Archaeologists in Montenegro have discovered a tooth believed to belong to Neanderthal man dating back between 40,000 and 150,000 years, a museum official said on Saturday.
The tooth was found in Crvena Stijena (Red Cliff) and "belonged to Neanderthal man," Zvezdana Lucic, director of the museum in the north-western town of Niksic, told reporters.
Mitra Cerovic of the Montenegrin Center for Archaeology Research said the discovery had been confirmed by US experts from the Archaeology Museum of the University of Michigan.
"All research and analogies show that it was a tooth of a Neanderthal," Mitra Cerovic said, adding that research would last between five and 10 years.
More here. We have no idea why this merits attention. It's not like there's not very many Neanderthal teeth lying about. We shall keep on this.
Say, we've got some trowels we could leave. . . .Archaeology Going to the Temple of Love
The clincher was a small anchor cut from stone. Digging at the site of the Olympic equestrian center, about 30 km southeast of Athens, archaeologist Michalis Sklavos already knew he was onto something — his team had unearthed a cluster of small clay bowls from around the 4th century B.C. followed by several washbasins which the ancients used, he said, "to cleanse their body before purifying their soul." That indicated the presence of a temple, but it was the stone anchor that revealed what kind of temple it was. It was "clearly an offering to a high priestess by a sailor," which meant his team had discovered a temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love — one of only three known examples in the world. At these sanctuaries, usually located near ports, priestesses are believed to have administered to visitors' spiritual — and, ahem, physical — needs, free of charge. "These were not brothels," says Sklavos. "It was part of the priestesses' sacred role, their duty to Aphrodite, the goddess of love, to give pleasure to those who walked into her home."
Rock of ages
COLUMBIA HILLS STATE PARK - Forest Service archaeologist James D. Keyser clambers up a basalt cliff to a ledge rubbed smooth over thousands of years by the backsides of visitors to this Columbia Gorge perch. "We affectionately call this butt polish," he says.
Imagine no dams, no freeway traffic, no fences, no railroad tracks. Imagine the roar of the free-flowing Columbia River, loud as a freight train as it races through a narrow gorge. Imagine a young Indian sitting on this ledge through seven sunrises and seven sunsets, singing and chanting and running up and down the cliff, waiting for a vision of the spirits that will guide his life.
The images painted and carved into the rocks surrounding this ledge, and the stories told by descendants of the first people of the Columbia basin, help Keyser imagine these things:
Mysterious white concentric circles. A cluster of barn owls on a flat rock near the ledge. Two black stick figures topped by halo-like rayed arcs. Red and white tally marks, possibly recording the days passed during those vision quests.
Public help needed to turn Georges Valentine wreck into underwater preserve off Martin County
Local history buffs have hand-written accounts of how, almost a century ago, a ship floundered on a reef just offshore of the Gilbert's Bar House of Refuge.
The Martin County sheriff's dive team began work mapping and documenting the scattered pieces of wood still visible on the ocean floor 10 feet beneath the surface.
A strong showing of public support is all that's needed to turn the Italian bark Georges Valentine into an underwater archaeological preserve by the end of the year.
Treasure Coast residents can have their say at 7 p.m. Tuesday, when the Elliott Museum, next to Stuart Beach, presents a workshop with the state Bureau of Historical Resources.
Eureka! II. Mathematicians and historians piece together a puzzle that Archimedes pondered
At the start of the 20th century, a Danish mathematical historian named Johan Ludvig Heiberg made a once-in-a-lifetime find. Tucked away in the library of a monastery in Istanbul was a medieval parchment containing copies of the works of the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes, including two never-before-seen essays. To mathematicians' astonishment, one of the new essays contained many of the key ideas of calculus, a subject supposedly invented two millennia after Archimedes' time. The essay caused a sensation and landed Heiberg's discovery on the front page of a 1907 New York Times.
The other new essay, by contrast, mystified mathematicians. A fragment of a treatise called the Stomachion, it appeared to be nothing more than a description of a puzzle that might have been a children's toy. Mathematicians wondered why Archimedes, whose other works were so monumental, should have spent his time on something so frivolous.
Uncovering city's historic past
Excavations revealing part of Belfast's maritime past have been described as some of the most exciting in the city's archaeological history.
A section of a 19th century bridge which spanned the old docks in Belfast city centre has been uncovered during work on a major retail development.
Archaeologists have discovered the arch of Edward Bridge, later known as Mays Bridge, which dates from the early 1800s on the site of the Victoria Square development.
More on Troy Troy's Fallen!
It's getting crowded at Troy these days. In addition to the motion picture with Brad Pitt as Achilles, there are at least four television programs out there. There's the movie, there's History Channel and National Geographic documentaries, something on A&E, and there's In Search of the Trojan War. Here's a review of some of these. (See Manfred Korfmann's article "Was there a Trojan War?" on this website for the real story.)
Troy is a violent film. Homer's great poem the Iliad is cut and hacked mercilessly in it, while the evidence of the archaeological record is helpless before its onslaught. Where to start in discussing this? Let's do this critique in just three paragraphs (it could go on for pages): the archaeology, the story, then briefly the movie as a movie.
Two mummies discovered in Sakkara
Culture Minister Farouq Hosni said the French mission has discovered two Pharaonic mummies during excavation operations in Sakkara.
The two mummies were discovered six meters beneath ground, said Sabri Abdul Aziz, chief of the Antiquities Sector noting that the new discovery will help reveal more details on the Egyptian religion during the 26th dynasty and the Ptolemaic.
No need to click, that's the whole thing. Will update later when more information becomes available.