Archaeology Quiz of the Week: Middle Paleolithic

Today's Archaeology Quiz of the Week is on Middle Paleolithic, that most exciting period in human history.

Read the rest of this article...

Secrets of Oystermouth to be unearthed

Fascinating discoveries are hoped for as archaeologists today start a dig on the site of Swansea's 12th century Oystermouth Castle.

Volunteers will work alongside experts as the group excavates outside the castle's west tower, explores the knoll area and looks for the outer wall and ditch.

Daily guided tours are being organised within a few days of starting the dig and everyone taking part will have the chance to learn about excavation techniques, how to record discoveries and how to deal with objects that are found.

Read the rest of this article...

Skeleton reveals violent life and death of medieval knight

A 620-year-old skeleton discovered under the floor of Stirling Castle has shed new light on the violent life of a medieval knight.

Archaeologists believe that bones found in an ancient chapel on the site are those of an English knight named Robert Morley who died in a tournament there in 1388.

Radio carbon dating has confirmed that the skeleton is from that period, and detailed analysis suggests that he was in his mid-20s, was heavily muscled and had suffered several serious wounds in earlier contests.

Read the rest of this article...

Hard days for Stirling knight who'd been hit by axe, arrow and sword

WHEN the skeleton was discovered buried beneath Stirling Castle more than a decade ago, archaeologists knew only that the man had been someone important, possibly a priest.

However, new analytical techniques have revealed the 600-year-old bones had a very different past – as they are those of a horrifically injured knight who lived a short but "incredibly violent" life.

Research has shown the man, who was in his twenties, was killed by a sword slicing through his nose and jaw. It also revealed he had previously survived both an axe wound to the forehead and a large arrowhead being embedded in his chest.

Read the rest of this article...

Important historic remains unearthed in Bridlington

REMAINS of some of the earliest houses ever found in the North of England have been unearthed in Bridlington.

Archaeologists have discovered that buildings stood on the site of the current Cottage Farm development more than 5,000 years ago.

In a significant find, a team uncovered remains of houses, fields, kilns and people during excavations of the area, on the north side of town.

Read the rest of this article...

Dig aims to uncover castle past

The first major archaeological dig to take place at a medieval castle near Swansea is underway.

Experts and volunteers are hoping to uncover artefacts along with clues as the original layout of Oystermouth Castle in Mumbles.

They will be on site digging and examining trenches for three weeks.

The ruined castle was recently given a £1.7m restoration lifeline which will pay for conservation works and for a new interpretation centre.

Read the rest of this article...

Acropolis Museum: Athens unveils its bid for the Marbles

Greece’s New Acropolis Museum is a formidable rival to the British Museum and has renewed debate about the Elgin Marbles.

'The opening of the New Acropolis Museum was one of the most emotional experiences of my life” says Tina Daskalantonakis, a Greek hotelier. “It is more than a museum – it is a symbol of national pride and hope for the future.”

The museum in question crouches 300 metres below the Acropolis. An angular behemoth of glass, steel, concrete and marble housing some 4,000 artefacts, it is the culmination of an idea first mooted by Konstantinos Karamanlis’s Conservative government in 1976 and, since the early 1980s, passionately advocated by the Socialist minister of culture Melina Mercouri: the creation of a home in which the Parthenon Marbles can be reunited and displayed to the world.

Read the rest of this article...

Bulgaria: Archaeologists Discover Building Remains in Ancient Town of Marcianopolis

The foundations of an ancient building were recently discovered during archaeological excavations of the ancient Roman town Marcianopolis in north-eastern Bulgaria, representatives of the Mosaics Museum in the town of Devnya told national media last week.

This is the first time in 20 years that the region is being excavated, according to Ivan Sutev, head of the museum. This year’s archaeological research, he added, is to be carried out in two phases – the first one began on May 13 and has already been completed.

The ancient Roman building’s foundations were discovered in the site’s western part, but Sutev declined to speak about them in detail, as more research of the discoveries needs to be carried out first.

Read the rest of this article...

No proof that Vatican bones are St Paul's, says Dutch expert

Responding to the claim by Pope Benedict XVI that the bones of St Paul have been found in Rome, a Dutch expert, Rengert Elburg, said Monday this can never be proven.

Elburg, an expert on archaeological study of old bones and organic remains for the government of the German state of Saxony, told the German Press Agency dpa in an interview, 'It's impossible to establish that it's him.'

Even a genetic analysis of the bones in a sarcophagus marked as Paul's would reveal nothing, because there were no proven descendants whose DNA could be compared.

Read the rest of this article...

Prehistoric European Cave Artists Were Female

Inside France's 25,000-year-old Pech Merle cave, hand stencils surround the famed "Spotted Horses" mural.

For about as long as humans have created works of art, they've also left behind handprints. People began stenciling, painting, or chipping imprints of their hands onto rock walls at least 30,000 years ago.

Until recently, most scientists assumed these prehistoric handprints were male. But "even a superficial examination of published photos suggested to me that there were lots of female hands there," Pennsylvania State University archaeologist Dean Snow said of European cave art.

Read the rest of this article...

Oldest known portrait of St Paul revealed by Vatican archaeologists

Vatican archaeologists have uncovered what they say is the oldest known portrait of St Paul. The portrait, which was found two weeks ago but has been made public only after restoration, shows St Paul with a high domed forehead, deep-set eyes and a long pointed beard, confirming the image familiar from later depictions.

L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, which devoted two pages to the discovery, said that the oval portrait, dated to the 4th century, had been found in the catacombs of St Thecla, not far from the Basilica of St Paul’s Outside the Walls, where the apostle is buried. The find was “an extraordinary event”, said Monsignor Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Read the rest of this article...

Students dig Iron Age

TROWELS are at the ready for an annual dig that will uncover new information about an Iron Age settlement.

The annual Silchester dig on the site of Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum, near Silchester, begins on Monday for six weeks, until August 9.

The dig is organised by the Field School at Reading University’s Department of Archaeology as a research and training excavation which this year will involve about 70 first year archaeology students and 200 other people learning the ropes of excavation.

Read the rest of this article...

Acle dig finds rewrite history

Two top archaeologists and a group of budding relic-hunters are hoping to rewrite Norfolk's history books by digging up 11 back gardens.

Dr Carenza Lewis and Paul Blinkhorn, both of TV Time Team fame, and a team of high school students have unearthed evidence in Acle that may go on to prove the region's rich past was much more turbulent that thought.

Acle is one of 10 villages in Norfolk and Suffolk to have opened up their gardens to the archaeologists for a new book which is set challenge the traditional view of village life from the Dark Ages and medieval times.

Read the rest of this article...

Pope claims human remains belong to St Paul

Human remains found beneath the Vatican have been identified as belonging to St Paul, Pope Benedict XVI said, apparently laying to rest the mystery of a tomb first discovered in the city in 2006.

Archaeologists found material and fragments of bone dating to the first or second century AD inside the tomb at the basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls in Rome.

Vatican experts claim the tomb's position, underneath the epigraph Paulo Apostolo Mart (Paul the Apostle and Martyr), at the base of the main altar is proof that it belongs to the apostle.

Read the rest of this article...

Castle bones may belong to knight

Archaeologists believe that bones discovered at Stirling Castle may have belonged to a knight killed in battle or during a siege in the early 1400s.

It is thought that despite the warrior's relatively young age of about 25, he may have suffered several serious wounds from earlier fights.

Researchers thinks it is also possible he may have been living for some time with a large arrowhead in his chest.

Read the rest of this article...

Ancient river found beneath the Channel during Olympics survey

An ancient river bed that has lain unseen for 185,000 years has been uncovered by scientists mapping the parts of the English Channel in the run up to the 2012 Olympics.

The groundbreaking discovery was made during a two-year £300,000 project to map 500 square miles of seabed off the Jurassic coast in Dorset.

Using new and incredibly accurate mapping techniques, experts traced the river that may have once been used as a watering hole by woolly mammoths that roamed the area.

Read the rest of this article...

Evidence Found of Parthenon Coloring

The iconic pure white of ancient Greek sculptures makes it difficult to picture them in any other way, but new evidence suggests that the Parthenon temple’s statues and friezes were originally colored. Researchers at the British Museum say they have detected tiny traces of blue paint on the building's statues and friezes. Although only a few hints of a pigment called Egyptian blue have been detected so far, experts believe the original coloring would have included red, along with highlights of gold. At the same time, the original marble still showed through white in places.

Read the rest of this article...

Models of Earliest (Camel-Pulled) Vehicles Found

Some of the world's first farmers may have sped around in two-wheeled carts pulled by camels and bulls, suggests a new analysis on tiny models of these carts that date to 6,000-5,000 years ago.

The cart models, which may have been ritual objects or children's toys, were found at Altyndepe, a Chalcolithic and Bronze Age settlement in Western Central Asia near Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. Together with other finds, the cart models provide a history of how wheeled transportation first emerged in the area and later developed.

"Horsepower" is a common term today, but the ancients had bull-power, followed by camel-power, researcher Lyubov Kircho explained to Discovery News.

Read the rest of this article...

Oldest human settlement in Aegean unearthed on Limnos island

The ruins of the oldest human settlement in the Aegean found so far have been unearthed in archaeological excavations by a team of Greek, Italian and American archaeologists on the island of Limnos, headed by Thessaloniki Aristotle University (AUTH) professor of Prehistoric Archaeology Nikos Efstratiou.

The excavation began in early June and the finds brought to light so far, mainly stone tools of a high quality, are from the Epipaleolithic Period approximately 14,000 years ago. The finds indicate a settlement of hunters, food-collectors and fishermen of the 12th millennium BC.

Until now, it was believed that the oldest human presence in the Aegean had been located in the Archipelagos of the so-called Cyclops Cave on the rocky islet Yioura, north of the island of Alonissos, and at the Maroula site on Kythnos island, dating to circa 8,000 (8th millennium) BC.

Read the rest of this article...

Die Kunst der Kelten in in Bern

Zum ersten Mal im deutschsprachigen Raum wird mit der Ausstellung «Kunst der Kelten – 700 vor bis 700 nach Chr.» das Kunstschaffen der antiken Kelten in den Mittelpunkt gestellt. Präsentiert werden rund 450 Meisterwerke aus vierzehn Jahrhunderten. Die ausgesuchten Ausstellungsstücke stammen aus ganz Europa, vom Atlantik bis zu den Alpen und von Schottland bis nach Bulgarien. Die Ausstellung dauert bis zum 18. Oktober und entstand in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Landesmuseum Württemberg in Stuttgart.

Read the rest of this article...