Skeletons found at building site

Builders working in the centre of Preston have discovered bodies at a medieval burial ground.

The discovery of the bodies, which could be up to 700 years old, was made as work continued on the 72-bed hotel and student flats block at the back of the privately-owned Brunel Court flats in Marsh Lane.

Work stopped as experts from Oxford Archaeology North, who were on a 'watching brief' at the site, began to comb the area.

At least five coffins, parts of human skeletons, medieval glass and floor tiles thought to be from the 14th or 15th centuries, have been discovered.

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Archaeologists unearth gasworks

Investigators have uncovered a major example of Scottish industrial archaeology in the middle of Edinburgh.

They have found the remains of the capital's original gasworks, which was opened almost 200 years ago.

The site, which was discovered during redevelopment of the area, lies to the east of Edinburgh's Waverley station.

Edinburgh City Council's archaeologist, John Lawson, said Edinburgh's history was more normally associated with medieval times.

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Thinking Chimps

In the dry heat of the west African savannah a chimpanzee called Tumbo hauled herself up into a wizened tree. She had spotted something: an intriguing hole at a fork in the trunk. Watching her, researcher Paco Bertolani of Cambridge University in Britain, suspected that she was looking for insect larvae to eat. Tumbo snapped off a thin branch and purposefully honed one end, using her teeth to make a point.

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Then she moved closer to the hole, grasped the primitive spear and rammed it inside with as much might as she could muster. She pulled it out and sniffed and licked the end. Tumbo repeated the violent stabs again and again until, apparently satisfied, she moved across to a withered branch adjoining the trunk and leapt up and down to break it free. From within the exposed hole she retrieved an unmoving bushbaby, evidently dead as a result of the onslaught. She sat down and calmly dismembered the animal, chewing on the meat with relish and accompanying her meal with odd handfuls of fresh leaves.

Tumbo is the first chimpanzee to be seen making and using a tool to hunt for meat. Details of her spearing her prey were revealed last week in the journal Current Biology. Such behaviour represents an important leap forward in our understanding of how sophisticated mankind's closest relatives are.

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Irish architectural archive goes online

Ireland's inventory of historic buildings is being published online to create a new treasure trove for professional researchers and the wider public.

Content management firm TerminalFour has teamed up with the Department of the Environment's National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH) to digitise government and local authority lists of significant buildings and gardens, map their locations, and publish the data online.

The internet database, called Buildings of Ireland, catalogues noted structures and gardens around Ireland, expands on various features of interest, and gives a history of each site. It includes everything from castles and cathedrals, to thatched houses and even boat sheds. The archive also lists important public buildings such as hospitals, as well as noteworthy gardens and other private buildings with recorded architectural features.

The database throws open the national records which were previously only accessible to government employees. These archives include photographic records of heritage sites such as Kilkenny Castle and the Botanic Gardens in Dublin.

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Spanish scientists point at climate changes as the cause of the Neanderthal extinction in the Iberian Peninsula

Climate – and not modern humans – was the cause of the Neanderthal extinction in the Iberian Peninsula. Such is the conclusion of the University of Granada (Universidad de Granada [http://www.ugr.es]) research group "RNM 179 - Mineralogy and Geochemistry of sedimentary and metamorphic environments", headed by professor Miguel Ortega Huertas and whose members Francisco José Jiménez Espejo, Francisca Martínez Ruiz and David Gallego Torres work jointly at the department of Mineralogy and Petrology of the UGR [http://www.ugr.es] and the Andalusian Regional Institute of Earth Sciences (CSIC-UGR).

Together with other scientists from the Gibraltar Museum, Stanford University and the Japan Marine Science & Technology Center (JAMSTEC), the Spanish scientists published in the scientific journal Quaternary Science Reviews an innovative work representing a considerable step forward in the knowledge of human ancestral history.

The results of this multidisciplinary research are an important contribution to the understanding of the Neanderthal extinction and the colonisation of the European continent by Homo Sapiens.

During the last Ice Age, the Iberian Peninsula was a refuge for Neanderthals, who had survived in local pockets during previous Ice Ages, bouncing back to Europe when weather conditions improved.

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Earliest horse figures of Anatolia in Eskişehir

Horse figures painted on rock formations in Eskişehir are the oldest in Anatolia, according to new archaeological research.

The research revealed that the first known horse figures date back to 6,000 B.C. and that the area was settled in the early Neolithic period. The excavation and studies of Anatolia in Eskişehir's Sivrihisar district were conducted jointly by Eskişehir-based Anadolu University and the Eskişehir Archaeology Museum. The Eskişehir province lies directly to the west of Ankara.Ali Umut Türkcan of Anadolu University said rock paintings featuring horse figures were found by two amateur photographers in 2002, adding, �The rock paintings were interesting because they contained 20 horse figures and a figure resembling a human showing his hands before the horses.�

Türkcan said the figures were later made clear using the computer program Photoshop and that it was the first time this technique was applied for such work.

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Early man 'couldn't stomach milk'

A drink of milk was off the menu for Europeans until only a few thousand years ago, say researchers from London.

Analysis of Neolithic remains, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests no European adults could digest the drink at that time.

University College London scientists say that the rapid spread of a gene which lets us reap the benefits of milk shows evolution in action.

But intolerance to milk remains common in modern times, say nutritionists.

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Prehistoric Sicilian woman gets face

The face of a late Stone Age woman who lived in Sicily (Italy) has been reconstructed by a sculptor working with anthropologists at Palermo University. The skeleton of the woman, who lived 14,000 years ago, was discovered in a cave near Messina in 1937, along with the incomplete skeletons of six other humans, presumably her family.

The face was reproduced using reconstruction techniques that calculate the appearance of features from the form of the cranium. The same techniques have been used recently to recreate the faces of Egyptian pharaohs and Italy's own Count Ugolino, a 13th-century Tuscan noble whose bones were found in 2001. Artistic licence was used when deciding to give the ancient Sicilian the same black hair common in modern women from southern Italy.

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Sceptre from Roman emperor exhibited

The only Roman emperor's sceptre to have been found has gone on public display in Rome for the first time.

The sceptre, which is topped by a blue orb that represents the earth, was discovered at the end of last year and is believed to have been held by Emperor Maxentius, who ruled for six years until 312AD.

Maxentius, who was known for his vices and his incapacity, drowned in the Tiber while fighting forces loyal to his brother-in-law, Constantine, at the battle of the Milvian bridge. Archaeologists believe that Maxentius' supporters hid the sceptre during or after the battle to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.

It was found at the base of the Palatine hill, carefully wrapped in silk and linen and then placed in a wooden box. Alongside it were other boxes holding two other imperial battle standards and ceremonial lance heads. The depth of the burial allowed archaeologists to date the find to Maxentius' rule.

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Neolithic Europeans were lactose intolerant

Early Neolithic Europeans couldn't stomach their milk, according to the first direct examination of lactose intolerance in skeletons dating from 5840 to 5000 BC. The finding backs up the idea that dairy farming drove the rapid evolution of lactose tolerance, against the notion that such farming was only adopted in populations who could already digest milk.

Ninety per cent of adult northern Europeans and some people from Africa and the Middle East now have a gene expressing lactase, the enzyme that hydrolyses the milk sugar lactose into its glucose and galactose monomers. But most humans lose their lactase enzyme after babyhood; lactose passes through their stomachs undigested, leading to stomach aches, bloating, diarrhoea, and excess gas production as bacteria chew the lactose up.

A host of studies examining our modern human genome have identified mutations affecting lactase expression, making it clear that lactose intolerance throughout adulthood was the norm before dairy farming became widespread in Europe. But it wasn't quite clear whether a fortunate entire lactose tolerant population took up dairy farming, or if exposure to milk forced the evolution of lactose tolerance.

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Italy's art police seek third statue

REGGIO CALABRIA, Italy, Feb. 26 Italy's art police are looking a third ancient statue thought to have gone missing when the Riace bronzes were removed from their watery hiding place.

Italian Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli asked the Protection of Artistic Heritage to investigate the claims of art sleuth Giuseppe Bragho, an expert on the Calabria region where the bronzes appeared in 1972, ANSA said.

Bragho said a diver reported at the time that he saw three statues, probably made of bronze ... one of them lying on its side with a shield on its left arm.The two recovered statues are on display at the Reggio Calabria museum.

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EMAS Tour to the Shetland Isles

EMAS, The University of London Extra-Mural Archaeological Society, still has one or two places available on its archaeological study tour of the Shetlands this Easter.

If you are interested, you need to hurry as hotels, etc. have to be finalised soon.

You can find further details of the trip here...

Find of Roman coin shows ancient Britons in a new light

Experts are excited about a rare coin unearthed by an amateur treasure hunter which could change the accepted ancient history of Britain.

The silver denarius which dates back to the Roman Republic — before Julius Caesar made Rome an empire — was unearthed near Fowey in Cornwall.

Dating from 146 BC, it shows how ancient Britons were trading with the Romans well before the country was conquered in AD 43.

"It proves that there was a lot more going on between the continent and ourselves," said Anna Tyacke, Finds Liaison Officer at the Royal Cornwall Museum.

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Skeleton crew digs up the past

THE skeleton of an Anglo-Saxon lord has been recovered as the hunt for buried treasure continues at a city allotment site.

The removal of the seventh Century body follows the discovery of a rare ceremonial brass bowl on the site at Palmerston Road, Woodston, Peterborough.

The priceless Coptic bowl, which was made more than 1,300 years ago in the Mediterranean, has led historical experts to conclude they had discovered the grave of an extremely wealthy Anglo-Saxon – probably a prince or a powerful warlord from the ancient kingdom of Mercia.

Excavation by archaeologists from Peterborough Museum has now confirmed that the 2ft-wide brass bowl was part of a lavish pagan funeral, in which a rich lord was buried with his most valuable possessions.

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Discovery of Jesus' burial site in doubt

JERUSALEM, Feb. 25 Israeli archeologist Amos Kloner, who discovered the reported burial site of Jesus Christ, has warned that such claims have not yet been validated.

The internationally renowned archaeologist said a recent film that shows the Jerusalem site as the resting place of Jesus may have been premature in its claim and warned against similar incidences taking place, YNetNews said.

The claim that the burial site has been found is not based on any proof, and is only an attempt to sell, he said. A burial chamber of Jesus' family would be a discovery that would shake up the world, and that's what the filmmakers want to do, Kloner added. The Jerusalem burial site is also said to possibly have been the final resting place of Jesus' mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, and other family members.

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Superbreak offers breaks to London's Tutankhamun exhibition

Superbreak, the UK's online holiday specialists in short breaks, offers budding Egyptologists breaks to London for the launch of the 'Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs' exhibit in November.

'Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs' will be the largest exhibition ever hosted in Britain, and Superbreak offers visitors the chance to book tickets and accommodation early through both its website and a promotion that will reach over 3.2 million homes via a pullout in Saturday's Daily Mail. The exhibition begins on 22nd November 2007 and will (subject to confirmation) be held at The 02 (formerly the millenium dome) in Greenwich over the following 10 months. And with tickets on sale from both Superbreak and over 7000 travel agents across the country, residents in Britain will have no excuse not to visit this fascinating spectacle from Ancient Egypt.

Tutankhamun, the boy Pharaoh from ancient Egypt, was made infamous in 1922 when his tomb was discovered by Howard Carter and his team of expert Egyptologists. The first exhibition of Tutankhamun artefacts left Egypt in the 1970s and provided audiences around the world with a glimpse into the grandeur of ancient Egypt; this new exhibit promises to showcase some of the most spectacular relics from the age of Tutankhamun and other significant Pharaohs, with over 130 priceless items on display.

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'Tomb Held Christ's Body'

Titanic director James Cameron believes he may have discovered Jesus's lost tomb.

He said DNA evidence and statistical analysis of a set of 2,000-year-old stone coffins found in Jerusalem in 1980 suggest they once held the remains of Christ and his family.

Cameron said tests on human residue taken from the ossuaries believed to be those of Jesus and Mary Magdalene indicates they might have been a couple.

And Cameron - the man behind The Terminator - believes they may have had a son, Judah.

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Chimpanzees 'hunt using spears'

Chimpanzees in Senegal have been observed making and using wooden spears to hunt other primates, according to a study in the journal Current Biology.

Researchers documented 22 cases of chimps fashioning tools to jab at smaller primates sheltering in cavities of hollow branches or tree trunks.

The report's authors, Jill Pruetz and Paco Bertolani, said the finding could have implications for human evolution.

Chimps had not been previously observed hunting other animals with tools.

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Historic dig at planned mine site

Archaeologists are to try to unearth some of the historic past of a planned opencast site in Northumberland.

Northumberland County Council has asked UK Coal to conduct a study of the 600-acre (243 hectares) Potland Burn site near Ashington.

UK Coal wants to extract two million tonnes of coal and 500,000 tonnes of fireclay over the next six years.

The survey will be carried out by the universities of Durham and Sheffield over a 10-week period.

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MANCHESTER PREPARES FOR THE APPEARANCE OF LINDOW MAN

Manchester Museum has announced plans to exhibit Lindow Man, the naturally preserved body of an Iron Age man, from April 2008 until March 2009.

It will be the third time the freeze-dried bog man - discovered in Wilmslow, Cheshire, in 1984 and currently an exhibit at the British Museum - will have been on display in the city. But this time Manchester Museum is developing proposals that will reflect a wide range of different perspectives on the display of the human remains.

Through a series of public consultations the views of archaeologists, curators and Pagan groups are being sought - all of whom have very different views on Lindow Man.

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