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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Landmark Exhibition Of Asian Textiles At The Textile Museum

A landmark exhibition of textiles of the Chin peoples of western Myanmar (Burma), northeastern India and eastern Bangladesh will be on view at The Textile Museum from October 13, 2006 ? February 25, 2007. Mantles of Merit: Chin Textiles from Mandalay to Chittagong includes nearly 80 ceremonial mantles, tunics and other garments, along with contemporary and historic photographs as well as jewelry and accessories worn with the textiles.


Textiles play a central role in Chin social life, illustrating an individual?s success in achieving merit in this life and the next through worldly activities such as hosting feasts and bagging big game. The majority of the textiles on view are from The Textile Museum?s collections, which was formed in large part by a donation to the Museum by the exhibition?s curators, Dr. David W. Fraser and Barbara G. Fraser.


Technique and Structure in Chin Textiles

Lecture Looks at 1604 St. Croix Settlement

Archaeologist Pendery discussed the newest information on the archaeological excavations of the first French settlement in the New World in 1604. Samuel de Champlain was one of 79 men who chose to set up a trading post on St. Croix Island at the mouth of the St. Croix River, today located at the boundary of Maine and Canada. Almost half of the men died the first winter due in part to the harsh climate. The following year the trading post was moved to the Canadian shore at Port Royal.

The excavations on St. Croix Island, conducted jointly by the U.S. National Park Service and Canadian scholars, have found the sparse but intriguing remains of this first French settlement.

More news about Ongoing Events

Investing In A Region's Future

A small and unobtrusive research institute at the University of Connecticut's Avery Point campus thinks it has found the remains of the Bonhomme Richard, the ship commanded by Continental Navy captain John Paul Jones off England in 1779.

The project was mentioned briefly during a symposium on maritime history earlier this week at the Avery Point campus. Its significance calls for some additional elaboration and attention in this region, which continues to grapple with the future. The project, organized and directed by the nonprofit Ocean Technology Foundation, fits perfectly into a role for the region as a center for maritime research and exploration linking the past and future.

The Institute undertook the project three years ago, joining historical data and state-of-the-art undersea technology. This included the development of a computer model of the ship showing how the damaged hull would have drifted. The ship sank in a celebrated battle off the northeast coast of England. Jones and his crew abandoned the heavily damaged ship and fought their way aboard and captured the HMS Serapis in the storied battle, in which Jones uttered the famous line, ?I have not yet begun to fight.?

This short article : Marine archaeology is a specialized mission

Just the Artifacts

The Palisades area, with its proximity to the Potomac and the various creeks that fed into it, was more than just a pleasant spot for ancient Washingtonians; it was critical to their survival. The anadromous fish migrations?shad and striped bass running back to spawn in their native streams?that drive modern-day sportsmen onto the river each spring coincides with what was the ancient Indians? leanest time of year.


Just when they had depleted their winter stores and before the berries appeared or cultivated crops could be harvested, they received tens of thousands of pounds of protein in the form of schools of fish so thick that 17th-century explorer John Smith tried to catch them with frying pans. If anything, Dupin?s findings verify the impression archaeologists have about the area?s density of materials. ?The mantra of today?s real-estate agent also holds in prehistory: location, location, location,? says Stephen Potter, the regional archaeologist for the National Park Service (NPS). ?Prime real estate is and always will be on the waterfront.?

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Plenty to Trade

A replica of Caravel Pinta is seen at Palos de la Frontera's wharf, where Columbus set off for America in the 15th century. New research on Columbus' exploration of Cuba reveals that he and his crew traded ordinary shoelace tags for gold with the indigenous islanders, who valued the brass objects more highly than the then-abundant gold available to them.

Archaeological dig suggests nomads built homes

MASHANTUCKET, Conn. -- A long-held theory about the migrations of ancient inhabitants of eastern Connecticut might change in light of an archaeological dig that has unearthed homes built into a hillside.

Researchers had long believed that the native people who lived in the region about 9,000 years ago were nomadic hunters who moved frequently and did not create permanent living spaces.

But an archaeological dig taking place near a Foxwoods Resort Casino parking garage has uncovered dozens of pit houses, structures built into a hill and supported by timbers.



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