Marvel at winter solstice sunrise in Newgrange

Eventually, Brú na Bóinne (usually referred to as "the Bend of the Boyne") became an archaeological park, then a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1995. The visitor centre, a symphony of spirals and mounds in wood, glass, stone and concrete, opened 10 years ago on the south side of the river.

Newgrange

A small suspension bridge was thrown across the muscular brown waters, where those who originally settled Newgrange some 5,000 years ago would have speared salmon, and a minibus terminus built, from which visitors are ferried to the tomb or its larger sister at Knowth. In the year 2000, a lottery system was introduced for solstice places; this year, there were 28,000 applications.

More of this: Newgrange, Meath, IE

Layers of mystery -
Archaeologists look to the earth for Minoan fate

SHREWSBURY— They created extraordinary artifacts for hundreds of years, revealing an aesthetic sensibility that influences Western civilization to this day. Then they simply disappeared.

Scholars are seeking answers to one of the great mysteries of the ancient world: What happened to the Minoans of Crete, who controlled a thriving Mediterranean trade network from around 2,200-1,450 BC?




By Judy Powell Correspondent

Post-dig pace to quicken

The National Constitution Center and Independence National Historical Park are close to a new agreement to complete the archaeological work precipitated by excavation on the center's building site more than six years ago.

Widely viewed as the most significant dig in Philadelphia's history, excavation of the center's Independence Mall site in 2000 and 2001 yielded a million artifacts and exposed a largely pristine pre-19th-century neighborhood, including an unusual concentration of households composed of free black families.


Artifacts, like this earthenware, uncovered at the Constitution Center site, is processed at a public archaeology lab.

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The National Constitution Center and Independence National Historical Park

Fossils in Kenya Challenge Linear Evolution

Two fossils found in Kenya have shaken the human family tree, possibly rearranging major branches thought to be in a straight ancestral line to Homo sapiens.
Skull

In their report, Dr. Spoor and his colleagues wrote, “With the discovery of the new, well dated specimens, H. habilis and H. erectus can now be shown to have co-occurred in eastern Africa for nearly half a million years.” The fact that the two hominid species lived together in the same lake basin for so long and remained separate species, Meave Leakey said in a statement from Nairobi, “suggests that they had their own ecological niche, thus avoiding direct competition.”

Date Line of Evolution

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Fossils in Kenya Challenge Linear Evolution


By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Published: August 9, 2007

News is coming up, Very busy times !

Ekain Caves in Zestoa Gipuzkoa, Basque country

ZESTOA –Gipuzkoa: Ekain caves’ replica will have more than 80,000 visits per year A French company is building a replica that will be placed next to the original at the end of year 2006.



Link: Ekain Caves in Zestoa Gipuzkoa

While the men were out hunting, Stone Age women created a future

By Scott LaFee

For generations, archaeologists believed that Stone Age gender roles split neatly in two, like a well-struck piece of flint:



Paleolithic males were hunters of woolly mammoths and other daunting prey. Females stayed behind. They cared for the kids, or maybe gathered seeds and berries.

The image was widely disseminated and quickly popularized in movies, cartoons and museum dioramas. It was also based, contends James M. Adovasio, director of the Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute in Pennsylvania, upon wrongheaded interpretations of scant evidence and some dubious assumptions.

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Uncovering history — Utah Prehistory Week offers a chance to tour archaeological site near prison

In 1998, the site was declared protected open space by the state Legislature, and set aside from any development. But it took until now before further excavations were made.
Andy Yentsch shows an excavation area at the prison site. (Ravell Call, Deseret Morning News)


Andy Yentsch shows an excavation area at the prison site.



Yentsch was brought in last October to oversee a one-year project. Actual digging at the site started last month and will continue through June.
Tours and explanations of the Prison Dig are being featured during Utah Prehistory Week, May 5-12. Other events include tours of Danger and Jukebox Caves in the West Desert and activities and lectures for the whole family.


More on this : Utah Prehistory Week

How to Build a Pyramid

Of the seven wonders of the ancient world, only the Great Pyramid of Giza remains. An estimated 2 million stone blocks weighing an average of 2.5 tons went into its construction. When completed, the 481-foot-tall pyramid was the world's tallest structure, a record it held for more than 3,800 years, when England's Lincoln Cathedral surpassed it by a mere 44 feet.

Pyramid Plan


Link : Hidden ramps may solve the mystery of the Great Pyramid's construction.

The rise and fall of great cities

Zabid studied by Canadians

The Canadian Archaeological Mission in Yemen began its program of activity in 1982 after receiving a favourable response from Qadi Isma’il al-Akwa’ who was then the director of the Organization for Antiquities, Manuscripts, and Libraries.

Our request was for permission to study the archaeology of Zabid and its surrounding territories between Bayt al-Faqih to the north, Hays to the surrounding territories between the sea and the mountain foothills.

The reason for choosing Zabid was because of the city’s reputation that attracted students from many parts of the Islamic world for study. We wanted to see what evidence there was for other kinds of contact within Yemen, as well as abroad, to take a real measure of Zabid’s importance.

Link

Stone towers make up oldest observatory in Peru

A line of 13 stone towers that top a coastal hillside in Peru are in fact the Western Hemisphere's oldest solar observatory, researchers said on Thursday. The 2,300-year-old site points to a sophisticated culture that used the dramatic alignment of the sun and the structures for political and ceremonial effects, the researchers said. The site, called the Thirteen Towers of Chankillo, precisely spans the annual rising and setting arcs of the sun when viewed from two specially constructed observation points. Link

Pictures at an Excavation

Illustration credit : Peter Arkle

News from NY Times

Sentinels From Prehistory

Hazaribagh's prehistoric megaliths are finally receiving the academic and popular attention they deserve. Subhashis Das has been working tirelessly to preserve them and started the Megalithic Utsav at Punkhri- Barwadih two years ago to generate awareness about these sentinels from the remote past. The Utsav is held on the morning of the two equinoxes each year, when the sun can be seen rising through the V-shaped gap between a pair of tall megaliths. This beautiful astronomical sight can be seen only on equinox mornings here. It?s a rare, spectacular phenomenon, says Das, who quit his job to research and popularise the megaliths full-time. These ancient stones were actually superb astronomical-astrological observatories, says Das, who has discovered three megalithic observatories in Jharkhand.

Source

Keenlyside heads Museum and Heritage Foundation

A permanent executive director has been hired to head the P.E.I. Museum and Heritage Foundation. Dr. David L. Keenlyside, curator of Atlantic Archaeology at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa, will be assuming the duties in March.
"This appointment is a crucial step in strategic planning for the museum," says Dr. Dasgupta, chair of the board of governors. "We look forward to Dr. Keenlyside's arrival." Elmer MacFadyen, P.E.I.'s minister of community and cultural affairs, says Dr. Keenlyside's colleagues at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa highly recommend him and praise him for his interpersonal, organizational and project management skills, his work ethic, and his ability to foster a good working re lationship with crews, volunteers and exhibition teams.
This is the first permanent appointment to the position since the retirement of Chris Severance, who served as executive director from 1992 to 2004.

Stonehenge most likely didn't stand alone

The world famous Stonehenge in the plains of Salisbury in southern England that has intrigued anthropologists and archaeologists for centuries did not stand in isolation, but was juxtaposed between two more world famous prehistoric stone formations.




One of the megalithic finds is a sandstone formation that marked a ritual burial mound. The other is a group of stones at the site of an ancient timber circle.

Colin Richards of Manchester University and Joshua Pollard of Bristol University who made the discoveries have suggested that many similar monuments might have been erected in the shadow of Stonehenge, possibly forming part of a much larger complex.

The first monument, a 9.2-foot-long (2.8-meter-long) sarsen stone was found lying in a field next to the River Avon, two miles (3.2 kilometres) east of Stonehenge, which is located near the modern-day city of Salisbury.

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