Michelle Moran's Blog, page 80

Jamestown settlers' trash confirms hard times

by Sid Perkins

Oyster shells excavated from a well in Jamestown, Va., the first permanent British settlement in North America, bolster the notion that the first colonists suffered an unusually deep and long-lasting drought.

Read the rest on Science News.

Florentine Codex, Great Intellectual Enterprise of 16th Century

MEXICO CITY.- Created under the orders of Bernardino de Sahagun by 20 tlacuilos or painters and 4 Indigenous masters, Florentine Codex is one of the greatest expressions of the Renascence in America.

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The Skull of Doom

By Jane MacLaren Walsh

Crystal skulls have long had a fringe following, and the most famous of them is one named for the explorer-author Frederick A. Mitchell-Hedges (see "Legend of the Crystal Skulls"). Mitchell-Hedges claimed to have found the skull somewhere in Central America in the 1930s, but his adopted daughter Anna later said she found it under a fallen altar or inside a pyramid at the Maya site of Lubaantún in British Honduras (now Belize) some time in the 1920s. ...

Jordan Valley - cradle of civilisations?

By Taylor Luck

AMMAN - Archaeological finds in the northern Jordan Valley are forcing experts to rethink the patterns of the earliest civilisations. In Tabqat Fahel, 90 kilometres north of Amman, recent finds indicate that the ancient site of Pella, which spans across the earliest pre-historic times to the Mameluke era, may have been a part of the cradle of civilisations.

Read the rest on the Jordan Times.

Secrets of ancient Scottish hunters revealed by camp

by Chris Watt

It was an age when reindeer roamed the Scottish landscape, competing for territory with human raiding parties from what is now the North Sea. The country lay under glaciers as far south as the Highland Line, and a mini ice-age was fast approaching.

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Advanced Technique, RTI, Used to Decipher Maya Glyphs

MEXICO CITY.- As part of most recent studies at Tonina Archaeological Zone, in Chiapas, a technique known as RTI (Reflection Transformation Imaging) is being applied for the first time in Mexico on Maya sculptures, with the aim of documenting the ancient monuments and having more details of inscriptions.

Read the rest on Art Daily.

Tools show ancient human diet

Almost two million years ago, early humans began eating food such as crocodiles, turtles and fish – a diet that could have played an important role in the evolution of human brains and our footsteps out of Africa, according to new research.

Read the rest on Science Alert.

World War Two bomb explodes in Germany, three dead

BERLIN, June 1 (Reuters) - A World War Two bomb found in central Germany exploded on Tuesday, killing three people, as disposal experts were about to defuse it, local authorities said.

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Neanderthal man was living in Britain 40,000 years earlier than thought

Francis Wenban-Smith from the University of Southampton discovered two ancient flint hand tools used to cut meat at the M25/A2 road junction at Dartford, Kent, during an excavation funded by the Highways Agency.

Read the rest on the Telegraph.

Archaeologists discover 13th century BC 'lost tomb' of ancient Egyptian capital's mayor

CAIRO (AP) — Archaeologists have discovered the 3,300-year-old tomb of the ancient Egyptian capital's mayor, whose resting place had been lost under the desert sand since 19th century treasure hunters first carted off some of its decorative wall panels, officials announced Sunday.

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