Clue to the Origins of the Chinese Discovered?

Chinese archaeologists are hailing their biggest discovery in almost 80 years after unearthing a skull that could provide a clue to the origins of a fifth of the world's population. The fossilised skull, named Xuchang Man after the city where it was found, is thought to date back 80,000 to 100,000 years, to a period that has long been a mystery to scientists..........

Guardian Unlimited

Discovery of Divinity Worship at Altar of Zeus Predates Traditional Thinking

Ancient pottery found at an altar used by ancient Greeks to worship Zeus was actually in use at least a millennium earlier, new archeological data suggest.
The pottery shards were discovered during an excavation last summer near the top of Mt. Lykaion in southern Greece.
The finding, which dates back to 3000 B.C., indicates that the tradition of divinity worship on the site is very ancient and may even pre-date the introduction of Zeus into the Greek world, said David Gilman Romano, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and co-director of the excavation project..........

Live Science

Important First Temple Seal Uncovered in Ancient City of David

A stone seal bearing the name of one of the families who acted as servants in the First Temple and then returned to Jerusalem after being exiled to Babylonia has been uncovered in an archeological excavation in Jerusalem's City of David, a prominent Israeli archaeologist said Wednesday..........

ArchNews

Rare Egyptian Middle Class Tomb Discovered

Archaeologists have unsealed the intact burial chamber of an ancient Egyptian official, providing a rare glimpse into the burial customs of the Old Kingdom's middle class..........

National Geographic News

Ancient Maya Marketplace Discovery May Up-end Conventional Views

Coaxing answers from 1500-year-old clues hidden in soil clumps, BYU environmental scientists identified a marketplace in an ancient Maya city, calling into question archaeologists' widely held belief that people of the era relied on rulers to tax and re-distribute goods, rather than trading them with one another..........

Deseret Morning News

Ancient Fortress Discovered in Peru

A new archaeological fortress, known as Manco Pata, was discovered in the town of Kimbiri (Cusco), located in the Apurímac-Ene River Valley (VRAE), announced the mayor of the town, Guillermo Torres.

In his statements, he pointed out that the fortress was located in the rural community “Unión Vista Alegre”, of the village of Lobo Tahuantinsuyo, and covers an area of 40,000 square meters.

Last December 29, after clearing the area of brush, beautiful and enigmatic structures built of large stones were found. They were perfectly cut and formed high walls.

Considering the findings, the mayor explained that this fortress could be part of the lost citadel of Paititi, which is the name for a kind of Inca or pre-Inca lost city-state..........

LivinginPeru.com

New Intact Tomb Discovery in Egypt

It’s not everyday that archaeologists can boast a discovery such as this one: the finding of a fully-intact archaeological site dating back 4,500 years. That is exactly what happened in the pyramid fields of Abusir, Egypt, where Czech experts recently opened a tomb belonging to an Egyptian dignitary..........

Radio Prague

New Pharaonic Mummy

Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities has stated that the mummy
which had been unearthed at farms in the governorate of Al-Fayoum is
Pharohnic and priceless. A council's committee said that the mummy
belonged to an important figure in the Pharaohnic age..........

Egypt State Information Service

200,000 Year-Old Human Hunting Remains in Carmel Mountains

According to University of Haifa researchers, these activities show that as early as the middle period of the Early Stone Age - about a quarter of a million years ago - people with modern hunting capabilities lived in the Carmel region.

The ability to hunt large animals, choose the most suitable cuts of meat for consumption and grill them is behavior that serves to differentiate between Homo sapiens and earlier forms of human life.

It is possible that one of the most ancient testimonies to the existence of a human population with modern behavior patterns has been found in the Misliya caves of the Carmel..........

Haaretz

Chocolate Used Since 1,900 BCE

Kennesaw State University Professor Terry Powis led a research group that determined man first used of chocolate about 1,900 BCE, about 700 years earlier than expected. Almost 4,000 years ago, residents of hot and humid Central America probably served chocolate, which comes from the beans of the cacao tree, as a cold beverage with different flavors, Powis said. Powis, an assistant professor of anthropology, spent three weeks in a Chiapas, Mexico lab gathering samples from ceramic jars and bowls that date from 1,900 BCE to 1,500 BCE The research from Powis' team appeared in the December edition of 'Antiquity.' Michael Coe, a retired Yale University professor of anthropology and co-author of the journal article, said the findings show that chocolate has been used far longer than researchers would have guessed a decade ago. "We now know how very old the chocolate process - turning raw cacao into chocolate - really is," Coe said. The study means that the Mokaya, the earliest sedentary villagers in Mesoamerica, probably drank some form of cold, liquid chocolate from elaborate bowls and jars, Powis said..........

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