Race is on to excavate monument

Archaeologists are in a race against time to excavate a 4,000-year-old burial ground discovered just 20ft from a crumbling cliff edge.

The Bronze Age barrow was unearthed at Peacehaven Heights, east of Brighton, where cliffs are eroding at the rate of 2ft a year.

The mound is inching ever closer to the edge and will begin falling 200ft into the sea within ten years.

Project leader Susan Birks said: "We are trying to uncover the barrow's secrets before it goes to a watery grave.

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Stonehenge's huge support settlement

Archaeologists working near Stonehenge have uncovered what they believe is the largest Neolithic settlement ever discovered in Northern Europe.

Remains of an estimated 300 houses are thought to survive under earthworks 3km (2 miles) from the famous stone rings, and 10 have been excavated so far.

But there could have been double that total according to the archaeologist leading the work.

"What is really exciting is realising just how big the village for the Stonehenge builders was," says Professor Mike Parker Pearson of Sheffield University.

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Body of child from Bronze Age found

THE remains of a Bronze Age child have been discovered by archaeologists carrying out a dig at a Suffolk school.

Culford School, in Culford, near Bury St Edmunds, asked for an archaeological survey to be carried out by Suffolk County Council's archaeological service before building work began on a new tennis court next to the school's sports centre.

Archaeologists, who have been working on the site for two weeks, first discovered some human teeth, then fragments of bone before finding a skull which is believed to be a child of seven or eight. It was discovered with a food vessel and some flints which archaeologists believe was left as an offering for the afterlife.

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Sea Stallion from Glendalough: Newsletter 20

Newsletter 20. issue - November the 5th, 2007 from the Sea Stallion from Glendalough Website is now online.

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Archaeologists Unearth Rare State Seals from 1st Bulgarian Empire

Archaeologists have made a sensational finding on Saturday, dated back to the first Bulgarian Empire (years 681-1018) in the ancient Bulgarian capital of Pliska.

The team of archaeologists found state seals, which belonged to the rulers Simeon and Petar.

The interesting thing is that the seals were found in the base of one of the wooden fortified walls, quite far from the Tzar palace.

The archaeologists unearthed the findings, while they were having excavations at a chain of living and public buildings. The scientists were very surprised when, among the tools, the bone and medal jewelry and pots they found also archbishop and ruler's insignia.

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Video: Medieval Church Rolls 7 Miles

A flatbed trailer hauled a medieval church to its new home in eastern Germany. The technically ambitious move has cleared the original site for mining.

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Part of ancient wall ringing Rome collapses

ROME — A 6.5-metre ection of Rome's ancient Aurelian Wall collapsed near the capital's central train station after days of heavy rain, a conservation official said Friday.

The wall, part of a 16th century restoration, crumbled into a pile of bricks Thursday evening after water infiltrated the section, said Paola Virgili, an official in charge of the wall's restoration. No one was reported hurt.

The Aurelian Wall — named after the third century emperor who built it to defend the city against the first barbarian onslaughts — surrounds Rome with more than 17 kilometres of fortifications, towers and gates.

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Roman villa discovered in western Austria

Archaeologists in the western Austrian province Tyrol unearthed the remains of a large-scale Roman villa, complete with extensive floor mosaics that may have been also a source for a number of local legends.

The archaeologists from Innsbruck University stumbled upon references to the 1,800-year-old, long since forgotten building situated near the town Lienz in a manuscript penned in Latin, dating back to the mid-18th century. Tyrolean proto-archeologist Anton Roschmann wrote that he found Roman remains in 1746, but his findings were lost, the Austrian Press Agency reported.

During a dig in October the remains of five rooms of a building dating back to Roman times wear unearthed on a 300-square-metre plot. The remains of the walls show colourful wall paintings, the archaeologists said, but the most astounding find were large-scale floor mosaics in three of the rooms.

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Badgers moved to protect cemetery

A badger sett has been moved to stop it damaging a medieval cemetery in Pembrokeshire.

The animals were resettled to stop them destroying bones at Brownslade Barrow on the Castlemartin military range.

Once they were moved archaeologists were able to examine the site and uncover some of its secrets.

The project has won the Silver Otter Trophy awarded by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for conservation work carried out on its land.

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Medieval Ruins Found Near Stockholm Castle

Archaeologists have found the foundations of medieval buildings near the Royal Palace in Stockholm, dating from the city's early years.

The palace occupies the site of Stockholm's medieval castle. John Hedlund of the Stockholm Stadtmuseet told The Local the discovery of what appears to be a house, warehouse or combination of the two sheds new light on early Stockholm's appearance.

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Some Neanderthals Were Redheads

Like bringing to life a naked mannequin, scientists are using genetic and physical evidence found in fossils to clothe the skeletal remains of our closest hominid relatives, the Neanderthals.

More and more, they seem familiar.

Bones from two Neanderthals yielded valuable genetic information that adds red hair, light skin and perhaps some freckling to our extinct relatives. The results, detailed online today by the journal Science, suggest that at least 1 percent of Neanderthals were redheads.

"We can't say anything for the actual fossils we looked at, but we can be sure that part of the Neanderthal population was red-haired," said study team member Michael Hofreiter of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

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The souls of Silbury Hill are bared in burial mound dig

Archaeologists are unlocking the secrets of Silbury Hill, one of Britain's greatest historical mysteries.

Researchers have long been mystified as to why the giant prehistoric mound in Wiltshire was built. But following one of the UK's most extensive and expensive digs, they appear to have found their answer: Silbury Hill may well have been a tomb, not for bodies, but for the souls of the dead.

The English Heritage dig, which cost £1m, tunnelled 85 metres into the 40-metre-high man-made hill, discovering that its Neolithic builders had incorporated hundreds of heavy sarsen stones into its matrix. Sarsen, the silicified sandstone still found in great quantities in Wiltshire, was also used to build Stonehenge and Avebury. Heavier than other types of stone, archaeologists have long suspected that the material was regarded as sacred by Neolithic man.

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Archaeologists dig royal grounds

Archaeologists are hoping to unearth some ancient secrets at three of the Queen's residences over the weekend.

Digs will take place in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh.

Among the treasures the archaeologists hope to uncover is evidence of a Roundhead fortress from the English Civil War at Buckingham Palace.

The historical excavations are being undertaken for Channel 4's archaeology programme Time Team.

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ARCHAEOLOGISTS REVEAL BRUNEL FACTORY SITE AT SS GREAT BRITAIN

Visitors to Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s steamship Great Britain in Bristol have been able to watch an archaeological dig unfold before them.

On October 22 they were able to glimpse the excavations of a tannery yard built on top of the site of the Great Western Steam Engine Factory, which is being investigated prior to work starting on the building of the Brunel Institute conservation and learning centre and new flats.

“We knew about the existence of the tannery yard, but it is interesting to witness the dig unfold and to be able to contribute to the Brunel archive – this will be one of the best recorded tannery yards in England,” said Phil Andrews, Senior Project Officer for Wessex Archaeology who are conducting the dig.

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Archaeologist uncovers 11,000-year-old artefacts in Syria

Latest discoveries in Syria date back to start of Neolithic era in Epipalaeolithic period.

Deep in the heart of northern Syria, close to the banks of the Euphrates River, archaeologists have uncovered a series of startling 11,000-year-old wall paintings and artefacts.

"The wall paintings date back to the 9th millennium BC. They were discovered last month on the wall of a house standing two metres (6.6 feet) high at Dja'de," said Frenchman Eric Coqueugniot, who has been leading the excavations on the west bank of the river at Dja'de, in an area famous for its rich tradition of prehistoric treasures.

The etchings are "polychrome paintings in black, white and red. The designs are solely geometric, and only figurative. The composition is made up of a system cross-hatched lines, alternating between the three colours," Coqueugniot said.

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Archeologists discover Serbia's oldest tomb

Archeologists from a Novi Pazar museum came across what they say is the oldest tomb ever discovered in the country.

The find is located in the village of Sugubine, near Sjenica, in southwestern Serbia, archeologist Dragica Premović-Aleksić told reporters Friday.

The tomb dates back to 9th century AD and has a huge historical and scientific significance, she added.

"Before they converted to Christianity, the Serbs, just as other Slavic pagans, burned the bodies of their dead," Premović-Aleksić explained, adding this is the first time the remains that have not been burned were discovered in a grave dating back to that era.

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Remains unearthed on a Welsh burial mound

The Brownslade Barrow Project 2004-06, run by the South Pembrokeshire Ranges Recording Advisory Group (Wales), unearthed an archaeological monument on a Bronze Age burial mound. More than 1000 bone fragments, some of them human, were found at the site. They are currently being analysed by specialists at the University of Lampeter, Ceredigion.

Brownslade Barrow on Castlemartin Range is a bronze age burial mound designated as a Scheduled Ancient Monument. In 2001 range staff noticed human bones on the ground close to the barrow, they had been disturbed by badgers living close to the monument. Carbon dating revealed that these bones came from a cemetery dating from the early medieval period. Action was required to prevent further disturbance to this newly discovered cemetery and to stop the badgers reaching the protected area.

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Cave Speak: Did Neandertals Talk?

Discovery of the human variant of the FOXP2 gene in Neandertals suggests they may have had language skills

German researchers have discovered Neandertals apparently had the human variant of a gene that is linked to speech and language. A team of scientists, primarily from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, made the discovery during efforts to reconstruct a full genome of the extinct hominid.

The findings push back the estimated timing of the FOXP2 gene's selective sweep (rapid spread of a gene mutation due to the survival advantage it conferred) from 200,000 to 350,000 years ago, when the common ancestor of Neandertals and humans roamed the earth.

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Turkish Dam May Leave Mosques, Mosaics to Tigris Scuba Divers

Hasankeyf in southeast Turkey has been home to Assyrians, Romans, Byzantines and Ottomans over the past 3,000 years, and has the monuments to prove it. Visitors may soon need scuba gear to see them.

Turkey plans to build a $1.7 billion dam to generate power from the Tigris River, which flows through Hasankeyf en route to Iraq. Archaeologists are fighting the project so they don't have to choose between moving fragile structures like Hasankeyf's Silk Road bridge or seeing them submerged under 100 feet (30 meters) of water.

The town's history unfolds down the sandstone cliffs that line the Tigris. On the plateau above the river lie the ruins of a castle built by Byzantine emperor Constantine the Great. Caves carved into the sheer walls three millennia ago were inhabited until the 1960s. Near the river, archaeologists have uncovered a complex of medieval mosques, palaces and shops.

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Archaeologists in Moravia discover 7000 year-old sculpture

The find of the century is what Czech archaeologists are calling the discovery of a 7000 year-old statue in Masovice, a village just west of Znojmo, South Moravia. Although only the lower parts of the sculpture have been found, experts say that Hedvika, as the statue has been named by those who discovered it, is a unique find in a European context.

On Wednesday, experts from the Brno Archaeological Institute marked a discovery that could change the way historians look at the era of 7 000 years ago, known as the Neolithic Age. During an emergency survey on a building site in the community of Masovice, some 8 km north of Znojmo in South Moravia, they discovered fragments of a ceramic female sculpture. Archaeologist Zdenek Cizmar, who was the first to lay his hands on this unusual find, explains the significance of the discovery.

"The sculpture is unique for two reasons; one of them is its size. The fragment we have found is 30 centimetres tall, from its feet to the waistline. We therefore estimate its overall original height to be 55 to 60 centimetres; this means that it is the largest statue of the Moravian Painted Ware culture ever found in the whole Middle Danube Basin".

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