Archaeology

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  • How Europe was repopulated as the Ice Age ended

    Past Horizons Archaeology
    Past Horizons
    14 May 2012 | 6:19 am
    Scientists have used DNA analysis to gain important new insights into how human beings repopulated Europe as the Ice Age relaxed its grip. Dr Maria Pala, who is based at the University of Huddersfield – now a key centre for archaeogenetics research – is the lead author of an article in the latest issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics which shows how the Near East was a major source of replenishment when huge areas of European territory became habitable again, up to 19,000 years ago. Until the new findings, it was thought that there were two principal safe havens for humans as…

  • Chinese archaeology proves early East-West links

    archaeology - Yahoo! News Search Results
    14 May 2012 | 9:33 pm
    The vast but little known north-western Chinese region of Xinjiang has presented a University of Sydney archaeologist with exciting new evidence of early contact between China and the West.

  • Prehistoric Panda discovered in Spain

    The Archaeology News Network
    15 May 2012 | 3:30 am
    Fossilised remains of a primitive panda species genetically related to China's endangered giant panda have been discovered in Spain, a new study reveals.  With only teeth to go on, scientists have reportedly identified a giant panda ancestor: A. beatrix [Credit: José Antonio Peñas/SINC] A team of Spanish researchers, which included experts from the National Museum of Natural Sciences (MNCN-CSIC), found that the species... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • Looting Egypt Increases

    Looting Matters
    David Gill
    12 May 2012 | 5:45 pm
    There is a report on the increased levels of looting in Egypt: "In Egypt Turmoil, Thieves Hunt Pharaonic Treasures", New York Times May 12, 2012. Illegal digs near ancient temples and in isolated desert sites have swelled a staggering 100-fold over the past 16 months since a popular uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak's 29-year regime and security fell apart in many areas as police simply stopped doing their jobs. The pillaging comes on top of a wave of break-ins last year at archaeological storehouses — and even at Cairo's famed Egyptian Museum, the country's biggest repository of pharaonic…

  • Reassessing Abri Castanet

    About.com Archaeology
    14 May 2012 | 9:16 am
    An article in PNAS published on May 14, 2012, describes a fundamental reassessment of the Upper Paleolithic Aurignacian site of Abri Castanet, in the Dordogne region of France, which pushes the date of its artwork back to among the earliest known in the world, about 37,000 years ago....Read Full Post
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    About.com Archaeology

  • Reassessing Abri Castanet

    14 May 2012 | 9:16 am
    An article in PNAS published on May 14, 2012, describes a fundamental reassessment of the Upper Paleolithic Aurignacian site of Abri Castanet, in the Dordogne region of France, which pushes the date of its artwork back to among the earliest known in the world, about 37,000 years ago....Read Full Post

  • Classic Maya Astronomical Mural

    11 May 2012 | 6:20 am
    A fascinating report in Science today, and featured in an upcoming issue of National Geographic, is that of a newly discovered mural including astronomical tables at the classic Maya site of Xultún. ...Read Full Post

  • Horses from the Western Steppes

    10 May 2012 | 5:51 am
    New DNA evidence published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences earlier this week supports the domestication of horses as having occurred one time, somewhere in the western steppe region of Eurasia, somewhere in what is today Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, or Uzbekistan. ...Read Full Post

  • Ancient Roadside Inns

    7 May 2012 | 4:04 am
    In one of the Time Team programs I reviewed last week, the team investigated a Roman mansio--the Empire's version of a way station or roadside hotel. Read Full Post

  • Exchange Systems and Trade Networks

    4 May 2012 | 3:45 am
    An important concept used in archaeological and anthropological study for the past 150 years or more is that of exchange systems or trade networks. Exchange systems are the way consumers connect with producers of goods, services and ideas. ...Read Full Post
 
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    Archaeological News from Archaeology Magazine

  • Tuesday, May 15

    Jessica E. Saraceni
    15 May 2012 | 11:55 am
    Engravings at the French rock shelter site of Abri Castanet have been dated to 37,000 years ago, making them at least as old as the paintings of the Grotte Chauvet. The Abri Castanet engravings were carved in the limestone ceiling of the shelter, which was probably used by reindeer hunters. “But unlike the Chauvet paintings and [...]

  • Monday, May 14

    Jessica E. Saraceni
    14 May 2012 | 11:50 am
    A Polish oil company worker has discovered a World War II-era Kittyhawk P-40 crashed in Egypt’s Western Desert. The Royal Air Force pilot of the plane is thought to have survived the June 1942 crash because his parachute had been used to make a shelter. No human remains have been found. The Egyptian military has removed [...]

  • Friday, May 11

    Jessica E. Saraceni
    11 May 2012 | 12:20 pm
    At the site of Xultún in northern Guatemala, a team from Boston University has uncovered the oldest-known astronomical tables of the Maya, which were incised and painted on the walls of a room in a 1,200-year-old residential building. The room, thought to have been a working space for scribes, had been built with a stone [...]

  • Thursday, May 10

    Jessica E. Saraceni
    10 May 2012 | 12:18 pm
    John MacGinnis of Cambridge University was deciphering the text on a 2,800-year-old Assyrian clay tablet from Turkey when he realized that the names of some of the women listed in the text were unique. He thinks the names may represent women prisoners of war who were captured in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran, and [...]

  • Wednesday, May 9

    Jessica E. Saraceni
    9 May 2012 | 11:57 am
    A section of 600-year-old city wall in Nanjing was damaged when a Ferrari was put on top if it for a publicity stunt. Its spinning, screeching wheels left tire marks on the Ming Dynasty walls. The stunt was intended to kick off a Ferrari show marking the Italian car maker’s 20 years in the Chinese car [...]
 
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    ScienceDaily: Archaeology News

  • Anthropologists discover earliest form of wall art

    14 May 2012 | 2:29 pm
    Anthropologists working in southern France have determined that a 1.5 metric ton block of engraved limestone constitutes the earliest evidence of wall art. Their research shows the piece to be approximately 37,000 years old and offers rich evidence of the role art played in the daily lives of Early Aurignacian humans.

  • Ancient ballgame reveals more about early Mesoamerican society

    8 May 2012 | 2:21 pm
    New research explores the importance of the ballgame to ancient Mesoamerican societies. Dr. Blomster's findings show how the discovery of a ballplayer figurine in the Mixteca Alta region of Oaxaca demonstrates the early participation of the region in the iconography and ideology of the game, a point that had not been previously documented by other researchers.

  • Early North Americans lived with extinct giant beasts, study shows

    3 May 2012 | 2:39 pm
    A new study that determined the age of skeletal remains provides evidence humans reached the Western Hemisphere during the last ice age and lived alongside giant extinct mammals. The study addresses the century-long debate among scientists about whether human and mammal remains found at Vero Beach in the early 1900s date to the same time period. Using rare earth element analysis to measure the concentration of naturally occurring metals absorbed during fossilization, researchers show modern humans in North America co-existed with large extinct mammals about 13,000 years ago, including…

  • Skeletons found at mass burial site in Oxford could be 10th-century Viking raiders

    1 May 2012 | 7:48 pm
    Thirty-seven skeletons found in a mass burial site in the grounds of St John's College may not be who they initially seemed, according to Oxford researchers studying the remains.

  • Genes shed light on spread of agriculture in Stone Age Europe

    26 Apr 2012 | 1:38 pm
    One of the most debated developments in human history is the transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies. Scientists have now shown that agriculture spread to Northern Europe via migration from Southern Europe.
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    Aardvarchaeology

  • Recent Archaeomags

    15 May 2012 | 1:58 pm
    Current Archaeology #266 (May) has a big feature on the Medieval and Renaissance version of Saint Paul's cathedral in London. The current one designed by Christopher Wren, I learned, re-uses none of the earlier edifice's fabric and is not even orientated on the same axis. It was the world's first purpose-built Protestant cathedral, completed in 1710. What happened to the old cathedral? Well, first the Reformation, then a century of neglect while only the chancel remained consecrated, and then in 1666 the Great Fire of London. Finally Wren's building crew tore down whatever was left. Then a…

  • Pondering a Professional Plan B

    14 May 2012 | 8:20 am
    I'm a month from my 20th anniversary as a professional archaeologist and I'm considering my options. Unlike most people who make a living in my trade I have not worked much in contract archaeology and I have spent only a few months on the dole. Instead my main source of income during these two decades has been research grants from private foundations. Not big ones, but many of them. With a frugal lifestyle and no departmental overhead, I have produced more publications per krona than most. This has increased my chances of finding renewed funding. Publish or Perish has been my rule. Secondary…

  • All My Readers are Descendants of Slaves

    13 May 2012 | 8:20 am
    I was thinking about African American culture and how it still shows signs of these people descending from slaves, US slavery having been abolished less than 150 years ago. And I asked myself, what is that subculture going to be like a few hundred years in the future? Then it hit me. That's where my subculture is now. I've made the point before that all my readers are descendants of royalty. But a far greater percentage of our pedigrees lies with the slaves. All currently living members of the various European ethnic groups have ample slave ancestry. Slavery was common in Iron Age Scandinavia…

  • Swedish Runic Corpus On-line

    12 May 2012 | 8:20 am
    Here's an extremely useful resource. The Swedish National Heritage Board has scanned the great multivolume corpus publication of Swedish runic inscriptions, Sveriges runinskrifter, and put it on-line for free. Currently as PDF files, but in the future there will also be a structured database. Though the PDF:s have been run through optical character recognition, they don't seem to have been indexed on Google (yet?). For an example, read about (p. 547 ff) Kalv's runestone U 875 at Focksta in Hagby, Uppland, shown above. Read the comments on this post...

  • Sb Soon on Wordpress with National Geographic

    11 May 2012 | 4:37 am
    ScienceBlogs was handed over to National Geographic long ago. Behind the scenes, work has progressed to migrate the site from Moveable Type to Wordpress and put NG's yellow-margins branding onto everything. And now the switch-over is imminent. Late May maybe? The new site is already up on an interim URL. I am now copying the past few weeks' entries after the migration team copied the database for automatic transferral. Everything looks good except that I haven't figured out the Scandinavian diacritic characters yet. Any shakiness and flakiness in the near future will no doubt be due to the…
 
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    Everyone's Blog Posts - ArchaeoSeek

  • The Roman City Dig

    Sanisera Archaeology Fieldschool
    15 May 2012 | 5:01 pm
    Students continued excavating superficial layer 1159. They started to expose some stones that might be forming part of a new structure. A pottery fragment with stamped decoration with the shape of a Christian cross was found! It belonged to a plate from the TS Clara (African red slip ware) type.

  • Thank you Session #1!

    Sanisera Archaeology Fieldschool
    10 May 2012 | 11:19 am
    Thank you Session #1 for starting the season off in such a great way! We will miss you!

  • LITHIC INDUSTRY HAS BEEN FOUND AT THE CAVE!!!

    Sanisera Archaeology Fieldschool
    4 May 2012 | 12:36 pm
    LITHIC INDUSTRY HAS BEEN FOUND AT THE CAVE!!!It was retrieved from the human bone bed layer and it clearly shows a retouch sequence. Tomorrow we will have a practical in archaeological drawing and photograph before we finally lift the whole layer. 

  • A comment on Egypt travel.

    Ronald E. Fellows
    3 May 2012 | 1:02 pm
    I was in Egypt touring for 3 weeks in February. We were in Aswan, Luxor and Cairo and felt perfectly safe. This was my 6th time in Egypt in the last 10 years. The major thing we saw this time was the extreme lack of tourists and the desperation of those that depend on them for business. Was great for us. No crowds anywhere. The people are very friendly. It's a place not to be missed!! Janice Armstrong  May 3, 2012

  • EGYPT on a budget: November 11 -18, 2012

    Ronald E. Fellows
    2 May 2012 | 6:42 pm
    I have scheduled a special tour of Egypt.  Special in that it includes all the major sites you would hope to visit and at about half the price.  You will enter the Great Pyramid of king Khufu and climb to the burial chamber, visit the Sphinx, the Cairo Museum, the Valley of the Kings including the tomb of Tutankhamon. Visit the great temples of Karnak, Luxor, and Philae. And so much more.  And you'll do it all in one week, Sunday to Sunday. I'll be there - and you can too. See your itinerary on our Web Site at www.AncientEmpires-Tours.com  Click on Egypt on a Budget. Ron Fellows, CM…
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    SEAArch - The Southeast Asian Archaeology Newsblog

  • All quiet til June

    noelbynature
    25 Apr 2012 | 7:12 pm
    I’m off to do some fieldwork and will have little internet access for the next five weeks, so expect to hear little updates from this site until the middle of June. In the meantime, if you see any news related to the archaeology of Southeast Asia, why not share it on the Facebook page? On that note, any readers in Bangkok, Vientiane and Luang Prabang interested in a meetup over coffee and/or beer?

  • Weekend tomb raiders

    noelbynature
    25 Apr 2012 | 8:39 am
    Not of the artifact-looting sort. A feature on the Stone Hunters Group, a group of heritage/history enthusiasts who spend their free time searching for and exploring ruins in Java. Searching for relics amid the hills Jakarta Post, 24 April 2012 Members of Gerombolan Pemburu Batu (Bol Brutu) or the Stone Hunters Group, explorers of archeological relics and historical sites, reached Candi Ijo in Prambanan, 25 kilometers east of Yogyakarta, on one bright Sunday morning. Perched on a hill at an altitude of 350 meters, Candi Ijo is the highest temple in the region, and is comprised of a main…

  • Fire destroys library of Wat Phanan Choeng

    noelbynature
    24 Apr 2012 | 10:02 pm
    The library of Wat Phanan Choeng in Ayutthaya, containing many old and rare books, has been completely destroyed by a fire that broke out yesterday afternoon. photo: jfantenb Fire burns down ancient book library of Wat Phanancheong The Nation, 24 April 2012 A fire burned down the library building where an ancient tapitaka and many rare old books were kept in a famous temple in this central province Tuesday afternoon. The fire broke out at 3 pm at the two-storey building of the temple. The fire quickly engulfed the building and destroyed all the books. The abbot of the temple said the fire…

  • Angkor sees increased visitors from South Korea and China this year

    noelbynature
    24 Apr 2012 | 9:22 am
    Siem Reap’s Tourism Authorities provide statistics from the first quarter of the year, showing an increase of tourists from South Korea and China. photo: Arian Zwegers Cambodia’s Angkor Wat attracted 639,800 tourists in Q1 The Sun, via Bernama, 21 April 2012 Cambodia’s Angkor Wat temples, one of the world heritage sites, has attracted 639,800 tourists, an increase of 45 percent, in the first quarter of this year. Tourists from top three countries visitng Angkor Wat are South Korea, Vietnam and China, respectively, the statistics of Siem Reap provincial tourism department…

  • Photography exhibition showcases caves of Cagayan

    noelbynature
    23 Apr 2012 | 7:10 pm
    A photography exhibition at the Cagayan Museum showcases photographic works with the archaeologically significant Cagayan Caves as the subject matter. Cagayan Cave photo exhibit draws crowd Philippine Information Agency, 20 April 2012 Cave photos of 10 environment artists in an on-going exhibit continue to draw appreciative audiences less than a month after it opened to the public at the Cagayan Museum exhibit area of the provincial capitol. Cagayan Museum officials said that while it showcased the output of a photo workshop, it likewise served as a long-overdue tribute to the late Richard…
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    Publishing Archaeology

  • Social science quiz: sociology vs. political science

    Michael E. Smith
    15 May 2012 | 3:01 pm
    Today's quiz: which discipline--sociology or political science--has a better understanding of ancient states?You would think political science would have better things to say about ancient state-level societies than sociology. After all, political science focuses on power, governments, and political phenomena. But no, sociology has a MUCH BETTER understanding of ancient states, except perhaps in the area of empires.I have been reading up in these two disciplines, trying to link up their concepts with those used by archaeologists and anthropologists on ancient states and cities. That was not…

  • Archaeology as a social science

    Michael E. Smith
    8 May 2012 | 8:49 pm
    When our paper, "Archaeology as a social science," was published online last week, I emailed copies to a bunch of people, including John Gerring. Gerring is a political scientist, and I have been reading his books on social science methodology. I like them a lot - he has a strong scientific epistemology, but a broad outlook that values qualitative research and case study research (which covers much archaeology; see my post on this). I also like his article on direct and indirect control, which fits my understanding of empires very well. I have written a number of posts on Gerring's works (try…

  • Do archaeologists know anything useful about premodern states?

    Michael E. Smith
    3 May 2012 | 6:42 pm
    Max WeberI've been reviewing what sociologists and political scientists have written about premodern states. In the past I have largely avoided this material, perhaps taking a quick look and then dropping it. Much of what they say is clueless and either wrong, or at least very incomplete (e.g., Greece and Rome and medieval Europe exhaust the variation in premodern states, perhaps occasionally considering dynastic China). It turns out that Max Weber was pretty smart about these things, although he did limit his writings to the Old World historical societies. But I found lots of value in Weber…

  • Kicked off the Editorial Board!

    Michael E. Smith
    29 Apr 2012 | 11:58 pm
    First I had a paper rejected from the journal Science. Now I've evidently been removed from the Editorial Board of the journal Reviews in Anthropology. Wow, is my career going down the tubes? What's next? Will my students leave me for another adviser? Will NSF ask for their money back? Will my artifacts in Mexico be put out on the street?I'm not too surprised to find that my tenure on the board of Reviews in Anthropology is over. They just changed editors, and I wondered if the editorial board would turn over too. Some journals have entrenched boards, people who serve for decades; others have…

  • SAA reaffirms its regressive photo release polity

    Michael E. Smith
    19 Apr 2012 | 11:15 pm
    Suppose you take a photo of your excavation, which happens to be within a modern town, and some bystanders end up in the photo. Later you want to publish the photo in a publication of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA). Guess what? They won't let you, unless you get a signed release form from every potentially identifiable person on the image. Well, since you took the photo several years ago, you won't be able to find those people, so you can't use the photo. Even if everyone in it is an adult, behaving legally in a public setting.Why the regressive policy by the SAA? Because perhaps…
 
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    Middle Savagery

  • Meg’s Papers: Just for Fun

    colleenmorgan
    14 May 2012 | 3:55 pm
    I smiled when I read the title of the article on the manilla folder. On the outside, in Meg’s rounded, near-cursive print: MEG’S COPY, PLEASE RETURN. I cracked the folder open and the faint gray type was only just legible, the edges of the book were still visible from when someone copied the original article, many many years ago. Since then the article has been copied over and over again, for the yearly iterations of our introduction to theory class, the class that gives us the indelible stamp of Berkeley archaeology: 229A. It’s also one of the few articles that has made me…

  • Permanent Error – A Distraction by Pieter Hugo

    colleenmorgan
    9 May 2012 | 2:58 pm
    Photo by Pieter Hugo I slowly cranked the handle on the end of the bookcase, sliding the high-density shelving over, clicky-clicky-clicky-click. The books I wanted were way in the back and I had about eight bookcases to move, large wedges of books moving slowly across the floor in the basement of the main library here at Berkeley. It’s finals week, so I took extra care that no students were hiding or sleeping between the stacks. When I got to the book I was looking for, I immediately took all the books to either side, and a few miscellaneous titles that caught my eye. I can’t…

  • Archaeology Field Kit Update

    colleenmorgan
    21 Apr 2012 | 9:36 am
    So I’m moving out of my storage unit in three hours, trying to finish a presentation for my department, and jet lagged beyond belief…why not blog? In light of John’s nice post about his broken trowel (psst, get a WHS next time) and Terry Brock’s love of kit nerdery, I thought I’d update a bit about the tools of the trade. Sorry for the bad photos–I was in a hurry to pack everything in England. This past year in Qatar I made a few needed adjustments. My old field boots died after many years of service and I wanted a pair of boots that would last just as long…

  • Isometric Drawing in Archaeology

    colleenmorgan
    9 Apr 2012 | 4:18 am
    The Victoria and Albert museum in London was not of particular interest when I read the description. It sounded like lots of blingin’ artifacts without the context to make them interesting. But the Natural History Museum looked like a Easter weekend riot might break out at any time, and we still had a couple of hours to kill before meeting up with other Catalhoyukians for a reunion, so the V&A it was. We wandered through the Middle East exhibit without much enthusiasm, then headed up to the 6th floor ceramics hall. (Which was pretty nice, and had a big exhibit on how ceramics have…

  • Open Access Article: An Archaeology of the Contemporary: A Standing Buildings Survey of “The Chicken Shed” at Catalhoyuk

    colleenmorgan
    2 Apr 2012 | 5:52 am
    Rainbow over the Chicken Shed by Jason Quinlan One of the primary goals of this report is to preserve by record the physical nature and some of the history associated with what is now the oldest modern building on the site. A secondary goal is to make visible a rarely-discussed aspect of an otherwise exhaustively recorded enterprise…the study of the use of architecture and space in archaeological dig houses, while secondary to the primary research goals of an excavation, remains an oral tradition on even the most reflexive of excavations. Recording the chicken shed at Catalhoyuk allowed…
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    Looting Matters

  • Thoughts on a pair of Apulian kraters

    David Gill
    16 May 2012 | 5:00 am
    Source: Schinoussa archive Conversations over the last few months have made me reflect on a pair of Apulian kraters that have been on offer on the New York market (and now sold). The pair show Amphiaros before an enthroned Pluto, and Aphrodite and Zeus flanking Adonis. They are nearly equal in height: 1.14 m and 1.12 m. The pair of kraters follow a parallel collecting history. The kraters appeared in the Hesperia Arts Auction Ltd. sale of November 27, 1990, Part II, no. 40, and were sold for $75,000 (less than the estimated $80,000-$100,000). They were sold at the…

  • SLAM needs to adopt an ethical approach to the mummy mask

    David Gill
    15 May 2012 | 6:45 am
    Rick St Hilaire has noted that attorneys for the St Louis Art Museum (SLAM) have rejected the request for the case relating to the mummy mask to be reopened. It may have escaped the notice of the SLAM attorneys that the collecting history ("provenance") provided by the Swiss-based dealer is flawed. The curatorial team at SLAM now need to work with the Egyptian authorities to resolve the case. How does SLAM explain the discrepancy? SLAM needs to demonstrate that it has adopted the highest ethical and professional standards when it comes to the acquisition of archaeological material.

  • Looting Egypt Increases

    David Gill
    12 May 2012 | 5:45 pm
    There is a report on the increased levels of looting in Egypt: "In Egypt Turmoil, Thieves Hunt Pharaonic Treasures", New York Times May 12, 2012. Illegal digs near ancient temples and in isolated desert sites have swelled a staggering 100-fold over the past 16 months since a popular uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak's 29-year regime and security fell apart in many areas as police simply stopped doing their jobs. The pillaging comes on top of a wave of break-ins last year at archaeological storehouses — and even at Cairo's famed Egyptian Museum, the country's biggest repository of pharaonic…

  • St Louis Mummy Mask Back for Reconsideration?

    David Gill
    12 May 2012 | 4:51 pm
    Rick St Hilaire has reported that the US Attorney for Eastern District of Missouri has asked for the case relating to the Egyptian mummy mask in the St Louis Art Museum to be reopened. This is a sensible move as it is now clear that the collecting history ("provenance") supplied by the dealer does not appear to be accurate or even trustworthy. One has to ask why anybody would wish to fabricate a collecting history? If the case does reopen it will cause problems for those auction houses and dealers who have already started to cite the SLAM case. And there are implications for those museums…

  • Cleveland and Turkey: Marcus Aurelius and Bubon

    David Gill
    7 May 2012 | 5:23 pm
    In 1980 Cornelius C. Vermeule put together a list of Roman imperial statues that could be linked to the sebasteion in Bubon, Turkey. Subsequent to this in 1993 J. Inan published a list of some of the present locations, and this was discussed by C. Chippindale and D. Gill in 2000. Chasing Aphrodite has now reported that the bronze headless statue of Marcus Aurelius in the Cleveland Museum of Art  (inv. 1986.5) is on the list of objects that Turkey has requested for return. (The association with Bubon is clearly stated on the Cleveland website.) Cleveland is apparently unwilling to discuss…
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    Testimony of the spade

  • Rock-art-lollapalooza part 1

    Magnus Reuterdahl
    12 May 2012 | 4:54 am
     My fiancée, who also is an archaeologist, is currently participating in an archaeological dig at the Swedish west coast, at Tanum. Tanum is internationally known for its rock art sites, the Tanum UNESCO World Heritage site includes a multitude of rock carvings dated to the Bronze Age ca 1700-500 BC. In the area there are more than 1500 known sites with rock art. Last weekend I visited and we went on a rock art Safari visiting a few of the sites, the first Vitlycke, which is one of the biggest sites including the famous carving that is called the the wedding couple . The most common…

  • Uppdrag: Få in fler arkeologer på DIKs kongress

    Magnus Reuterdahl
    21 Apr 2012 | 6:56 am
    This post is written in Swedish regarding the up comming election to DIK (Swedish Union for arcaheologist etc). Nu är röstningen på kongressombuden igång till DIKs kongress, så är du medlem i DIK är det dags att göra din röst hög, personligen propagerar jag för att försöka få in så många arkeologer som möjligt. Läs mer här! Själv är jag nominerad i valkrets Stockholm (långt ned på listan), du är varmt välkommen att rösta på mig – men det viktigaste är du röstar på någon du tror kan företräda dina intressen och göra DIK bättre! Magnus Reuterdahl

  • Platsr – web toy or web tool?

    Magnus Reuterdahl
    13 Apr 2012 | 7:37 am
    Heard om platsr (in Swedish playing with the word plats=place and r, or rather the rune R =used to mark ancient monuments on Sweish maps), its a webpage or rather a web toy or web tool that I think this a pretty cool. The idea is that institutions, such as museums or archives, companies or the general public can upload a picture or a story and link that to a place and share that with others. Now is it a toy or a tool – well I think it’s a bit both – one example of this is Blekinge County museum – they have uploaded this picture from their archive The picture is licenced…

  • Långban smelting and mining areas

    Magnus Reuterdahl
    7 Apr 2012 | 4:44 am
    I’m spending Easter in Långban, Värmland where my fiancées sister with family owns a croft that they use as a summer residence etc. Långban is perhaps most famous for its smelting and mining areas where Iron has been mined since the 16th century. Around the mines the yeomenminers formed a small community, Långban. During the 17th century the mines were closed but they reopened in 1711 and mining for Iron continued until 1956 and for dolomite until 1972. Långban has a geological claim to fame as more than 300 minerals has been found here, equal to ca 1/10 of all known minerals in…

  • Swedish ancient monuments on youtube

    Magnus Reuterdahl
    21 Mar 2012 | 9:42 am
    Since a few months back I work at the Östergötland County Administrative Board as an archaeologist. A project that has been ongoing for some while, that I haven’t worked on, is a video-project displaying some of the ancient monuments in Östergötland County. Information on the films are presented here. The first of at least four films was uploaded a few days ago via Youtube, it’s available in Swedish, English and Arabic and is about the Svaneholm castle ruin outside Mjölby built during the 14th century. The Swedish and Arabic version can be found here Check it out! Magnus…
 
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    Talking Pyramids

  • Giza 3D: Peter Der Manuelian and Mehdi Tayoubi

    Vincent
    10 May 2012 | 6:58 am
    Yesterday the Giza 3D Project was launched at a gala event at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA). Peter Der Manuelian After the event I caught up virtually with Peter Der Manuelian, Giza Archives Director at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and Philip J. King Professor of Egyptology at Harvard University, and Mehdi Tayoubi, Vice-President Digital & Experiential Strategy at Dassault Systémes to find out a bit more about the project. Welcome Peter and thank you for taking the time out for this interview. Giza Archives: The online repository of archaeological data from the Harvard…

  • Giza 3D – Virtually Exploring Giza

    Vincent
    9 May 2012 | 3:22 am
    World leading 3D software company Dassault Systémes and Harvard University last night officially unveiled Giza 3D to the world at a gala event at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA). It presents the results of over a 100 years of work by the MFA and Harvard University expedition led by George Reisner in the first half of the 20th century. A computer generated avatar of renowned Egyptologist George Andrew Reisner Almost forty years of archaeological data collected from those expeditions has, over the past ten years, been laboriously digitised to form the Giza Archives. This includes: 1,300…

  • The Pyramids: Between Life and Death

    Vincent
    16 Apr 2012 | 4:14 pm
    Behenu's Pyramid Texts A workshop on pyramids is to be held at Geijersalen, Engelska Parken, Uppsala University over two days, May 31st and June 1st. Speakers will include such notables as Denis Searby, Peter Jánosi, Miroslav Barta, Tarek el-Awady, Jaromir Krejci, Mark Lehner, Catherine Berger, Harold Hays, Roman Gundacker, Nils Billing and Erika Meyer-Dietrich. There are some very interesting topics on the programme, such as Erika Meyer-Dietrich’s session: Sonic acting in the pyramid of queen Neith – statements about sound in ritual texts from the time of Pepi II and Catherine…

  • Pottery Sherds Add 1500 Years to the Age of the Meidum Pyramid Field

    Vincent
    23 Mar 2012 | 3:45 pm
    Polish researcher Teodozja Rzeuska says her research indicates that the Meidum necropolis was used as late as the New Kingdom period, extending its history by over 1500 years. After early publications by pioneering archaeologist William Matthew Flinders Petrie and others, Rzeuska says that it became “dogma that in Meidum the dead had been buried only in the early reign of the fourth dynasty.” Her research re-analyzed the pottery, other artifacts and dated excavation reports to completely reshape the chronology of the site. This new study calls for a reexamination of the many reports based…

  • Archaeology Hangout this Friday Night

    Vincent
    29 Feb 2012 | 2:44 pm
    You may have noticed that the activity here on Talking Pyramids has died down a bit over the past few months. My ever faithful and trusty assistant Bennu has continued posting lots of news items every day on Twitter, which you can read in the side bar on Talking Pyramids. GooglePlus The reason for the slow down of posts here on Talking Pyramids is partly due to GooglePlus. Since June last year I’ve been spending a lot of time trying out the new service by Google called GooglePlus. In case you’re not familiar with it, GooglePlus, or G+ for short, is a little bit like a…
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    Stone Pages Archaeo News

  • Human migrations: Eastern odyssey

    15 May 2012 | 2:27 am
    Some 74,000 years ago, a volcano called Toba on the Indonesian island of Sumatra unleashed one of the greatest eruptions ever known, spreading ash across southern Asia. The catastrophe had...

  • The Dolmen at Monticello

    15 May 2012 | 2:24 am
    The village of Monticello - near Finale Ligure, in the west of Italy, is located along the western slopes of Gottaro. The dolmen is located in Valeggia, 199 metres above...

  • Did ancient Germans steal the pharaoh's chair design?

    14 May 2012 | 1:56 am
    Roughly 3,500 years ago, folding chairs remarkably similar to ones found in Egypt suddenly became must-have items in parts of northern Europe. The simple design consists of two movable wooden...

  • Mexican experts find ancient blood on stone knives

    14 May 2012 | 1:55 am
    Traces of blood and fragments of muscle, tendon, skin and hair found on 2,000-year-old stone knives have given researchers the first conclusive evidence that the obsidian blades were used for...

  • New study chronicles the rise of agriculture in Europe

    14 May 2012 | 1:54 am
    As reported in the 27 April issue of the journal Science, an analysis of 5,000-year-old DNA taken from the Stone Age remains of four humans excavated in Sweden is helping...
 
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    Past Horizons Archaeology

  • 37,000 year old Aurignacian rock art confirmed

    Past Horizons
    15 May 2012 | 7:32 am
    Abri Castanet and its sister site Abri Blanchard have long been recognized as being among the oldest sites in Eurasia that provide evidence for artefacts of human symbolism. Hundreds of personal ornaments have been discovered, including pierced animal teeth, pierced shells, ivory and soapstone beads, engravings and paintings on limestone slabs. The east side of the Vallon de Castel-Merle with Abri Castanet to the immediate right. Image Credit: (Raphaëlle Bourrillon) Older than Grotte Chauvet Since their discovery in 1994, the spectacular paintings of lions, rhinos, and other prehistoric…

  • Archaeo News Podcast 210

    Past Horizons
    15 May 2012 | 6:35 am
    Archaeo News Podcast 210 15th May 2012 In collaboration with British Archaeological Jobs Resource 6,000-year-old settlement found in Ireland Ancient language discovered on tablets found in Turkey Analysis suggests France cave art is ‘oldest’ Neolithic burial discovered in Qatar How was Europe repopulated after Ice Age? Modern technology helps identify ancient Peruvian mounds Prehistoric animal remains discovered in Irish cave Ancient cairns found in Scotland on wind farm area Extinction of Australian megafauna explained Is this the first evidence of fire? Ancient buildings and…

  • Layer by layer: the Upper Palaeolithic at Mas d’Azil cave revealed

    Past Horizons
    15 May 2012 | 5:19 am
    Mas d’Azil is an immense cave and is one of the major prehistoric sites in France. Classed as an historic monument since 1942, it is also a very popular tourist site. The construction of a visitor centre and site path by the commune of Mas d’Azil requires archaeological intervention and two phases have already been completed. The first; a trench to house the buried pipes that traverse the road and the second; the visitor centre located inside the cave. Mas d'Azil as it sits in the landscape: Image: © Marc Jarry / Inrap The cave of Mas d’Azil and French prehistory The first research…

  • Whisper from a forgotten language

    Past Horizons
    14 May 2012 | 8:35 am
    Ziyaret Tepe is located some 60 km east of Diyarbakir in the upper Tigris region of southeastern Turkey. Now understood to be the site of ancient Tushan, the provincial capital and garrison town at the northern limit of the Assyrian Empire. Buried at this site for nearly 3000 years, a cuneiform tablet has opened the possibility for the discovery of a long forgotten ancient language after a Cambridge scholar noticed some unusual names in the text. Researchers working at Ziyaret Tepe, believe that the language may once have been spoken by deportees originally from the Zagros Mountains, on the…

  • How Europe was repopulated as the Ice Age ended

    Past Horizons
    14 May 2012 | 6:19 am
    Scientists have used DNA analysis to gain important new insights into how human beings repopulated Europe as the Ice Age relaxed its grip. Dr Maria Pala, who is based at the University of Huddersfield – now a key centre for archaeogenetics research – is the lead author of an article in the latest issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics which shows how the Near East was a major source of replenishment when huge areas of European territory became habitable again, up to 19,000 years ago. Until the new findings, it was thought that there were two principal safe havens for humans as…
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    The Archaeology News Network

  • Excavations to restart at Neolithic site of Gobeklitepe

    15 May 2012 | 6:30 am
    Gobkelitepe, which is known as the oldest human-made religious structure and called the ‘zero point of civilizations,’ is preparing for a new excavation season to begin soon. The team will work on two campaigns  Gobeklitepe was declared a first-degree protected site by the Culture and Tourism Ministry in 2005. The people who inhabited the area 12,000 years ago were among the first humans to engage in agriculture along with... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • Anthropologists discover earliest form of wall art

    15 May 2012 | 5:30 am
    Anthropologists working in southern France have determined that a 1.5 metric ton block of engraved limestone constitutes the earliest evidence of wall art. Their research, reported in the most recent edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows the piece to be approximately 37,000 years old and offers rich evidence of the role art played in the daily lives of Early Aurignacian... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • Thieves go on a treasure hunt in Egypt

    15 May 2012 | 4:30 am
    Taking advantage of Egypt’s political upheaval, thieves are preying on the country’s ancient pharaonic heritage.  A view of the antechamber of Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb ahead of the opening of a major exhibition on Ancient Egypt called 'Tutankhamun, his Tomb and his Treasures' in Paris May 11, 2012 [Credit: Charles Platiau/Reuters] Illegal digs near ancient temples and in isolated desert sites have swelled a staggering... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • Prehistoric Panda discovered in Spain

    15 May 2012 | 3:30 am
    Fossilised remains of a primitive panda species genetically related to China's endangered giant panda have been discovered in Spain, a new study reveals.  With only teeth to go on, scientists have reportedly identified a giant panda ancestor: A. beatrix [Credit: José Antonio Peñas/SINC] A team of Spanish researchers, which included experts from the National Museum of Natural Sciences (MNCN-CSIC), found that the species... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • Forest of fossils faces threats from coal mines

    15 May 2012 | 3:00 am
    Had it not been for coal mining, Wang Jun may never have made his most important discovery: a forest buried by a volcanic eruption almost 300 million years ago.  Artist's rendition of what Wuda looked like 298 million years ago. Wang Jun's team identified 12 types of plants in the tropical swamp and restored them [Credit: China Daily] To be able to excavate the site, just west of Wuda district in the Inner Mongolia... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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    The Mathisen Corollary

  • Moving report of elephants mourning the passing of "Elephant Whisperer" Lawrence Anthony

    David Warner Mathisen
    16 May 2012 | 2:08 am
    Here is a beautiful and moving story about a procession of wild elephants who arrived from miles away to pay their respects upon the death of their friend and benefactor, Lawrence Anthony, remaining for two days in an elephant vigil.  Mr. Anthony's family said that these elephants had not been seen in the area of his house for about fifteen months prior to his sudden passing from a heart attack.Mr. Anthony, the author along with Graham Spence of the Elephant Whisperer, as well as of  Babylon's Ark and the Last Rhinos, lived with his family in a remote rural compound in the Thula…

  • Scorpio rising into prominence in the late evening sky

    David Warner Mathisen
    14 May 2012 | 5:33 pm
    The beautiful and distinctive constellation of the Scorpion is one of the landmarks of the summer sky.  In the northern hemisphere, the Scorpion makes his way across the southern portion of the sky, with most of the constellation below the plane of the ecliptic, which itself is below the celestial equator at night (and above it during the day for observers in the northern hemisphere between the March and September equinoxes -- see diagrams and discussion here).  This southerly position means that for observers in the mid- to upper latitudes of the northern hemisphere, the Scorpion…

  • Make your plans for the upcoming solar eclipse!

    David Warner Mathisen
    11 May 2012 | 11:52 am
    Every month, the motions of the moon in relation to the earth and the sun produce the phases of the moon, described here and here with diagrams.  When the moon is positioned on the far side of the earth with respect to the sun (so that the side receiving the full force of the sun's rays is towards observers on earth) we see a full moon, and when the moon is positioned between the earth and the sun (so that the side receiving the sun's rays is towards the sun and invisible to observers on earth) we have a new moon (this post from a new moon earlier this year also contains a video of…

  • Fascinating new research about Algol and ancient Egypt

    David Warner Mathisen
    9 May 2012 | 2:58 am
    Special thanks to String for alerting me to this amazing recent discovery:About a week ago, a team of astrophysicists from the University of Helsinki led by Dr. Lauri Jetsu submitted research suggesting that the ancient Egyptians understood the periodicity of the star Algol, and that they incorporated its cycle into their charts for the relative auspiciousness and unluckiness of days throughout the year (in fact, not just of days, but of sections of days -- their calendars were three times more precise than simply lucky and unlucky days, breaking each day into three parts and discussing the…

  • Does the Serpent Mound of Ohio indicate astonishing knowledge of the phenomenon of precession?

    David Warner Mathisen
    6 May 2012 | 2:41 am
    Ross Hamilton is the author of The Mystery of the Serpent Mound: in Search of the Alphabet of the Gods (first published in 1993), a book exploring new aspects of the Great Serpent Mound (located in Adams County, Ohio) which came to light through the efforts of various researchers in the 1980s. Using a very accurate map of the Serpent Mound published by Harvard archaeologist William F. Romain in 1988, Mr. Hamilton determined that the Serpent Mound appears to possess a remarkable correspondence to the stars of the constellation Draco.  The argument for an identification with Draco, along…
 
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    Doug's Archaeology

  • RIP a Great Archaeologist: Peter Connolly

    Doug Rocks-Macqueen
    13 May 2012 | 1:11 pm
    Just saw that Peter Connolly died. In case you don’t know who he is, Peter Connolly wrote the greatest books relating to archaeology I have ever had the pleasure of reading. His books combined the archaeological record with the most amazing story telling and topped off with great illustrations. I read his books when I was ten and later when I was twenty. My ten year old self was amazed by them and my 20 year old self found them an invaluable resource for my undergraduate work, that is how great they are. Really sad I never got to meet him.

  • Sneak Peak at 2011-2012 Jobs in British Archaeology: Consulting

    Doug Rocks-Macqueen
    11 May 2012 | 4:35 am
    This post gives a more detailed break down of consulting positions (both commercial archaeology and SMR/CRM) in the  Jobs in British Archaeology series. You can see the methodology here on how these numbers were collected from job postings. In total 15 job postings are represented here. Average pay-  £ 29,563 Lowest pay offered-  £17,523 Highest pay offered-  £51,00 Here is a distribution of starting pay (lowest pay) to give you a better idea of what pay is like for this position-  £17,000.00 2 13%  £18,000.00 1 7%  £19,000.00  £20,000.00 2 13%  £21,000.00 1 7%  £22,000.00…

  • Thursday Throwdown of Archaeologists to Follow V

    Doug Rocks-Macqueen
    10 May 2012 | 6:17 am
    Your weekly look at archaeologists or archaeology related people to follow. You can see last weeks here and a full list of great archaeology blogs here. After you take a look leave a comment letting me know which ones you found interesting, great, that you liked, etc. AND nominate a blog not already on the list, that is relatively related to archaeology, for next weeks highlight. There are lots of great blogs out there and it would be great to be able to highlight the good work people are doing. Our First blog comes from Aren Maeir and it is: The Tell es-Safi/Gath Excavations Official (and…

  • Sneak Peak at 2011-2012 Jobs in British Archaeology: Conservation

    Doug Rocks-Macqueen
    10 May 2012 | 4:59 am
    This post gives a more detailed break down of conservation positions (both commercial archaeology and SMR/CRM) in the  Jobs in British Archaeology series. These are your GIS techs., osteologist, surveyors, etc. You can see the methodology here on how these numbers were collected from job postings. In total 40 job postings are represented here. Average pay-  £ 20.016 Lowest pay offered-  £12,500 Highest pay offered-  £38,125 Here is a distribution of starting pay (lowest pay) to give you a better idea of what pay is like for this position-  £12,000.00 1 3%  £13,000.00 18 45%…

  • Sneak Peak at 2011-2012 Jobs in British Archaeology: Specialists

    Doug Rocks-Macqueen
    9 May 2012 | 4:59 am
    This post gives a more detailed break down of the specialists positions (both commercial archaeology and SMR/CRM) in the  Jobs in British Archaeology series. These are your GIS techs., osteologist, surveyors, etc. You can see the methodology here on how these numbers were collected from job postings. In total 58 job postings are represented here. Average pay-  £ 25,374 Lowest pay offered-  £14,045 Highest pay offered-  £38,594 Here is a distribution of starting pay (lowest pay) to give you a better idea of what pay is like for this position-  £14,000.00…
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    Cultural Heritage Lawyer Rick St. Hilaire

  • Court Denies Sotheby's Request for Discovery Conference in Cambodian Statue Forfeiture Case

    15 May 2012 | 5:24 pm
    A federal judge sitting in the southern district court of New York yesterday denied a request by Sotheby's for a discovery conference.  That decision came in the matter of United States v. A 10th Century Cambodian Sandstone Sculpture Located at Sotheby's in New York, New York.The case involves an effort by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara to forfeit a Khmer statue known as the Duryodhana, claiming that the statue was stolen from a temple.  Sotheby's placed the statue up for auction this spring.  Now Sotheby's and Ruspoli di Poggio Suasa, who alleges that she purchased the…

  • SLAM Opposes Government's Motion to Reopen Ka Nefer Nefer Mummy Mask Case

    14 May 2012 | 8:50 pm
    Attorneys for the St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM) oppose reopening the case of United States v. Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer.  Last week U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan's office urged the eastern district federal court in Missouri to reconsider its March 31 dismissal of the forfeiture caselaunched to recover the mummy mask. SLAM's lawyers today filed their objection.Mohammed Zakaria Goneim originally excavated the 19th Dynasty mask at Saqqara, Egypt during the 1950's. The museum bought it on the antiquities market in 1998. Federal authorities say that the mask is illegal contraband, while the…

  • Gordon Ivory Prosecution on Trial Track

    13 May 2012 | 6:00 pm
    The case of United States v. Victor Gordon appears on track for trial. The US District Court for the Eastern District of New York has issued a schedule that slates the trial for December 3, 2012. Motions are due in July.U.S. Attorney Loretta LynchA federal grand jury indicted Philadelphia art dealer Victor Gordon last summer for allegedly importing and selling illegal African elephant ivory. U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch's office is prosecuting the case.  Her office is also handling the alleged antiquities smuggling case of United States v. Mousa Khouli et al.An indicted defendant is…

  • Cultural Property Law Course at Plymouth State University, College of Graduate Studies

    12 May 2012 | 11:22 am
    Registration is now open for Cultural Property Law, part of Plymouth State University's Historic Preservation program.  This graduate studies course examines the international, national, and state legal frameworks covering the protection and movement of cultural property.This concentrated course starts July 3 and meets Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday over the course of two weeks. The final class is a field trip to a major museum.The class meets in Concord, New Hampshire--an easy drive from Boston, Massachusetts and other points in New England.©2010-2012 Ricardo A. St. Hilaire, Attorney…

  • Motion to Reconsider Urges Court to Resurrect St. Louis Art Museum Mummy Mask Case

    7 May 2012 | 7:53 pm
    U.S. Attorney Richard CallahanSource: USDOJReopen the St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM) mummy mask case. That is what the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri is asking a federal district court judge to do.  In a Motion to Reconsider filed today, U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan's office seeks to resurrect the case of United States v. Mask of Ka-Nefer-NeferA judge dismissed the suit last month, claiming that the government's legal complaint to forfeit a mummy mask from SLAM was insufficient.  The complaint failed to articulate how the mask was stolen and smuggled, or how it…
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