A New Discovery...

It's amazing just how big this world of ours is – big enough that archaeologists continue to make major discoveries in still-remote places.  Announced yesterday: the discovery of an untouched, intact pre-Inca tomb in Peru...

Chinese Traders in Africa...in the 1400s...

Scientists have uncovered a 600 year old Chinese coin on an island off the coast of Kenya, in eastern Africa.  Many folks have speculated that Chinese traders made it to east Africa before European explorers did.  This looks like pretty good evidence for that speculation...

Viking Navigation...

I've read several times speculation that the Vikings used polarized light to help navigate.  They didn't know that's what they were doing, they just discovered “sunstones” – calcite crystals – that naturally polarized light and could be used to tell where the sun was even on a cloudy day, and before sunrise or after sunset.

Now it appears that scientists have actually found a sunstone in the wreck of a Viking ship.

Awesome dudes, those Vikings...

English King Richard III Found...

His remains, that is.  Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, but his remains had been lost.  This skeleton was found last fall under a parking lot; scientists used DNA to positively identify it as Richard III.

Rongorongo, et al...

Rongorongo?  What's that?

It's an ancient system of writing, and it's one of the few that have not been deciphered.  Modern science has done an amazing job of figuring out the meaning of ancient writings with no living readers, but some still remain a mystery...

Ancient Animations...

Very cool:

Hieroglyphics...

Via my mom:

Written across the wall of the cave were the symbols at right. It was considered a unique find and the writings were said to be at least 3,000 years old.

The piece of stone was removed, brought to the museum, and archaeologists from around the world came to study the ancient symbols. They held a huge meeting after months of conferences to discuss the meaning of the markings.

The President of the society pointed to first drawing and said: "This is a woman. We can see these people held women in high esteem. You can also tell they were intelligent, as the next symbol is a donkey, so they were smart enough to have animals help them till the soil. The next drawing is a shovel, which means they had tools to help them. Even further proof of their high intelligence is the fish which means that if a famine hit the earth and food didn't grow, they seek food from the sea. The last symbol appears to be the Star of David which means they were evidently Hebrews."

The audience applauded enthusiastically.

Then a little old Jewish man stood up in the back of the room and said, "Idiots! Hebrew is read from right to left. It says: 'Holy Mackerel, Dig The Ass On That Chick'"

Unsettled Science...

This is fascinating stuff that I've been following for a few weeks now, as the news dribbles out.  It's beginning to look like archaeologists have a solid case for Europeans having been the first to colonize North America:

New archaeological evidence suggests that America was first discovered by Stone Age people from Europe – 10,000 years before the Siberian-originating ancestors of the American Indians set foot in the New World.

A remarkable series of several dozen European-style stone tools, dating back between 19,000 and 26,000 years, have been discovered at six locations along the US east coast. Three of the sites are on the Delmarva Peninsular in Maryland, discovered by archaeologist Dr Darrin Lowery of the University of Delaware. One is in Pennsylvania and another in Virginia. A sixth was discovered by scallop-dredging fishermen on the seabed 60 miles from the Virginian coast on what, in prehistoric times, would have been dry land.

The new discoveries are among the most important archaeological breakthroughs for several decades - and are set to add substantially to our understanding of humanity's spread around the globe.

The general question of when did humans first make it to the Americas, and which humans were they, has had about 10 different “consensus” answers just in my lifetime.  It's clearly far from a settled question even now. Various series theories put forth include several variations of migration across the Bering Straights, landings by Polynesian explorers, Egyptians, Africans, the Vikings, and (now) even earlier Europeans. 

One of these fine days, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to read that humans originated in the Americas!

Climatology could learn a thing or two from archaeology about how science is actually supposed to work...

Göbekli Tepe...

If you're not familiar with Göbekli Tepe, you're going to be surprised: it's one of the most remarkable archaeological discoveries ever made, and probably the oldest artifacts of an advanced civilization so far discovered.  Here's an introductory video on it, and there's much more information at the link above...

Thousands of Roman Coins Found...

Near Frome, in Somerset, England, a guy named Dave Crisp, armed with a metal detector, found a large jar containing over 50,000 Roman coins buried about a foot deep.  Archaeologists believe the jar was buried somewhere around the year 300 A.D.

What a cool find!

I don't know exactly where Dave Crisp made his find, but I have visited the town of Frome a couple of times.  It's along the path of one of my favorite drives in England, between Salisbury (where Stonehenge is) and Exmoor National Park, on the way down to Cornwall...

HMS Ontario ... Found!

The HMS Ontario was a British frigate operating on the Great Lakes in the Revolutionary War. It never saw action, but on October 17, 1780 it sank in a gale on Lake Ontario, and all on board were lost (a crew of 40 Canadians, about 60 Redcoats, and 30 or so American prisoners of war). A few pieces of wreckage were recovered, and a few bodies – but for more than 200 years there hasn't been any trace of it.

Archaeologists, scientists, and shipwreck enthusiasts have been searching for the HMS Ontario's grave ever since it sank. Until just a few days ago, none of them have had any success. Jim Kennard and Dan Scoville, two well-known shipwreck enthusiasts, have found the HMS Ontario – in remarkably good condition, fully intact and upright in about 500 feet of water.

Here's an article about their find, another here, and this site has some photos of the actual shipwreck. Hats off to these two intrepid amateurs – what a find!