Did India invent the nose job?

An Indian doctor working in 600 B.C. might have been the world's first plastic surgeon, according to a new exhibition that challenges Western domination of the history of science and technology.

The Science and Technology Heritage Exhibition opened last week at New Delhi's National Science Centre, showcasing the advances and discoveries with which the country says it should be credited.

It is an attempt to promote India ahead of the Commonwealth Games next year and also to tackle the legacy of colonialism, which the director of the science centre says has left many Indians unaware of their proud heritage.

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Archeologists Discover Ancient Fortress near Moscow

Archeologists have found defensive installations of an Old Russian fortress that stood at the confluence of Dubna River and Volga more than 800 years back.

In the course of archeological excavations they cleared a plot of a defensive moat, which had been constructed in the early 12th century and soon destroyed by a massive fire.
Experts assume that the initial version of the fortress on the border with Novgorod land was erected by Yuri Dolgoruki - the Prince of Rostov and Suzdal – around 1134.

Cultural strata of the ancient town are up to two and a half meters thick. During archeological diggings of 2009 over a thousand Old Russian artifacts have been procured.

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Remains of 1,000 people recovered at medieval site Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/remains-of-1000-people-recovered-at-medieval-site-

THE skeletal remains of more than a thousand people have been recovered from what experts believe was one of the country’s largest medieval cemeteries.

The ancient bones have produced evidence of several suspected murders and one case of leprosy – an extremely rare occurrence in medieval times.

Osteoarchaeologist Carmelita Troy, of Headland Archaeology in Cork, said yesterday she has studied the ancient remains of nearly 1,300 individuals – adult males and females along with children – who were buried at the site at Ardreigh, Athy, in Co Kildare.

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Beowulf meets the 20th century

Dr Catherine Clarke, a specialist in medieval culture at Swansea University's department of English has been given a grant to explore representations of masculinity in modern re-workings of the Beowulf story.

In particular she has been looking at the 2007 film Beowulf starring Ray Winstone, Angelina Jolie and Port Talbot-born Sir Anthony Hopkins.

And she has also travelled to Indiana University's Library in the United States to study the 1970s DC Comics series Beowulf the Dragon Slayer.

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Mystery stone found near church linked to Knights Templar

What appears to be the carved top of a sarcophagus was unearthed when builders were excavating and reinforcing a wall alongside the old ruined church in Temple, Midlothian.

But the inscriptions, which include symbols similar to those found in Viking monuments, in medieval graves and in West Highland Celtic carvings, have baffled archaeologists.

Crispin Phillips, who is renovating a house alongside The Old Parish Church, said: "I was on a mission to repair the wall – which was falling into the graveyard. We got near the bottom of the foundations and found something buried there.

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Witch Bottle Discovered; Made to Ward Off Evil Spirits?

In time for Halloween, a beer bottle-turned-talisman against malicious spirits has been found buried near a former pub in England, archaeologists say.

The newfound 17th-century witch bottle (pictured)—originally made in Germany to hold other kinds of spirits—was discovered during a September archaeological dig in the county of Staffordshire.

"It's not an everyday find," said excavation manager Andrew Norton of Oxford Archaeology, a U.K. archaeological-services company. "Most of what we find are broken bits of pots and people's rubbish."

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Unique Stone Age burial items unearthed in central Sweden

Swedish archaeologists are marveling over a collection of 9,000 year old artifacts recently uncovered at an excavation site central Sweden.

Parts of a bow, a paddle, and the wooden shaft of an axe are among the discoveries recently unearthed from the Stone Age settlement Kanaljorden outside of Motala, according to local media reports.

“Totally unbelievable,” project leader Fredrik Hallgren with the Stiftelsen Kulturmiljövård Mälardalen (‘Cultural Preservation Society of Mälardalen’) told the local newspaper Motala & Vadstena Tidning.

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Malawi is the cradle of humankind, scientist says

The latest discovery of pre-historic tools and remains of hominids (pictured: periodic table) in Malawi's remote northern district of Karonga provides further proof that the area could be the cradle of humankind, a leading German researcher said.

Professor Friedemann Schrenk of the Goethe University in Frankfurt told Reuters that two students working on the excavation site last month had discovered prehistoric tools and a tooth of an hominid.

"This latest discovery of prehistoric tools and remains of hominids provides additional proof to the theory that the Great Rift Valley of Africa and perhaps the excavation site near Karonga can be considered the cradle of humankind," Prof Schrenk said.

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Modern man had sex with Neanderthals

Modern man and Neanderthals had sex across the species barrier, according to leading geneticist Professor Svante Paabo.

Professor Paabo, who is director of genetics at the renowned Max Planck Institution for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, made the claim at a conference in the Cold Springs Laboratory in New York.

But Prof Paabo said he was unclear if the couplings had led to children, of if they were capable of producing offspring.

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Conference sees Viking invasion

Experts on Viking or Old Norse mythology and theory from around the world are gathering in Aberdeen for a major conference.

The University of Aberdeen's Centre for Scandinavian Studies is hosting the two-day event from Thursday.

It is thought it could change the understanding of gods, including Thor the god of thunder, and goddesses.

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Historians Reassess Battle of Agincourt

The heavy clay-laced mud behind the cattle pen on Antoine Renault’s farm looks as treacherous as it must have been nearly 600 years ago, when King Henry V rode from a spot near here to lead a sodden and exhausted English Army against a French force that was said to outnumber his by as much as five to one.

No one can ever take away the shocking victory by Henry and his “band of brothers,” as Shakespeare would famously call them, on St. Crispin’s Day, Oct. 25, 1415. They devastated a force of heavily armored French nobles who had gotten bogged down in the region’s sucking mud, riddled by thousands of arrows from English longbowmen and outmaneuvered by common soldiers with much lighter gear. It would become known as the Battle of Agincourt.

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Details of St Neots lost priory revealed

NEW details of one of St Neots most historically important sites have been revealed during an archaeological study in the town.

Outlines of walls belonging to the lost priory were found last week in the car park of Priory House and Waitrose. Ground penetrating radar equipment was used on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to identify some low bearing walls and a secondary wall.

The work also discovered outlines of some of the priory's rooms which could help the town's historians identify what they were used for.

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World's Oldest Known Granaries Predate Agriculture

A new study coauthored by Ian Kuijt, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, describes recent excavations in Jordan that reveal evidence of the world's oldest know granaries. The appearance of the granaries represents a critical evolutionary shift in the relationship between people and plant foods.

Anthropologists consider food storage to be a vital component in the economic and social package that comprises the Neolithic period, contributing to plant domestication, increasingly sedentary lifestyles and new social organizations. It has traditionally been assumed that people only started to store significant amounts of food when plants were domesticated.

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Ancient 'Lucy' Species Ate A Different Diet Than Previously Thought

Research examining microscopic marks on the teeth of the "Lucy" species Australopithecus afarensis suggests that the ancient hominid ate a different diet than the tooth enamel, size and shape suggest, say a University of Arkansas researcher and his colleagues.

Peter Ungar, professor of anthropology, will present their findings on Oct. 20 during a presentation at the Royal Society in London, England, as part of a discussion meeting about the first 4 million years of human evolution.

“The Lucy species is among the first hominids to show thickened enamel and flattened teeth,” an indication that hard, or abrasive foods such as nuts, seeds and tubers, might be on the menu, Ungar said. However, the microwear texture analysis indicates that tough objects, such as grass and leaves, dominated Lucy’s diet.

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Viking experts set to gather at varsity

VIKING experts from across the world will gather at Aberdeen University today to rewrite the history of Norse mythology.

The university’s Centre for Scandinavian Studies is hosting a two-day international conference to explore new ways of looking at the subject.

Researchers say a fresh approach to written sources, place names and archaeology could change our view of the old Norse deities, including the famous god of thunder, Thor.

Scandinavian studies Professor Stefan Brink, said that re-interpretations of 13th-century sources and the old Norse poems were opening up the discipline.

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'Atlantis' is discovered in Devon

An ancient British inland Atlantis dating back millennia has been discovered on a remote moor.

The remains - including a mini-Stonehenge - were found when an old reservoir was drained in Dartmoor, Devon.

The find includes remains of ancient walled buildings, burial mounds and a stone circle 27m (89ft) across.

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VIDEO: Statue of Roman Emperor Nero unearthed at Fishbourne

History has been re-written at Fishbourne Roman Palace after it was confirmed a damaged statue found there more than 40 years ago is that of famous Roman Emperor Nero.

The statue found in 1964 had long been believed to be that of a young Roman with connections to the royal family. But that theory has been quashed after a 3-D scan carried out last Thursday confirmed the marble head's uncanny likeness to the only two other remaining depictions of the disgraced emperor left in the world.

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Research unlocks secrets of Pennines

GROUNDBREAKING radar techniques are being used to unlock the historic secrets of one of the North’s wildest upland areas.

Over the next five years a major archaeological research project will concentrate on the North Pennines, an area straddling Northumberland and Cumbria.

In the first two weeks of fieldwork, 300 new archaeological sites have been discovered, from prehistoric features to 19th Century mining remains.

The final haul of new sites could run into the thousands.

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VIDEO: Archaeological excavations around Chichester's city walls

Archaeological excavations in Chichester are slowly unearthing the secrets of the City Walls – and experts hope to discover why a room was dug into a Roman tower once used to protect the city.

This weekend, as part of the month-long excavations, people are invited to take a peep into the past during an open day at the site.

Volunteers and archaeologists have been digging up areas at Westgate Fields, adjacent to the walls, to help discover more about the city's rich heritage.

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Ancient artefacts and human remains found between Rudston and Boynton East Yorkshire

ANCIENT human remains have been unearthed during an archaeological dig at the Caythorpe Gas Storage site between Rudston and Boynton.

Five human burials have been recovered by experts.

One set of remains dates to the late Iron Age and had been buried with a simple iron brooch.

Another dates back probably to the Anglo-Saxon period and had been buried with an iron knife.

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