. It may have been acquired as part of an exchange,”says first author Galik. “The animal was certainly exotic for the people of Tulln. They probably didn’t know what to feed it or whether one could eat it. Perhaps it died a natural death and was then buried without being used.”

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Story: University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna | Photo: Alfred Galik/Vetmeduni Vienna

New dating technique could cut wait times for results

Researchers at the University of Liverpool are working on a new carbon-dating technique that could provide results for dating bone in two days, weeks faster than current methods.

It is the hoped the pioneering dating technique will reduce the wait for results from more than six weeks to two days, all for a lower cost than traditional methods.

A Norton Priory spokeswoman said radiocarbon dating is one of the most important techniques used by archaeologists to find out the age of organic samples, but is expensive and takes place off-site leading to lengthy lengthy times hanging on for findings to be provided.

This means that an excavation is likely to be over before the dating information can be obtained.

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Story: Oliver Clay, Liverpool Echo | Photo: Liverpool Echo

Spanish Armada cannonball found on Irish beach

A cannonball believed to have been part of the Spanish Armada has washed up on a beach in Ireland.

The beach at Streedagh has long been a hotspot for Armada enthusiasts.

Three ships from the infamous 16th century naval force were driven into nearby Donegal Bay by bad weather on 21 September, 1588.

The three ships (La Lavia, La Juliana, and Santa Maria de Vision) were wrecked four days later by a heavy storm after putting down anchor off Streedagh strand.

As many as 1,100 people are thought to have died when the ships foundered.

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Story: The Journal | Photo: Shutterstock/McCarthy’s PhotoWorks

Roman Horse skeleton found at Cambridge construction site

The intact skeleton of a horse who died 2,000 years ago has been found at the construction site for a new biomedical campus at Cambridge University.

She added: “We find animal bones everywhere but finding a whole one intact is slightly more unusual but you do find them. A specific incident must have occurred in the past as to why it is there. Maybe it was ill or diseased, maybe it died or it had to be put down. We just don’t know at the moment.”

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Story: Cambridge News | Photo: Cambridge Archaeological Unit

5,000-year-old beer-making vessels found in Tel Aviv

Fragments of pottery used to make beer by the ancient Egyptians has been found at a construction site in Tel Aviv.

Barkan and his colleagues found hundreds of pottery fragments, including broken pieces of large ceramic basins traditionally used to prepare beer — a staple of the Egyptian diet.

The clay that was used to create these basins had been mixed with straw or other organic materials as strengthening agents. This method wasn’t used in the local pottery industry in Israel, but straw-tempered vessels have been found before at other Egyptian sites — notably, the Egyptian administrative building that was excavated at En Besor in southern Israel, Barkan explained.

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Story: Megan Gannon, LiveScience | Photo: Yoli Shwartz, Israel Antiquities Authority

9th-century Anglo-Saxon salve kills MRSA

Research conducted on a 9th-century Anglo-Saxon salve for eye infections has found that it kills the modern superbug MRSA.

Dr Christina Lee, an Anglo-Saxon expert from the School of English has enlisted the help of microbiologists from University’s Centre for Biomolecular Sciences to recreate a 10th century potion for eye infections from Bald’s Leechbook an Old English leatherbound volume in the British Library, to see if it really works as an antibacterial remedy. The Leechbook is widely thought of as one of the earliest known medical textbooks and contains Anglo-Saxon medical advice and recipes for medicines, salves and treatments.

Early results on the ‘potion’, tested in vitro at Nottingham and backed up by mouse model tests at a university in the United States, are, in the words of the US collaborator, “astonishing”. The solution has had remarkable effects on Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) which is one of the most antibiotic-resistant bugs costing modern health services billions.

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Story: The University of Nottingham | Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Remains of Medieval woman unearthed in Wales

A cist grave containing the medieval remains of a woman have been found at a church in northern Wales.

Lifting the stone cover, a skeleton – identified by osteologists as a woman in her 60s who was in good health aside from some signs of arthritis – was discovered. Human remains from the period are a rarity in Wales due to the country’s acidic soil conditions.

“This type of grave is generally believed to be of an early medieval date, although due to the lack of surviving skeletal remains this hypothesis often goes untested,” says Catherine Rees, of CR Archaeology.

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Story: Ben Miller, Culture24 | Photo: CR Archaeology

Defleshed Neolithic remains found in Italian cave

The remains of 22 Neolithic people whose bones were defleshed have been found in Scaloria Cave in Italy.

“[Defleshing] is something which occurs in burial rites around the world but hasn’t been known for prehistoric Europe yet,” says John Robb, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and leader of the research project. Robb and his team examined the scattered bones of at least 22 Neolithic humans—many children—who died between 7200 and 7500 years ago. Their remains were buried in Scaloria Cave, a stalactite-filled grotto in the Tavoliere region of southeastern Italy, where Robb says that they provide the “first well-documented case for early farmers in Europe of people trying to actively deflesh the dead.”

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Story: Garry Shaw, Science Magazine | Photo: UCLA

Neanderthal ear bones different to modern humans

New research into Neanderthal anatomy has revealed that they had different ear bones than modern humans.

Featuring among the remains is a very complete left temporal bone and an auditory ossicle was found inside it: a complete stapes. Virtual 3D reconstruction techniques enabled this ossicle to be “extracted virtually” and studied.

This stapes is the most complete one in the Neanderthal record and certifies that there are morphological differences between our species and the Neanderthals even in the smallest ossicles in the human body. As Asier Gómez-Olivencia pointed out, “we do not yet know the relation between these morphological differences and hearing in the Neanderthals. This would constitute a new challenge for the future”.

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Story: University of the Basque Country | Photo: University of the Basque Country

Silver coins found in Bulgarian field

A man plowing a field in Bulgaria unearthed a pot of silver coins from the 16th – 18th centuries.

A man has stumbled upon an earthen jar with about 90 silver coins from the 16th-18th century while plowing a field with a tractor in the town of Zahari Stoyanovo, Popovo Municipality, in Northeastern Bulgaria.

Tahir Mehmedov was plowing another man’s field when his tractor hit the earthen jar. Initially, the man did not realize that the clay vessel contained a treasure but he says he liked it and took it with him, the Bulgarian channel Nova TV reports.

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Story: Archaeology in Bulgaria | Photo: Popovo Museum of History Facebook Page

Woolly mammoth genes spliced into living cells

Researchers at Harvard University have managed to take genes from the extinct woolly mammoth and splice them into the genome of an Asian elephant.

Using a DNA editing tool called CRISPR, the scientists spliced genes for the mammoths’ small ears, subcutaneous fat, and hair length and color into the DNA of elephant skin cells. The tissue cultures represent the first time woolly mammoth genes have been functional since the species went extinct around 4,000 years ago.

The research has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal “because there is more work to do,” Church told the U.K.’s Sunday Times, “but we plan to do so.”

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Story: Sarah Fecht, Popular Science | Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Bronze Age gold rings found in Wales

Two ‘lock’ gold rings dating back to the Bronze Age have been found in northeast Wales.

The Late Bronze Age hoard of two ‘lock’ gold rings were discovered in the Community of Rosset. The wearer would’ve been a person of wealth and status within Late Bronze Age Society, between 10000 and 800BC.

In terms of their use, archaeologists aren’t certain whether they were used as ear-rings or worn to gather locks of hair, as the name suggests.

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Story: ITV News | Photo: Amgueddfa Cymru

Anne Frank died a month earlier than thought

Teenage diarist Anne Frank likely died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp one month earlier than previously thought.

The new date of her death changes little about the tragic lives of Anne and her sister Margot, who went into hiding with their family in an Amsterdam canal house but were eventually betrayed, sent to Nazi concentration camps and died in the Holocaust along with millions of other Jews.

“It was horrible. It was terrible. And it still is,” Prins said.

But she said the new date lays to rest the idea that the sisters could have been rescued if they had lived just a little longer.

“When you say they died at the end of March, it gives you a feeling that they died just before liberation. So maybe if they’d lived two more weeks …,” Prins said, her voice trailing off. “Well, that’s not true anymore.”

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Story: AP | Photo: Rob Bogaerts/Anefo