Reindeer: It's What Was For Dinner

Reindeer meat went from being an occasional treat to everyday fare among prehistoric cavemen who lived in Southwest France and what is now the Czech Republic, two new studies suggest.

In fact, so many nibbled-on reindeer bones were present in their caves that possible calendars circa 26,000 years ago might have been carved on the leftover bones. They may have also been used as counting devices or for ornamentation.

The first study, authored by J. Tyler Faith, analyzed bones found in limestone cave and rock shelters at a site called Grotte XVI at Dordogne near Bordeaux. The numbers and types of bones revealed plenty -- how, for instance, the hunters butchered the meat, how far they traveled to hunt, and details about populations of the animals themselves.

"If an archaeological assemblage of large mammals is dominated by only the most nutritional skeletal parts (thigh bones, for example), it suggests that the other skeletal elements of lower nutritional value (foot bones, skulls, little bones) were probably discarded at the kill site," Faith told Discovery News.

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Evolving Bigger Brains through Cooking: A Q&A with Richard Wrangham

Our intelligence has enabled us to conquer the world. The secret for the big brains, says biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham, is cooking, which made digestion easier and liberated more calories.

A couple of million years ago or so, our hominid ancestors began exchanging their lowbrow looks for forehead prominence. The trigger for the large, calorie-hungry brains of ours is cooking, argues Richard W. Wrangham, the Ruth B. Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. He hit on his theory after decades of study of our closest cousin, the chimpanzee. For the Insights story "Cooking Up Bigger Brains," appearing in the January 2008 Scientific American, Rachael Moeller Gorman talked with Wrangham about chimps, food, fire, human evolution and the evidence for his controversial theory. Here is an expanded interview.

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Ancient Villas Restored in Rome

ROME (AP) - The restored ruins of two opulent Roman villas and private thermal baths will open to the public Saturday, along with a 3-D reconstruction that offers a virtual tour of the luxurious residences discovered in downtown Rome.

The 19,375-square-foot complex, dating from the second to fourth centuries, features well-preserved mosaic and marble floors, bathtubs and collapsed walls that archaeologists believe belonged to a domus - the richly decorated residences of Rome's wealthy and noble families.

``We found part of a residential high-class neighborhood, where probably senators and knights used to live,'' archaeologist Paola Valentini said.

Visitors will be able to walk on glass catwalks above the villas' underground remains, immersed in semidarkness just a few feet from the modern city. A 3-D virtual reconstruction recreates the elaborate decorations of the ancient residences through colored lights and projections.

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Newgrange solstice broadcast on web

The winter solstice at the Newgrange passage tomb in Co Meath was broadcast live on the internet this morning.

Today's live stream began at 8.30am today, and the phenomenon will be broadcast at the same time tomorrow on the Heritage Ireland website.

Light streams into the chamber every year as the sun rises after the longest night of the year.

Thousands apply annually for permission to witness the first rays of light creep through the ancient monument, but only a handful are allowed access to the structure's main chamber.

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ARCHAEOLOGISTS FIND MYSTERIOUS NEOLITHIC STRUCTURE IN ORKNEY LINKS OF NOLTLAND DIG

The sands of time have been rapidly eroding at the Orkney Bronze Age site, the Links of Noltland. Before everything is lost to the sea around the island of Westray, Historic Scotland have been carrying out a thorough excavation to learn everything they can.

The dig at the ancient dune-protected houses has now turned up an unexpected and impressive discovery dating to Neolithic times, archaeologists have announced following the conclusion of their work.

“A previously unknown Neolithic structure has been found that is very different from anything else known to exist at this remarkable site,” explained Peter Yeoman, Historic Scotland senior archaeologist.

“It was built using dressed stone and was clearly intended to look impressive from the outside. This marks it out from houses of the time, the exteriors of which tended to be created with function rather than looks in mind.”

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Evolution tied to Earth movement

Geologists say 'Wall of Africa' allowed humanity to emerge

Scientists long have focused on how climate and vegetation allowed human ancestors to evolve in Africa. Now, University of Utah geologists are calling renewed attention to the idea that ground movements formed mountains and valleys, creating environments that favored the emergence of humanity.

“Tectonics [movement of Earth’s crust] was ultimately responsible for the evolution of humankind,” Royhan and Nahid Gani of the university’s Energy and Geoscience Institute write in the January, 2008, issue of Geotimes, published by the American Geological Institute.

They argue that the accelerated uplift of mountains and highlands stretching from Ethiopia to South Africa blocked much ocean moisture, converting lush tropical forests into an arid patchwork of woodlands and savannah grasslands that gradually favored human ancestors who came down from the trees and started walking on two feet – an energy-efficient way to search larger areas for food in an arid environment.

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Study of shipwreck reveals treasure trove of details

HE DEPARTMENT of Antiquities yesterday announced the completion of the first underwater research project of the Mazotos shipwreck.

Its study is expected to be of great significance for the nautical and economic history of the Eastern Mediterranean as it is one of the very few shipwrecks of the Classical period found in such a good state of preservation, the department said.

“The results will throw light on important research questions such as the commercial relations between the North Aegean and the South Eastern Mediterranean and the role of Cyprus in these transport routes during the last phases of the Cypriot city-kingdoms as well as on types and sizes of ships amongst others,” it said.

The project was undertaken by the Research Unit of Archaeology of the University of Cyprus in agreement with the Department of Antiquities and with funding and logistical support from the Thetis Foundation. It is the first time a project of this kind has been exclusively undertaking by Cypriot institutions.

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Mountains of Evidence Suggest Human Evolution Had Rocky Start

Geology may be a long-overlooked, major factor that created conditions favoring the evolution of modern humans.

That's the conclusion of geologists at the University of Utah, who detail their findings in next month's issue of the journal Geotimes.

It's fairly well-established that changing climate, and thus vegetation, in East Africa spurred human evolution, but there has been no agreement about what exactly caused that change, said Royhan Gani

He thinks the riddle's answer is in rocks, and how big slabs of it move — altering continents and building mountains — by a process called tectonics.

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Record-breaking haul from Gaul discovered at farm in Brittany

Asterix and Obelix, had they existed, might have paid for their mead and other magic potions with gold-silver-copper coins stamped with elaborate images of men and horses.

The largest treasure trove of pre-Roman, Gaulish money ever to be found has been discovered in central Brittany.

The 545 coins – each worth thousands of euros to collectors but priceless to historians and archaeologists – could overturn much of the received wisdom about the complexity, and wealth, of pre-Roman Celtic society in France. Why was such enormous wealth, a king's ransom at the time, buried in the grounds of a large Gaulish farm 40 miles south of Saint-Brieuc in the first century BC? Why was the hoard never recovered?

"Treasure on this scale would only have been used for transactions between aristocratic families," said Yves Menez, an archaeologist specialising in iron-age Brittany. It has always been assumed that the Celtic nobility lived in fortified towns, not in the wild and dangerous countryside. "The reality must have been more complex," Mr Menez said. Like all Gaulish coins, the 58 "stateres" and 487 quarter "stateres" found near to the village of Laniscat are copies of early Greek money.

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Skeletons give clue to origins of Priory

THE remains of a chapel and graves dating back 600 years, including parts of four skeletons, have been unearthed in Priory Park.

Contractors exploring a trench laid to put in pipework found what is thought to be the walls of a chapel or chapter house - somewhere the monks from the original Priory would have met to conduct their business.

Archaeologists working in the grounds during the extensive £6.5 million refurbishment work are excited by the discovery of what they believe to be a stone-built place of worship little more than 100 yards from the front entrance of today's main Priory building.

Archaeologist David Williams, who has been involved in the dig, said: "I'd stick my neck out and say that what is here is the original Priory Church. The date is uncertain. At the earliest it is 13th century.At the latest, it is 1530s during the dissolution of the monasteries."

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New dating methods amongst the Top 10 Scientific discoveries of the Year

Time Magazine has named a study by Oxford researchers, using new dating techniques on a human skull to help find out where our most recent common ancestor came from, as one of the Top 10 Scientific Discoveries of the Year.

The skull was discovered more than 50 years ago near the town of Hofmeyr in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. It is thought to be 36,000 years old, according to a study published in the journal Science in January 2007. The finding by Oxford researchers in collaboration with Stony Brook University, New York, supports a growing body of genetic evidence which suggests that humans originated in sub-Saharan Africa and migrated into the Old World around this date.

The international team used a new application of dating methods developed by Dr Richard Bailey and his colleagues from the School of Geography and the Environment, the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the Department of Earth Science. Traditional radiocarbon dating of the Hofmeyr skull was not possible because so much carbon had been leached from the bone while it lay buried in sediment.

Instead the researchers measured the amount of radiation that had been absorbed by sand grains that filled the inside of the skull’s braincase. Measurements of radioactive isotopes in the sediment, combined with a sophisticated radiation transport model using data from a CT scan of the skull, allowed them to calculate the yearly rate at which radiation had been delivered to the sand grains. From this, the researches were able to determine that the Hofmeyr skull had been buried for 36,000 years.

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Swiss, EBay Stop Sale of Iraqi Treasure

GENEVA (AP) — A 4,000-year-old clay tablet authorities suspect was smuggled illegally from Iraq was pulled from eBay just minutes before the close of the online auction, authorities said Tuesday.

Criminal proceedings have been launched against the seller, identified only as a resident of Zurich, officials said.

A German archaeologist had spotted the tablet bearing wedge-shaped cuneiform script on the online auctioneer's Swiss Web site, http://www.eBay.ch, a government official said.

The archaeologist alerted German authorities, who passed the tip onto their Swiss counterparts, said Yves Fischer, who directs the Swiss Federal Office of Culture's department on commerce in cultural objects.

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Political Antiques

Why did Italian leaders wait almost a year to unveil Rome's latest archaeological finds? The answer is as old as the city itself.

For Italians, the collapse of a 16th-century wall on Rome's Palatine Hill was symbolic. Blaming the 2005 cave-in on budget cuts by the center-right Berlusconi government, many felt that the nation's inability to protect its heritage signaled that the country too was crumbling. That era may be over now, but the practice of exploiting Rome's cultural heritage for political gain is not.

Just this week Rome's mayor, Walter Veltroni, and Italy's vice premier and culture minister Francesco Rutelli gave journalists a sneak preview of the latest in a string of newly unveiled ancient discoveries on the Palatine Hill: four frescoed rooms in the 1st-century B.C. palace belonging to Augustus, who later became Rome's first emperor. The rooms have been restored to perfection and will go on view to the public next March.

Last month Veltroni and Rutelli unveiled another gem on the Palatine Hill: the "Lupercale," the ancient grotto where, legend has it, a she-wolf nursed Rome's founder, Romulus, and his twin brother, Remus. The showing of the Lupercale delighted Italians with the suggestion that the legend might be true. But while the romantics were studying the mythology, the cynics were asking questions about just why the finds were being shown off at that time.

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The great Kenilworth booze-up: how to party like it's 1575

It's gone down as the social event of the age – Robert Dudley's three-week bash for Elizabeth I. Now new documents reveal just how lavish it was

If you want to marry the Queen, you have to know how to party. At least, that seems to have been the Earl of Leicester's thinking more than 400 years ago.

Almost no one in England had a good word to say about Robert Dudley, one of the most colourful figures from the years when Elizabeth reigned – apart from the monarch herself, and other women who fell for him. In the eyes of the court, he was a murderer, a schemer, and an adulterer. When he died, soon after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, it was said that there was more rejoicing in England over Dudley's end than over the humiliation of the Spaniards.

But for all his faults, he was a charmer with a remarkable knack for cajoling titled ladies to join him between his expensive, monogrammed sheets. If there was one man that Elizabeth really fancied in all her self-denying life, it was Robert Dudley.

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Ancient racetrack at risk from new homes

ONE of the most important archaeological finds in Britain's oldest recorded town could still be encroached on by a housing development - despite receiving special recognition by the country's leading conservation organisation.

And Colchester MP Bob Russell has now called for the remains of the town's Roman Circus to be kept “sacrosanct” after it was formally listed as a scheduled ancient monument by English Heritage.

The 400 metre long chariot racetrack, discovered by archaeologists in 2004, is thought to be the largest known Roman building discovered in Britain and is regarded as being of huge historical significance.

But the underground ruins - found during exploratory digs for development company Taylor Wimpey - could still end up surrounded by modern buildings with one private garden covering over the foundations of a key element of the structure.

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Rare find highlights antiquities fears

Some 1,650 years ago someone was so comprehensively fed up with the state of the Roman empire that they committed an act of treason, blasphemy and probably criminal defacing of the coinage. They cursed the emperor Valens by hammering a coin with his image into lead, then folding the lead over his face.

The battered scraps of metal discovered by Tom Redmayne, an amateur metal detector, in a muddy field in Lincolnshire are a unique find.

The mid-fourth century was a time of turmoil in Roman Britain. A Roman aristocrat, Valentinus, had been exiled to Britain where he was stirring up trouble.

Thousands of Roman cursing charms survive, scrawled on pieces of lead with a hole punched to hang them up. Many were found thrown into the hot springs in Bath, demanding revenge on those guilty of petty theft.

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Experts uncover Prague's oldest ramparts

Archaeologists have uncovered parts of Prague's oldest ramparts, dating back to the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries, thus verifying the then Jewish globetrotter Ibrahim ibn Jaqub's description of Prague as "a town made of stone and lime," the daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) wrote Monday.

The fortification, the remnants of which have been uncovered at Malostranske namesti square in what is now the historical centre of Prague, were made of wood and clay and might have been up to 6 metres high.

The archaeologists uncovered the remnants of wall in the cellar of the Academy of Performing Arts building, 5 metres underground. A thousand years ago the walls were part of one of Prague's main entrance gates, though which the town was entered from the western and souther directions.

Although remnants of such old ramparts were uncovered elsewhere in Prague already before, the latest find has significantly upgraded the knowledge of the then Prague fortification, and it is undoubtedly one of the most important findings of recent years, archaeologist Jarmila Cihakova is quoted as saying.

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Ancient secrets emerge from grave

The bones of six bishops buried more than 600 years ago have been identified using new hi-tech methods.

The medieval bishops, who died between 1200-1360, were discovered during an excavation at Whithorn Priory in Galloway between 1957 and 1967.

It was known the remains were of powerful churchmen of the Middle Ages, but their identities were a mystery.

But Historic Scotland research has shown when the men died, who several of them were and even what they ate.

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Secrets of Roman town unearthed

New hi-tech investigations of a Roman town in Norfolk have revealed it to be one of international importance, leading archaeologists have said.

A high-resolution geophysical survey was carried out at the buried town of Venta Icenorum at Caistor St Edmund.

It has shown detail never seen before, including a semi-circular building which looks like a Roman theatre.

The survey also used a scanning device to map out buried remains across the entire walled area of the Roman town.

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SPECTACULAR ROMAN STONE COFFIN TO BE DISPLAYED AT SALISBURY MUSEUM

Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum is to take delivery of a spectacular Roman stone coffin unearthed by Wessex Archaeology in 2007.

The limestone coffin, weighing three metric tonnes was discovered as part of the excavation of a Roman cemetery containing over 200 burials next to a substantial Roman settlement on Boscombe Down.

When archaeologists lifted the lid off the coffin they were surprised to discover that it had not filled with soil. Instead, they looked down on the skeleton of a woman who was cradling a young child in her arms.

A unique environment had been created inside the coffin, which had slowed down the processes of decay so that, even after 1,800 years, the woman’s deer skin slippers still survived.

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