Update on Kansas Clovis find Discovery Could Change Dates for Human Arrival on the Great Plains
Bones of now-extinct animals and a rock fragment discovered last summer in northwestern Kansas could rewrite the history of humans on the Great Plains.
The bones, which appear to have been fractured by humans, were collected from a site in Sherman County and studied by scientists at the Kansas Geological Survey, the University of Kansas and the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Dated by carbon-14 methods at 12,200 years old, the bones could be the oldest evidence of human occupation in Kansas, and they may be the oldest evidence of humans on the Great Plains.
The research was conducted by archaeologist Steven Holen at the Denver Museum, archaeological geologist Rolfe Mandel at the Kansas Geological Survey and archaeologist Jack Hofman at the KU anthropology department.
Mystery! The Mystery of the Longhu Mountain Tombs Remains
The Longhu Mountains of Jiangxi province, lie alongside the Luxi River. On each side of the river hang thousand-foot precipices, leaving caves whose faces are entirely covered with natural caverns of all sizes. Coffins are hung inside these caverns, situated between 20 and 100 meters from the water below. The means by which the ancients got the heavy coffins into the holes on sheer cliffs remain a mystery.
According to Chinese news website Qianlong.com, there is a legend that claims that the caverns are hiding places for vast quantities of gold, silver and other valuable treasures. Weathering has exposed the coffins. Some caverns hold many coffins, including one that holds more than 10. Some seem to be husband and wife tombs, and the most numerous, by far, are individual tombs. Interestingly, all of the caverns are on the cliff face that faces the sun, or the yang side.
Archaeologists hope to rewrite Cologne's past
Archaeologists on Tuesday started one of the biggest projects ever undertaken in Europe, hoping to rewrite the 2 000-year history of Cologne.
The diggers have four years to shift 100 000 cubic metres of soil, looking for foundations and artefacts that will go on display at the city museum.
The Romans founded "Colonia" and it was one of European biggest cities in late Roman times and the Middle Ages. Past digs have yielded Roman mosaics, tombstones and oil lamps.
Chief archaeologist Hansgerd Hellenkemper said his team would try to discover why the Roman river port silted up and how Cologne was affected by a drastic change in the world's climate 1 800 years ago.
The team are to dig up to 13 metres under the surface at sites that have been reserved for an underground railway. When the 100 archaeologists leave, the engineers will move in.
That's the whole thing.
City site discovered in Dengfeng may be 4,000-year-old capital
Archaeologists claim that the large-scale city remains they discovered in Dengfeng in central China's Henan Province may be the ruins of Yangcheng, capital of King Yu, founder of the Xia Dynasty (21st century B.C.- 16th B.C.).
The discovery was made during the excavations of ruins at Wangchenggang site near Dengfeng from 2002 to 2004, which was cooperatively made by archaeologists from the School of Archaeology and Museology of Beijing University and the Henan Provincial Research Institute of Archeology.
Covering 300,000 square meters, the remains include the ruins of a city, a moat and a city wall.