Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Limestone find may change views on prehistoric people

Chunks of whitish limestone are turning up everywhere at the huge, prehistoric village excavation near the Brooklyn city limits.

More limestone has been found here than at any other ancient Mississippian site excavated in the region. So much, in fact, veteran archaeologists like site excavation director Chuck Moffat wonder whether it will change long-held views about the farming and hunting people archaeologists call the Mississippians, who lived here about 1,400 to 1,000 years ago.

"The potential here for rethinking the prehistoric history of the American Bottoms is unlike anything we've had in a long time -- in at least 20 years," Moffat said.


Yet more news from Hindustan Many archaeological sites set to perish in Narmada Project

More than half of the resplendent past of Central India, one of the oldest human settlements in the world is all set to be lost, thanks to the administrative apathy that has allowed and is allowing monuments and sites of great archaeological importance to simply perish in Narmada Valley Project.

The impending destruction of more than 60 explored and unexplored sites in single tehsil of Harsud is just a tip of the iceberg. Hundreds of similar sites, lots of them unexplored and expected to be carrying important links to pre-historic life and monuments of archaeological, historical, religious importance would simply cease to exist within next two to three years, archaeological experts have warned.


Caesar spouse? Caesar's wife statue made whole again

A caesar's wife may have to be above reproach, but one of them lost her head centuries ago.

The head was found late in the 19th century by a roving Guardian reporter who later became a distinguished archaeologist; her body was only found nine years ago, in modern Croatia; but now the two have been re-united at an exhibition in Oxford.

Christopher Brown, director of the Ashmolean, explained that the head of Livia, wife of Caesar Augustus, had come to the museum from Sir Arthur Evans. When the young Evans left England in 1879 for a spot of travel, archaeology and freelance journalism, his father insisted that, as he would be meeting many important people, he must take a top hat from Locks of Piccadilly.


‘Sistine Chapel of the Ice Age’ found at Creswell Crags

A team of researchers led by the University of Sheffield and supported by English Heritage have found eighty 13,000-year-old carvings in limestone rock of Church Hole Cave, at Creswell Crags in Nottinghamshire. The carvings are a unique find and form the most elaborate cave art ceiling in the world.

The carvings, which appear on the ceiling of the cave, represent animal figures, including deer, bears, birds and possibly dancing women.


Find gives evidence of Oklahoma

An Oklahoma museum has acquired a startling artifact rich in historic significance and proof that an almost-mythical band of Indians also roamed portions of the Sooner State long before its recorded history. Officials at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History at the University of Oklahoma in Norman say the find is that of a skull of a young bison, dated at around 5,000 years old, with a stone spear point buried in the bone. Officials believe the find provides the first conclusive evidence that people of Oklahoma's ancient Calf Creek culture were hunting bison in the state’s eastern region. The skull and point are now on permanent display in the museum's Hall of the People of Oklahoma.

According to the museum, in December, an amateur archaeologist named Kim Holt, who was prospecting along the Arkansas River near Sand Springs, came across the upper portion of the skull of a young bison sunk in the sand. Protruding from the skull, just at the base of one of the horns, were the barbs of a broad-based stone spear point. The rest of the point was buried deep in the bone.


Al Gore's Social Security plan found! Archeologists visit mysterious locked box buried near unmarked Arctic graves

Three unmarked graves, their age and inhabitants unknown. Buried carefully nearby under precisely stacked rocks, a weathered old wooden chest sealed with a rusty padlock, its contents just as mysterious.

A seafaring yarn of Caribbean pirates? No. An Arctic mystery near Baker Lake, Nunavut - one that a team of archeologists hope to solve this summer.

"We really don't know what's in this box," says Doug Stenton, Nunavut's head archeologist who will lead the expedition.

"People love a mystery. It should be fun and exciting to go see what's in there."