For Those Interested in Archaeology

My personal favourite is the "Atlantis in the Andes" one; that's just so completely barmy it's brilliant...

 

Some choice cuts-
"Standing two metres tall, the giant deer was assumed to be extinct about 10,300 years ago, but new research finds it was still alive across Siberia.
A team of Siberian scientists is among those that have contributed to breakthrough research on the extinction of a giant deer that once roamed the Earth.

It had been previously thought that this animal, also known as the Irish Elk, a massive creature that stood 7ft (2 meters) tall and had antlers up to 10ft (up to 3.5 meters) wide, all but died out at around the time of the end of last Ice Age about 10,300 years ago.

Distinctive animals because of their sheer size, they first appeared 400,000 years ago and were common in Ireland, Britain, and mainland Europe and Asia. However now new data suggests not only did they live longer than that, but also survived in Siberia in the Holocene Era, about 9,000 years ago, much further than anyone ever knew.

Indeed, in an article published in the highly-ranked scientific journal, Quaternary Science Reviews, the experts have extended the early Holocene habitat of the animal at least 2,400km to the east.

The development comes following analysis of fossils found at various locations in Siberia."
http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/features/f0072-scientists-reveal-prehistoric-animal-lived-longer-than-previously-thought/

"Many people in the UK feel a strong sense of regional identity, and it now appears that there may be a scientific basis to this feeling, according to a landmark new study into the genetic makeup of the British Isles.

An international team, led by researchers from the University of Oxford, UCL (University College London) and the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute in Australia, used DNA samples collected from more than 2,000 people to create the first fine-scale genetic map of any country in the world.

Their findings, published in Nature, show that prior to the mass migrations of the 20th century there was a striking pattern of rich but subtle genetic variation across the UK, with distinct groups of genetically similar individuals clustered together geographically.

By comparing this information with DNA samples from over 6,000 Europeans, the team was also able to identify clear traces of the population movements into the UK over the past 10,000 years. Their work confirmed, and in many cases shed further light on, known historical migration patterns."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-03/wt-wdy031615.php

"Some 2.5 million years ago, early humans survived on a paltry diet of plants. As the human brain expanded, however, it required more substantial nourishment - namely fat and meat - to sustain it. This drove prehistoric man, who lacked the requisite claws and sharp teeth of carnivores, to develop the skills and tools necessary to hunt animals and butcher fat and meat from large carcasses.

Among elephant remains some 500,000 years old at a Lower Paleolithic site in Revadim, Israel, Prof. Ran Barkai and his graduate students Natasha Solodenko and Andrea Zupanchich of Tel Aviv University's Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures recently analyzed "handaxes" and "scrapers," universally shaped and sized prehistoric stone tools, replete with animal residue.

The research, published recently in PLOS ONE, represents the first scientifically verified direct evidence for the precise use of Paleolithic stone tools: to process animal carcasses and hides. The research was done in collaboration with Drs. Stella Ninziante Cesaro and Cristina Lemorini of La Sapienza, University of Rome, and Dr. Ofer Marder of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-03/afot-pst031915.php

"The Campanian Ignimbrite (CI) eruption in Italy 40,000 years ago was one of the largest volcanic cataclysms in Europe and injected a significant amount of sulfur-dioxide (SO2) into the stratosphere. Scientists have long debated whether this eruption contributed to the final extinction of the Neanderthals. This new study by Benjamin A. Black and colleagues tests this hypothesis with a sophisticated climate model.
Black and colleagues write that the CI eruption approximately coincided with the final decline of Neanderthals as well as with dramatic territorial and cultural advances among anatomically modern humans. Because of this, the roles of climate, hominin competition, and volcanic sulfur cooling and acid deposition have been vigorously debated as causes of Neanderthal extinction.
They point out, however, that the decline of Neanderthals in Europe began well before the CI eruption: "Radiocarbon dating has shown that at the time of the CI eruption, anatomically modern humans had already arrived in Europe, and the range of Neanderthals had steadily diminished. Work at five sites in the Mediterranean indicates that anatomically modern humans were established in these locations by then as well."
"While the precise implications of the CI eruption for cultures and livelihoods are best understood in the context of archaeological data sets," write Black and colleagues, the results of their study quantitatively describe the magnitude and distribution of the volcanic cooling and acid deposition that ancient hominin communities experienced coincident with the final decline of the Neanderthals."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150320112332.htm


"A bone needle from the Neolithic as well as the uncovering of 110-meter fortress wall are some of the latest discoveries made by archaeologists at the medieval Bulgarian fortress known as Asen’s Fortress (Asenova Krepost) in Southern Bulgaria.

Asen’s Fortress located on a high and isolated rock near the southern Bulgarian town of Asenovgrad dates back to the height of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD) and the Asen Dynasty (1185-1256 AD), and is best known for the well preserved 12th-13th century Church of the Holy Mother of God.

For the first time Bulgarian archaeologists led by Rositsa Moreva have excavated the southwestern section of Asen’s Fortress uncovering a 110-meter fortress wall, Ivan Dukov, director of the Asenovgrad Museum of History, has told the Bulgarian National Radio.

While the most impressive finds from different time periods discovered over the past year at Asen’s Fortress are to be presented to the public next week, Dukov has revealed some of them in advance. In the same interview, he has also revealed some of the finds discovered in the excavations of the nearby Upper Voden Fortress."
http://archaeologyinbulgaria.com/2015/03/19/archaeologists-unearth-neolithic-bone-needle-100-meter-fortress-wall-at-medieval-bulgarian-fortress/

 

Here we go again...

"Egypt’s oldest pyramid was built almost 5,000 years ago but a similar structure hidden beneath rubble could be up to four times older.
If true, the claim could rewrite prehistory and shed light on an obscure yet powerful and advanced ancient civilisation.
Geologist Dr Danny Hilman believes that a site in West Java is revered because it hides an ancient temple built between 9,000 and 20,000 years ago.
The Megalithic site of Gunung Padang was discovered in 1914 and is the largest site of its kind in Indonesia.
It is nestled among volcanoes, banana palms and tea plantations, at 2,903 ft (885 metres) above sea level some 75 miles (120km) south of Jakarta.
Chunks of volcanic rubble jut out up from the stepped hillside, which is considered sacred by the Sundanese people who live locally.
Geologist Dr Danny Hilman believes the site is culturally important is because it is an ancient pyramid which was built between 9,000 and 20,000 years ago.
He suggests that it may have been built for worship or astronomy.
If the structure in West Java is revealed to be a 20,000-year-old pyramid, it will be the oldest on Earth.
In 1996, archaeologists discovered pyramids on the Atlantic coast of southern Brazil that sate to around 3,000 BC, making them a few hundred years older than Egypt's oldest pyramid.
But both civilisations built them for religious reasons.
The Brazilian pyramids are made from shells and were probably built in phases over decades or even centuries, The Independent reported.
For years, experts thought the pyramids were simply piles of domestic rubbish.
Egypt’s oldest known pyramid is the step pyramid of Djoser, which was built in around 2,700 BC.
It was built by a master builder called Imhotep for the burial of Pharaoh Djoser and is composed of six steps.
the ancient structure was rocked by a pyramid in 1992, leaving it unstable with a large hole in its domed roof, but restoration is underway.
If this is true, prehistoric people would have had to manoeuvre chunks of volcanic rock onto terraces built on the mountainside and stack them on top of each other to create a pyramid – a considerable feat of ancient engineering."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3021547/Is-hillside-hiding-world-s-oldest-pyramid-Ancient-structure-Indonesia-20-000-years-old.html#ixzz3W6wgt5DB



Notice the use of the "r" word.
"Almost 20,000 years ago a woman was buried deep within a cave on the Iberian peninsula, stained in sparkling red paint and adorned in yellow flowers.
Her grave provides the first evidence of an ancient Magdalenian burial in the region and an engraved stone found near her remains appears to have been a makeshift tombstone.
But the reasons why the female - dubbed 'The Red Lady of El Mirón' - was buried in such an elaborate tomb, close to an area where her peers would have lived day-to-day, continues to baffle archaeologists.
During the Upper Paleolithic period the Magdalenian culture occupied much of western Europe and spanned from as early as 10,000 BC.
Magdalenian hunters lived in caves, but sites have been found that consisted of shelters made from bones and animals skins.
The Red Lady's remains were first uncovered in 2010 during excavations of such a cave called El Mirón Cave in Cantabria between Santander and Bilbao.
After discovering a range of individual bones, researchers from the University of New Mexico led by Lawrence Straus, unearthed a mandible and tibia that suggested a full skeleton was placed towards the rear of the cave.

Radiocarbon dating suggests this burial took place 18,700 years ago and that the female was aged between 35 and 40 when she was entombed.
She was 'robust, relatively tall, [and] apparently healthy', explained the researchers, and would have lived in the 'cold, open environment of Oldest Dryas.
Herself and her peers would have used stone tools, needles made from bones and projectile tips fashioned from the antlers of the deer and the cave would have been used for shelter and living quarters.
They would have hunted for ibex and red deer, fished for salmon and ate plants, including some seeds and mushrooms.
When the remains were first uncovered they were stained with a sparking red material, later found to be red ochre from a haematite crystal. This has since faded.
Haematite comes from the Greek word for 'blood' and it is often used as a pigment, particularly in cave paintings.
It is not known why the Red Lady was painted in this way, and the researchers are unsure whether her body or clothes were covered in the pigment.
However, they have speculated it was likely a burial ritual. "
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3021243/Mystery-Red-Lady-El-Mir-n-19-000-year-old-bones-stained-sparkling-blood-like-paint-baffle-archaeologists.html#ixzz3W6tRCQ32

 

Sheese...
"The world’s oldest tools – made by ancestors of modern humans some 3.3 million years ago – have been found in Kenya.

Stones had been deliberately “knapped” or flaked to make a sharp cutting edge, researchers said, according to Science magazine.

They are about 700,000 years older than the previous record holder and are likely to have been made by Australopithecus, an ape-like ancestor of Homo sapiens, or another species, Kenyanthropus.

Archaeologist Sonia Harmand, of New York’s Stony Brook University, told the annual meeting of the US Paleoanthropology Society: “The artefacts were clearly knapped and not the result of accidental fracture of rocks.”

About 150 flakes, the stones they were taken from and anvils on which the stones were placed while they were struck were found near Lake Turkana in Kenya.

In 2010, researchers in Dikika in Ethopia said they had found cut marks on animal bones that were 3.4 million years old, but their claim that this showed the use of tools was disputed.

The Homo genus is thought to have begun about 2.5 million years ago. Homo sapiens are thought to have evolved about 200,000 years ago.

Alison Brooks, an anthropologist at George Washington University in Washington state, said the discovery of the tools was “very exciting”.

“They could not have been created by natural forces… [and] the dating evidence is fairly solid,” she said."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/news/tools-found-near-lake-turkana-in-kenya-are-worlds-oldest-10180148.html

 

"Trade was taking place between East Asia and the New World hundreds of years before Christopher Columbus arrived in the area in 1492.
This is according to a series of bronze artefacts found at the 'Rising Whale' site in Cape Espenberg, Alaska.
Archaeologists discovered what they believe to be a bronze and leather buckle and a bronze whistle, dating to around A.D. 600.
Bronze-working had not been developed at this time in Alaska, and researchers instead believe the artefacts were created in China, Korea or Yakutia.
'We're seeing the interactions, indirect as they are, with these so-called 'high civilisations' of China, Korea or Yakutia,' Owen Mason, a research associate at the University of Colorado, told LiveScience.
'As a result, these two artefacts give the best and least ambiguous evidence to date that non-ferrous industrial smelted metals were arriving in Alaska via prehistoric trade across the Bering Strait."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3044284/How-Columbus-beaten-Chinese-Bronze-artefacts-suggest-East-Asia-traded-New-World-2-600-years-ago.html#ixzz3XcesOjHz

 

"Analysis of ancient cadavers recovered at a famous archaeological site confirm the existence of a sophisticated culture of butchering and carving human remains, according to a team of scientists from the Natural History Museum, University College London, and a number of Spanish universities.
Gough's Cave in Somerset was thought to have given up all its secrets when excavations ended in 1992, yet research on human bones from the site has continued in the decades since. After its discovery in the 1880s, the site was developed as a show cave and largely emptied of sediment, at times with minimal archaeological supervision. The excavations uncovered intensively-processed human bones intermingled with abundant butchered large mammal remains and a diverse range of flint, bone, antler, and ivory artefacts.
New radiocarbon techniques have revealed remains were deposited over a very short period of time, possibly during a series of seasonal occupations, about 14,700 years ago."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150416093928.htm

 

I'm going to refrain from the obvious jokes here.
"It was a gruesome death that is the stuff of most people's nightmares.
Now scientists have identified the unfortunate individual whose bones were found fused to the walls of a cave in Lamalunga, near Altamura, in southern Italy.
Using analysis of DNA extracted from the bones sticking out from the limestone rock, researchers have found he was a Neanderthal who fell down a sinkhole around 150,000 years ago.
Wedged in the narrow space and probably badly injured, he is thought to have starved to death.
Over the thousands of years that followed, the body decayed and the remaining bones gradually became incorporated into the stalactites left behind by water dribbling down the cave walls.
The DNA is the oldest to ever be extracted from a Neanderthal and the researchers now hope to further analyse the genetic information from the skeleton."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3046838/Now-S-caveman-Neanderthal-fell-sinkhole-150-000-years-ago-starved-death-FUSED-walls.html#ixzz3Xu0Mete7

 

"YAROSLAVL, RUSSIA—Analysis of a fragment taken from a saber found in a mass grave in the historic trade center of Yaroslavl indicates it is the oldest crucible steel weapon in Eastern Europe. Steel of this kind was first produced in India in the first century A.D., and later in Central Asia, but it was very expensive during the medieval period. The grave, located alongside the Dormition Cathedral, holds the remains of people slaughtered during the invasion of the city by Batu Khan in 1238. “The site contains comprehensive evidence of the atrocity committed that day. We found numerous skeletons of murdered women and children, many household objects like dishes, jewelry, many weapons, and this saber,” Asya Engovatova of the Russian Academy of Sciences said in a press release."
http://www.archaeology.org/news/3221-150420-russia-yaroslavl-steel

 

Something a bit different from Europe etc-
"Some six million years ago, in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean, volcanic activity bubbling up from deep beneath the Earth’s crust formed Kauai, the most ancient of Hawaii’s major islands. Over time, volcanoes dotting the island spewed magma that cooled and turned to igneous rock, forming steep mountains. Rainwater flowed down the mountains, and, as that runoff reached the Mahaulepu Valley on the island’s southeast coast, it encountered fossilized sand dunes, where, through a process called dissolution, a network of caves was formed.

For more than 100,000 years, groundwater seeped in and eroded the limestone. Some 7,000 years ago, the sea encroached and a large portion of the ceiling of one of these caves collapsed, leaving behind a vast oval, mostly open to the sky and filled with brackish water that didn’t dry up until the middle of the twentieth century. It also created what would turn out to be a unique and fortuitous set of conditions that preserved a long, dramatic story of geological change and biological invasions, and of the waves of humans that successively altered the island in radical ways. Paleoecologists and archaeologists working there, surrounded by the high, ancient limestone walls, are beginning to read that record.

Wedged in a crease of hills just above a long white-sand beach favored by sailboarders, the sinkhole sits in a setting so picturesque that Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow leaped off the lip of one of its high cliffs in the recent Pirates of the Caribbean movie On Stranger Tides. There, everything from a 352,000-year-old lava flow to a Styrofoam cup washed in during a recent hurricane has been preserved. For the past quarter century, husband-and-wife paleoecologists David Burney and Lida Pigott Burney, along with dozens of colleagues and volunteers, have been digging down through the black mud that fills the sinkhole. There they have uncovered millions of fossils—in fact, the site, referred to as Makauwahi Cave, may be the richest fossil site in the entire Pacific region. The upper levels contain thousands of artifacts, ranging from animal bones to stone tools and carved wood, all of which were washed, blown, or thrown into the cave. But despite the richness of the site in terms of the evidence, Burney doesn’t need expensive drilling equipment or a massive dig project to plumb the site’s secrets. “It’s the poor man’s time machine,” he says. Small trowels, a very good water pump to keep groundwater under control, and wood-framed screens, along with a great deal of tenacity, are all that’s required."
http://archaeology.org/issues/177-1505/letter-from/3144-letter-from-hawaii-kauai-caves

 

Some interesting stuff here.
""Archaeologists believe first stone circle to be found on Devon moorland for 100 years lends weight to idea of liaison between communities there 5,000 years ago
The highest stone circle in southern England has been found on a weather-battered slice of moorland in Devon.
Situated 525 metres (1,722ft) above sea level, the ancient site is the first stone circle to be found on Dartmoor for more than a century.
The circle is the second largest on the moor and archaeologists believe it was probably part of a “sacred arc” of circles around the north-eastern edge.
Its discovery adds weight to the theory that there was some kind of planning and liaison between the communities living on Dartmoor in the late Neolithic/early Bronze Age 4,000 to 5,000 years ago.
Many stone circles were prodded and probed in Victorian times and before, so the opportunity to apply modern scientific methods to a previously unexamined one is particularly exciting. "
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/11/highest-stone-circle-in-southern-england-found-on-dartmoor

"You will not find the archaeological site of Trollesgave on the World Heritage Site list. In its own small way, however, its significance to understanding prehistoric life more than 12,000 years ago in what is today Denmark belies its outward appearance. Scientists who recently examined the site’s artifacts can tell you why.
[SIZE=medium]Located on a sandy plateau near a lake in Denmark, Trollesgave represents evidence of human occupation identified with the Bromme Culture[/SIZE], a Late Paleolithic hunter-gatherer culture that extended across present-day Denmark, southern Sweden, northern Germany, possibly parts of England and Poland, and likely in once-dry areas now covered by the Baltic and North Seas. The Bromme’s typical stone tool markers consist of flint flakes, blades, burins and scrapers that were used for cutting meat, working bones, and working hides, among other uses. They hunted reindeer, moose, wolverine and beaver.
[SIZE=medium]And they lived as families."[/SIZE]
http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/spring-2015/article/the-nuclear-family-of-prehistoric-denmark

[SIZE=12.0036001205444px]"FAIRBANKS - At the edge of a spruce forest in Interior Alaska, archaeologists have unearthed bone pendants that might be the first examples of artwork in northern North America.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12.0036001205444px]During the last two summers, teams led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Ben Potter have expanded the breadth of the Mead Site, a white spruce bench that overlooks Shaw Creek Flats north of Delta Junction. Within the boundaries of the Mead Site, researchers have found what they believe are tent outlines. Inside the oval of what was probably a hide-covered structure 12,300 years ago, a student working with a trowel found a tiny bone pendant with delicate crosshatching on the edge.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=15.0015001296997px]“It made my heart stop when I saw it,” Potter said at a lecture recently at the UA Museum of the North in Fairbanks."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=15.0015001296997px]FAIRBANKS - At the edge of a spruce forest in Interior Alaska, archaeologists have unearthed bone pendants that might be the first examples of artwork in northern North America.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12.0036001205444px]During the last two summers, teams led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Ben Potter have expanded the breadth of the Mead Site, a white spruce bench that overlooks Shaw Creek Flats north of Delta Junction. Within the boundaries of the Mead Site, researchers have found what they believe are tent outlines. Inside the oval of what was probably a hide-covered structure 12,300 years ago, a student working with a trowel found a tiny bone pendant with delicate crosshatching on the edge.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=15.0015001296997px]“It made my heart stop when I saw it,” Potter said at a lecture recently at the UA Museum of the North in Fairbanks.[/SIZE]

 

"The oldest stone tools have been discovered by archaeologists in Kenya who say they are 3.3m years old – about 700,000 years older than the previous most ancient stone implements.



More than 100 primitive hammers, anvils and other stone artefacts have been unearthed in the desert hills bordering the western shores of Lake Turkana in the Kenyan Rift Valley in a discovery that the researchers claim “marks a new beginning to the known archaeological record”.
The discovery undermines the argument that making stone tools was a defining characteristic of the direct human lineage leading to the emergence of Homo sapiens because it required a unique combination of manual dexterity and cognitive ability.
The stone tools predate the earliest known members of the Homo genus by about half a million years, suggesting that the implements were made by another species of “hominin” – the non-ape human tribe – which may or may not have been one of our direct ancestors, scientists said."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/new-beginning-to-the-known-archaeological-record-as-oldest-stone-tools-ever-discovered-found-in-kenya-10264779.html

 

The "homo" refers to the ability to make and use tools...always been a thorn in my side as its a weird way of categorising...especially as we know many animals use tools...basic but tools non-the-less.

 

That is big news, Gordon 700K years is huge.

 

Chimps not only use tools but they make them. I seem to recall that there may even be cases of them making stone tools but certainly they have been known to make wooden ones.

 

It's a wonder they've only just been found?

"Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of 60 large houses built 8,000 years ago as part of a Neolithic village, in south west Bulgaria.
Thought to be built by farmers, the town has three parallel streets with homes spread over five acres (215,278 square ft or 20,000 square metres).
The village also features a canal, a port for boats and an unusual cemetery.
Excavation of the site, located near the town of Mursalevo, is underway and has so far yielded pottery and jewellery as well as the fascinating buildings.

It came to light as work began on the construction of the Struma Highway – a main road intended to link the Bulgarian capital Sofia, with the Kulata Crossing on the border with Greece.
Archaeologists from the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences have unearthed prehistoric houses that would have stood 26 feet (eight metres) tall with two sloped roofs, Archaeology in Bulgaria reported.
Experts believe that the well-planned town, built between two gullies on the bank of the Struma River and consisting of 60 houses, was home to the earliest European civilisation."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3093131/Neolithic-village-hidden-beneath-Bulgaria-8-000-year-old-rows-streets-two-storey-houses-unearthed.html

 

" rock shelter in the Weld Range provides evidence of the oldest human occupation in the Mid-West region of Western Australia, a research project partnered between The University of Western Australia and Wajarri Traditional Owners has discovered.
Funded by the Commonwealth Government and in collaboration with Wajarri heritage company Ethical Engagement Consultancy, the research project ‘Weld Range Web of Knowledge’ found new evidence to suggest that ancestors of Wajarri Native Title claimants have been present in the Mid-West region for more than 30,000 years.

Samples for radiocarbon dating were collected by Wajarri Traditional Owners and archaeologists from UWA during an excavation at a Weld Range Aboriginal site 50 kilometres northwest of Cue township in May last year.

The Weld Range is home to the extraordinary and national heritage listed site of Wilgie Mia Aboriginal Ochre Mine and the area's rich and diverse archaeological record has a high cultural significance to Wajarri Traditional Owners and neighbouring groups who maintain cultural links to the area.

Wajarri Elder Colin Hamlett said it was exciting to confirm that Wajarri had been living in the Mid-West for 30,000 years from charcoal associated with stone artefacts at the Yalibirri Mindi rock shelter."
http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201506047671/research/evidence-oldest-human-occupation-mid-west-discovered

"Archaeologists at the University of Southampton have found evidence of an ancient gold trade route between the south-west of the UK and Ireland. A study suggests people were trading gold between the two countries as far back as the early Bronze Age (2500BC).
The research, in collaboration with the University of Bristol, used a new technique to measure the chemical composition of some of the earliest gold artefacts in Ireland. Findings show the objects were actually made from imported gold, rather than Irish. Furthermore, this gold is most likely to have come from Cornwall."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-06/uos-ade060515.php

 

"A stretch of floodplain in northwestern Oklahoma, already known for its profusion of prehistoric hunting sites, has turned up new find: a scatter of butchered bison bones dating back nearly 11,500 years — extending the evidence of bison hunting in the area by centuries, archaeologists say.

The find includes nearly three dozen pieces of leg, foot, and back bones from ancient bison, and two stone tools: a quartzite hammerstone and a small, sharp flake fashioned from Texas chert.

Together, these artifacts lend new depth to the already ample record of ancient hunts — including three bison-kill sites that are even older — in a region of the southern Plains known as the Beaver River complex.

“The Beaver River complex is unique, because it is revisited numerous times during the Paleoindian period, and so much has been preserved for our research,” said Dr. Kristen Carlson, a University of Oklahoma archaeologist.

The latest find was made on a narrow bench of land between two arroyos by Carlson’s colleague, Dr. Leland Bement, while surveying previously discovered bison-kill sites nearby.

The three other sites in the complex are all found within a range of just 700 meters along the Beaver River, Bement noted, and the oldest of them is more than 12,000 years old, dating to the era of the widespread Clovis culture."
http://westerndigs.org/11500-year-old-bison-butchering-site-discovered-in-oklahoma/

 

Haven't had any archaeological goodies for a while, so...
"The discovery of an Iron Age settlement has forced a re-think of the early history of the south of Scotland.
Archaeologists believe that the group of round houses found in Dumfries and Galloway date back to the fifth century BC.
It proves that people lived in Wigtownshire long before Ninian set up a church at Whithorn in 397AD.
Local volunteers have joined experts in a three-week long excavation of the site at Black Loch of Myrton.
Julia Muir-Watt, of the Whithorn Trust, said the discovery of the round houses has had a significant impact on the accepted history of the region.
She said: "We are looking at a complete re-writing really of the early history of Whithorn and indeed southern Scotland.
"We think there is a very different history to the way Christianity came to southern Scotland.
"We originally thought that Ninian came to an empty area where he founded a church and now we think there was a strong native community, potentially a high status secular site where Christianity came because people converted.
"And so we're very interested in finding out about the peoples who lived here long before the Christian period."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-33505531

 

Funnily enough, was out for a run in the car on Sunday there with my son and we passed the reconstructed crannog at the Scottish Crannog Centre at Loch Tay, Perthshire-
"An ancient lakeside fortress older than the Pyramids has been uncovered on a new housing estate - and archaeologists believe it is one of the world's oldest known boat building communities.
The wooden fort was built on stilts standing over a long-vanished Ice Age lake 4,800 years ago to defend against marauding tribes.
Radiocarbon dating of the timbers reveal the fortified farmstead at Monmouth, South Wales, was built in 2917 BC - making it 300 years older than the Pyramids at Giza.
The Neolithic fort on stilts was known as a crannog and was built far from the shore of the lake on a manmade island to make it harder to attack.
It is only the second crannog to be discovered in England and Wales but is older than the only other example on Llangorse Lake in the Brecon Beacons by 2,000 years.
Archaeologist Stephen Clarke MBE, who founded Monmouth Archaeology, said: 'This is surely one of the most stunning of prehistoric discoveries.
'An exceptional feature is that the construction was based on three massive parallel 'sleeper beams' - timbers roughly hewn from complete trees set in the ground horizontally.
'One of these timbers is a metre wide and all of them seem to have been from full-grown trees.
'Most of the known long houses were based on posts.'"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3169264/Wooden-fortress-older-PYRAMIDS-unearthed-housing-estate-Crannog-built-boat-building-community-dates-5-000-years.html#ixzz3gWo5rOGW

 

"Hojjat Darabi said on Monday the results obtained from speculation and exploration operations carried out in Mahtaj Hill of Behbahan in Khuzestan Province which includes the earliest evidence on farming and animal husbandry in this region indicates the existence of a nine-thousand-year-old Pre-Pottery settlement in Behbahan.

Mahtaj Hill, located to the northwest of Behbahan, was registered as a Pre-Pottery Neolithic site last year following the archaeological research conducted by Abbas Moghadam.

All the site’s surface has been flattened and very little remains of the lower layers of the settlement, said Darabi.

“The findings mostly include stone tools such as grindstone and its handle which shows that producing and processing of vegetarian food played an important role in the livelihood of Mahtaj Hill inhabitants," said the Iranian archaeologist. "
http://en.mehrnews.com/news/108979/Signs-of-9000-year-old-settlement-found-in-Behbahan