Archaeologists to Drill in Bexley for Evidence of Ancient Occupation

Archaeologists from Durham University will be returning to a London borough site where a 19th century historian once found flint tools and animal bones.

This time, however, the latest sonic drilling equipment will be used to take samples from the earth, for the ongoing Ancient Human Occupation of Britain II project (AHOB).

Initial drillings were carried out at Holmscroft Open Space in September 2007 by the archaeologists, who are looking at human occupation of the country right from the first people who lived here about 700,000 years ago, up to the end of the last Ice Age, roughly 8,800 years ago..........

24 Hour Museum News

Cannibalism May Have Wiped Out Neanderthals

A Neanderthal-eat-Neanderthal world may have spread a mad cow-like disease that weakened and reduced populations of the large Eurasian human, thereby contributing to its extinction, according to a new theory based on cannibalism that took place in more recent history..........

Discovery News

Centuries-old May Blue mystery finally solved

Anthropologists from Wheaton College (Illinois) and The Field Museum have discovered how the ancient Maya produced an unusual and widely studied blue pigment that was used in offerings, pottery, murals and other contexts across Mesoamerica from about A.D. 300 to 1500..........

EurekAlert

Royals weren't only builders of Maya temples, archaeologist finds

An intrepid archaeologist is well on her way to dislodging the prevailing assumptions of scholars about the people who built and used Maya temples.

From the grueling work of analyzing the “attributes,” the nitty-gritty physical details of six temples in Yalbac, a Maya center in the jungle of central Belize – and a popular target for antiquities looters – primary investigator Lisa Lucero is building her own theories about the politics of temple construction that began nearly two millennia ago.

Her findings from the fill, the mortar and other remnants of jungle-wrapped structures lead her to believe that kings weren’t the only people building or sponsoring Late Classic period temples (from about 550 to 850), the stepped pyramids that rose like beacons out of the southern lowlands as early as 300 B.C..........

News Bureau

Oldest Urban Site in the Americas Found, Experts Claim

A circular plaza found under an existing archaeological site in Peru could be the oldest known human-made complex in the New World, experts report..........

National Geographic News

Human Culture Subject to Natural Selection, Stanford Study Shows

The process of natural selection can act on human culture as well as on genes, a new study finds.

Scientists at Stanford University have shown for the first time that cultural traits affecting survival and reproduction evolve at a different rate than other cultural attributes..........

EurekAlert

Satellites Spot Lost Guatemalan Mayan Temples

Ancient Mayan astronomers aligned their soaring temples with the stars and now modern archaeologists have found the ruins of hidden cities in the Guatemalan jungle by peering down from space.

archaeologists and NASA scientists began teaming up five years ago to search for clues about the mysterious collapse of the Mayan civilization that flourished in Central America and southern Mexico for 1,000 years..........

Reuters

Mysterious Pyramid Complex Discovered in Peru

The remnants of at least ten pyramids have been discovered on the coast of Peru, marking what could be a vast ceremonial site of an ancient, little-known culture, archaeologists say. In January construction crews working in the province of Piura discovered several truncated pyramids and a large adobe platform. Officials from Peru's National Institute of Culture (INC) were dispatched to inspect the discovery. They announced that the complex, which is 2 miles (3.2 km) long and 1 mile (1.6 km) wide, belonged to the ancient Vicús culture and was likely either a religious center or a cemetery for nobility..........

Archaeo News