International archaeological film festival opens

The 7th Archaeological Film Festival opened late Monday in Sremska Mitrovica, with the screening of a German film dubbed 'Die Schlacht am Harzhorn. Roms letzter Feldzug nach Germanien' (Battle at Harzhorn. Last Roman attack on Germania.)

 The 7th Archaeological Film Festival opened late Monday in Sremska Mitrovica, with the screening of a German film dubbed 'Die Schlacht am Harzhorn. Roms letzter Feldzug nach Germanien' (Battle at Harzhorn. Last Roman attack on Germania.)

By November 25, the audience will have the opportunity to watch 14 film creations from Germany, Italy, Mexico, Greece, China, Belgium and Serbia.

Most of the films come from Germany - five, and Italy - three, while Serbia will present a film 'Research in Montenegro 2010'. The film is about how the authors undertook an underwater research in the Bay of Kotor, in cooperation with the Montenegrin Ministry of Culture and the U.S. Embassy, using the latest methods of underwater archeology.

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1,800-year-old Roman well unveiled in Bingham

AN 1,800-year-old Roman well was today being unveiled to the public.

The well, which dates back to about 160AD, was found in 2009 by a group of archeologists.

But it was in the route of the A46 road-widening scheme, and had to be dug up and moved stone by stone.

From today it will be available for public viewing at the Bingham Cemetery, in The Banks, a few miles from where it was found.

Pete Allen, chairman of community group The Bingham Heritage Trail Association, which campaigned for the well's restoration, said: "It is a piece of history that deserves to be kept for the enjoyment of the public."


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Roman treasure displayed to public

THE largest hoard of early Roman coins found in the West Midlands are on display at Banbury Museum.

More than 1,000 silver denarii were found in a small pot at Edgehill in 2008 and went on show yesterday (Wednesday) in an exhibition running until December 10.

Cllr James Macnamara, Cherwell District Council’s lead member for the environment, said: “We’ll never know why someone decided to hide these coins. This was a tidy sum of money in the First Century – equal to a year’s pay for five Roman soldiers.

“Whether the people that buried the coins intended to come back for them or not, they remained in a pot underground for nearly 2,000 years.”

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In pictures: Coventry Cathedral's medieval stained glass

Development plans for Coventry's cathedral ruins are announced later to coincide with the 71st anniversary of the Coventry Blitz. Earlier this year the cathedral was put on the World Monuments Fund 2012 Watch List which is an international list of buildings worthy of preservation.

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A medieval market town has discovered it owns an original version of the Magna Carta

A MEDIEVAL market town has discovered it owns an original version of Magna Carta, potentially worth about 20 million pounds, rather than a copy worth only 10,000 pounds.

It was identified in the collection of Faversham town council in Kent by academic experts prompted by the auction of a version from 1297 owned by Ross Perot, who ran for the US presidency against Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. In 2007 that version had fetched $US21.3m (about $A20.8 million at today's rates).

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Twigs suggest Assynt site 'genuine Iron Age broch'

Radiocarbon dating of burnt twigs found inside an ancient building in Assynt suggest its interior remained untouched after it was built in the Iron Age.

Brochs were often modified during later periods of use. One at Nybster in Caithness has evidence of possible Pictish and medieval occupation.

The dating of twigs possibly used for woven mats points to the Assynt site remaining unaltered until it collapsed.

The broch at Clachtoll was built using stones weighing up to 100kg each.

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10 000 Unique Archaeology Treasures to Be Unveiled in Bulgaria

Bulgaria's National History Museum will put on display about 10 000 "extremely valuable" archaeological finds and artifacts.

The finds in question were seized from a treasure hunting and antiques trafficking crime group back in 2004, and are now being transferred from the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office to the ownerships of the National History Museum in Sofia.

They feature archaeological items from various ages – from prehistory all the way to the 20th century, the Bulgarian National History Museum announced.

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Startling discovery of lost Norman town

THE astonishing story of a Norman town lost for centuries is being brought back to life.

Cutting edge LIDAR technology, deployed by armed forces to detect underground bunkers, has uncovered the streets, towns and dwellings of an early Norman settlement known as Newtown just outside Thomastown.

Within 15 miles of Kilkenny, the medieval settlement has been the focus of a recent archaeological dig backed up by the latest technology to tell the story of what has been described as ’Kilkenny’s Pompeii.’

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Vikings Navigated With Translucent Crystals?

Icelandic spar may have revealed sun's position on cloudy days, study says.

Vikings may have navigated by looking through a type of crystal called Icelandic spar, a new study suggests.

In some Icelandic sagas—embellished stories of Viking life—sailors relied on so-called sunstones to locate the sun's position and steer their ships on cloudy days. (See Iceland photos submitted by readers like you.)

The stone would've worked by detecting a property of sunlight called polarization.

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A question of style: Reading rock art using art history

Ancient engravings and drawings are present all around the world. They are witnesses of people’s journeys through time and space. While their original meaning is lost, they still tell stories about their creator, about the content, about the climate and the environment of that time.

About rock art

Contrary to common assumptions, rock art is not only restricted to the Ice Age. It is a phenomenon that has survived until today. In northern Europe it mostly appears in the form of graffiti, which can be found nearly everywhere people have passed.

Although the meaning and purpose of today’s rock art is most probably different from ancient forms, the methodological approach to their study is similar. Researchers commonly refrain from explaining rock art’s meaning, since there is no absolute proof to any given hypotheses.

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New dating of cave site upsets Neanderthal theory

Members of our species (Homo sapiens) arrived in Europe several millennia earlier than previously thought. This was the conclusion by a team of researchers, after carrying out a re-analyses of two ancient deciduous teeth.


These teeth were discovered in 1964 in the “Grotta del Cavallo”, a cave in southern Italy. Since their discovery they have been attributed to Neanderthals, but this new study suggests they belong to anatomically modern humans. Chronometric analysis, carried out by the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit at the University of Oxford, shows that the layers within which the teeth were found date to ~43,000-45,000 cal BP. This means that the human remains are older than any other known European modern humans. The research work was published in the renowned science journal Nature.

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Prehistoric Men Scarred, Pierced, Tattooed Privates

Men in prehistoric Europe scarred, pierced and tattooed their penises, likely for ritualistic and social group reasons, according to a new study.

Analysis of phallic decorations in Paleolithic art, described in the December issue of The Journal of Urology, may also show evidence of the world's first known surgery performed on a male genital organ. The alteration, or surgery, might have just been for ornamental purposes, or a piercing, the researchers suggest.

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Ground-breaking technology shows no second chamber at Newgrange

The technology used in an attempt to find out whether a second passage tomb, which may also be aligned with a solstice event, exists at Newgrange had proved its worth during experimentation by a Slovakian team of scientists who visited the Boyne Valley, an Irish archaeologist said this week.

Dr Conor Brady, archaeologist and lecturer at Dundalk Institute of Technology, who lives at Slane, said that while there would be no "dramatic announcements" about discovery of a second chamber at Newgrange at this stage, the microgravitational technology used in the experiments had proven valuable to archaeologists and scientists.

The possibility that Newgrange could have a second passage tomb, which may also be aligned with a solstice event, was being explored by a team of Irish and Slovakians archaeologists using ground-breaking technology.

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Who were the 99% of ancient Rome?

From Gibbon to "Gladiator," it might seem like we know a lot about Ancient Rome, but our view of this civilization is a skewed one. The Romans lived in one of the most stratified societies in history. Around 1.5% of the population controlled the government, military, economy and religion. Through the writings and possessions they left behind, these rich, upper-class men are also responsible for most of our information about Roman life.

The remaining people – commoners, slaves and others – are largely silent. They could not afford tombstones to record their names, and they were buried with little in the way of fancy pottery or jewellery. Their lives were documented by the elites, but they left few documents of their own.

Now, Kristina Killgrove, an archaeologist from Vanderbilt University, wants to tell their story by sequencing their DNA, and she is raising donations to do it. “Their DNA will tell me where these people, who aren’t in histories, were coming from,” she says. “They were quite literally the 99% of Rome.”

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University of Salford to dig Manchester boroughs

The University of Salford has announced a four year archaeology project which will see 9,000 people involved in digs.

Dig Greater Manchester, which will also include a study in Blackburn, will see volunteers work alongside experts at 11 sites.

Brian Grimsditch, who works at the university's Centre for Applied Archaeology, said it was "one of the biggest projects in the country".

"It will be a wonderful way for people to learn about the history," he said.

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Scottish Archaeological Finds Panel

Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs Fiona Hyslop has announced the appointment of a new Chair to the Scottish Archaeological Finds Allocation Panel.

The new Chair is Dr Evelyn Silber, former Director of the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, Glasgow. Dr Silber's appointment will be for four years and will run from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2015.

The post is part-time and attracts no remuneration for a time commitment of four meetings per year.

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Spotted Horses in Cave Art Weren’t Just a Figment, DNA Shows

Roughly 25,000 years ago in what is now southwestern France, human beings walked deep into a cave and left their enduring marks. Using materials like sticks, charcoal and iron oxides, they painted images of animals on the cave walls and ceilings — lions and mammoths and spotted horses, walking and grazing and congregating in herds.

Today, the art at the Pech-Merle cave, and in hundreds of others across Europe, is a striking testimony to human creativity well before modern times
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But what were these cave paintings, exactly? Were prehistoric artists simply sketching what they saw each day on the landscape? Or were the images more symbolic, diverging from reality or representing rare or even mystical creatures? Such questions have divided archaeologists for years.

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Archaeologists Find Habitation Sites in Port of Rotterdam

The site of what is now Rotterdam’s Yangtzehaven was inhabited by humans in the Middle Stone Age. At a depth of 20 metres, in the sea bed, unique underwater archaeological investigation found traces of bone, flint and charcoal from around 7000 BC. These finds are the very first scientific proof that humans lived at this spot in the Early and Middle Stone Age. Up to now, very little was known about this period in particular, the Early and Middle Mesolithic, so far to the west of the Netherlands.

The striking results were announced yesterday by the Port of Rotterdam Authority and the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands. The Port Authority’s Project Organisation Maasvlakte 2 is responsible for the expansion of the port in the form of Maasvlakte 2. The archaeological investigation that is being conducted is part of a series of studies being carried out in connection with the construction of Maasvlakte 2. Delltares, Bureau Oudheidkundig Onderzoek Rotterdam (Archaeological Research Office) and the Archeologisch Dienstencentrum (Archaeological Service Centre) are among the parties involved in these studies. The Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands is guiding the research and is the supervisory authority.

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Rare 14th century time-telling instrument, marked with badge of Richard II, to sell at Bonhams

LONDON.- Bonhams to auction one of the only known 14th century instruments, an exceedingly rare equal hour horary quadrant marked with the badge of King Richard II, at its Fine Clocks and Scientific Instrument Sale on 13 December 2011. Dated 1396, this extraordinary British time-telling mathematical instrument, which has come to light following its discovery in a shed in Queensland, Australia, has attracted a pre-sale estimate of £150,000 – 200,000. It is the second earliest dated British scientific instrument in existence, the earliest being the Chaucer astrolabe, dated 1326, housed in the British Museum.

This quadrant is the earliest of a similar group of three other quadrants dated 1398, 1399 and circa 1400 respectively, two of which can be found in the British Museum, and the other in the Dorset County Museum, Dorchester. Like the others, it is noteworthy for showing equal hours, in which the entire period from midnight to midnight is divided into twenty four equal parts. This technique had developed slowly during the 14th century. Indeed one of the earliest examples in England of an administrative record using equal hours occurs on the occasion of Richard II’s abdication on 30 September 1399 stated to have been ‘at about the ninth stroke of the clock’. On its reverse, the quadrant features a badge depicting a stag lying down wearing a coronet around its throat, which is associated with Richard II. The National Gallery’s famous altarpiece, The Wilton Diptych, portrays Richard II wearing a cape embroidered with an identical badge.

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Human Ancestor 'Family' May Not Have Been Related

A famous trail of footprints once thought to have been left behind by a family of three human ancestors may have actually been made by four individuals traveling at different times.


In a new examination of Laetoli in northern Tanzania, where a 3.6-million-year-old track of footprints of the bipedal human ancestor Australopithecus is preserved, researchers now argue that the classic understanding of this site is mistaken. The footprints have been buried since the mid-1990s for preservation, but a section recently opened for study as Tanzanian officials make plans for a museum on the site.

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