EurekAlert! - Archaeology

New evidence from earliest known human settlement in the Americas

Thu, 08 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Vanderbilt University) New evidence from the Monte Verde archaeological site in southern Chile confirms its status as the earliest known human settlement in the Americas and provides additional support for the theory that one early migration route followed the Pacific Coast more than 14,000 years ago.

X-rays power discoveries at Chicago's Field Museum

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Field Museum) Digital medical imaging and information technology is helping The Field Museum discover and analyze secrets hidden within its world-class collections. A computed radiography system enables the museum—for the first time—to capture, archive and share digital x-ray images from more than one million priceless artifacts in its Anthropology collection. The museum is also using a picture archiving and communications system (PACS) to manage, view and store the growing collection of digital images.

Sunflower debate ends in Mexico, researchers say

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Florida State University) Ancient farmers were growing sunflowers in Mexico more than 4,000 years before the Spaniards arrived, according to a team of researchers that includes Florida State University anthropologist Mary D. Pohl.

Ancient sunflower fuels debate about agriculture in the Americas

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Cincinnati) Lentz and his fellow researchers have documented archaeological, linguistic, ethnographic and ethnohistoric data demonstrating that the sunflower had entered the repertoire of Mexican domesticates by 2600 B.C., that its cultivation was widespread in Mexico and extended as far south as El Salvador by the first millennium B.C., that it was well known to the Aztecs, and that it is still in use by traditional Mesoamerican cultures today.

Shell-breaking crabs lived 20 million years earlier than thought

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Cornell University Communications) While waiting for colleagues at a small natural history museum in the state of Chiapas, Mexico last year, Cornell paleontologist Greg Dietl chanced upon a discovery that has helped rewrite the evolutionary history of crabs and the shelled mollusks upon which they preyed.

Synchrotron light unveils oil in ancient Buddhist paintings from Bamiyan

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(European Synchrotron Radiation Facility) The world was in shock when in 2001 the Talibans destroyed two ancient Buddha statues in Afghanistan. Behind them, there are caves decorated with precious paintings from 5th to 9th century A.D. The caves also suffered from destruction but today they have become the source of a major discovery. Scientists have proved, thanks to experiments at the ESRF, that the paintings were made of oil, hundreds of years before the technique was "invented" in Europe.

Tip sheet for International Seismology Research Conference

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Seismological Society of America) Excavating for clues to past earthquakes, tracking extreme ocean storms, glimpsing past Soviet nuclear testing, and more discussed as seismologists gather in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Unearthing clues of catastrophic earthquakes

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Seismological Society of America) The destruction and disappearance of ancient cultures mark the history of human civilization, making for fascinating stories and cautionary tales. The longevity of today's societies may depend upon separating fact from fiction, and archeologists and seismologists are figuring out how to join forces to do just that with respect to ancient earthquakes, as detailed in new studies presented at the international conference of the Seismological Society of America.

Plan brokered by UCLA, USC archaeologists would remove roadblock to Mideast peace

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Southern California) Two professors, one from USC and another at UCLA, led a group of Israeli and Palestinian archaeologists over the course of five years to draft a plan that covers the fate of the antiquities, and the sacred places, in the event of a two-state solution. They are hoping to remove these treasures from the political arena and remove a potential roadblock on the path to peace.

Ancient DNA: reconstruction of the biological history of Aldaieta necropolis

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Elhuyar Fundazioa) A research team from the Department of Genetics, Physical Anthropology & Animal Physiology in the Faculty of Science and Technology at the Leioa campus of the University of the Basque Country, and led by Ms. Concepción de la Rúa, has reconstructed the history of the evolution of human population and answered questions about history, using DNA extracted from skeleton remains.

Keeping African artifacts in Africa

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Calgary) University of Calgary researcher Julio Mercader, along with University of Boston Ph.D. student Arianna Fogelman have established the first museum of its kind in Mozambique which will officially open in August. The Museu Local aims to be an interactive cultural heritage center and is supported by the Smithsonian Institution.

NYU dental professor discovers biological clock linking tooth growth to other metabolic processes

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(New York University) NYU dental professor Dr. Timothy Bromage discovered the rhythm while observing incremental growth lines in tooth enamel, which appear much like the annual rings on a tree. He also observed a related pattern of incremental growth in skeletal bone tissue -- the first time such an incremental rhythm has ever been observed in bone.

Russian-American research team examines origins of whaling culture

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Alaska Fairbanks) Recent findings by a Russian-American research team suggest that prehistoric cultures were hunting whales at least 3,000 years ago, 1,000 years earlier than was previously known.

The voyage to America

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Copenhagen) A team of researchers led by Danish professor Eske Willerslev shows that the ancestors of the North American Indians who came from Asia were the first people in America, and that they were of neither European nor African descent. It also shows that immigration to North America took place approximately 1,000 years earlier than assumed. These findings call for a revision of our understanding of the early immigration route to the American continent.

Researchers, led by UO archaeologist, find pre-Clovis human DNA

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Oregon) DNA from dried human excrement recovered from Oregon's Paisley Caves is the oldest found yet in the New World -- dating to 14,300 years ago, some 1,200 years before Clovis culture -- and provides apparent genetic ties to Siberia or Asia, according to an international team of 13 scientists.

Were Assyrian rulers the forefathers of today's CEOs?

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(American Friends of Tel Aviv University) Tel Aviv University archaeologists find ancient Jerusalem may be a model for today's corporations.

From bones to berserkers -- Vikings under the spotlight

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Nottingham) Viking experts will be gathering at the University of Nottingham to discuss the findings of latest research into the Norsemen.

Corn's roots dig deeper into South America

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Calgary) In a paper published in the March 24 advanced online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U of C Ph.D. student Sonia Zarrillo and archaeology professor Scott Raymond report that a new technique for examining ancient cooking pots has produced the earliest directly dated examples of domesticated corn (maize) being consumed on the South American continent.

Texas A&M scientists say early Americans arrived earlier

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Texas A&M University) A team led by two Texas A&M University anthropologists now believes the first Americans came to this country 1,000 to 2,000 years earlier than the 13,500 years ago previously thought, which could shift historic timelines.

Good luck indeed: 53 million-year-old rabbit's foot bones found

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions) One day last spring, fossil hunter and anatomy professor Kenneth Rose, Ph.D., was displaying the bones of a jackrabbit's foot as part of a seminar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine when something about the shape of the bones looked oddly familiar.

Floating a big idea: MIT demos ancient use of rafts to transport goods

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Oceangoing sailing rafts plied the waters of the equatorial Pacific long before Europeans arrived in the Americas, and carried trade goods for thousands of miles all the way from modern-day Chile to western Mexico, according to new findings by MIT researchers in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Tell them where it hurts

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(National Science Foundation) For statues, stress injuries come from standing in place for hundreds of years. Using a novel technique, researchers have now developed a way to predict such fracturing, applying the procedure to Michelangelo's David in an analysis that proved simpler, faster and more accurate than previous methods. In applying the technique to other objects -- including human bones -- the researchers are also gaining new perspective on how these structures are likely to fail.

Clovis-age overkill didn't take out California's flightless sea duck

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Oregon) Clovis-age natives, often noted for overhunting during their brief dominance in a primitive North America, deserve clemency in the case of California's flightless sea duck. New evidence says it took thousands of years for the duck to die out.

FSU classics professor exploring a 'lost' city of the Mycenaeans

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Florida State University) Along an isolated, rocky stretch of Greek shoreline, a Florida State University researcher and his students are unlocking the secrets of a partially submerged, "lost" harbor town believed to have been built by the ancient Mycenaeans nearly 3,500 years ago.

World's top scholars come to Rice to discuss Judas

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Rice University) This week Rice University will host 30 world-renowned international religious studies experts as they examine the newly found Tchacos Codex that contains the Gospel of Judas, the Apocalypse of James, the Letter of Peter to Philip and a fragment of Allogenes and Satan. The Codex Judas Congress, March 13-16, is the first opportunity the scholars will have to investigate photographs of the entire original text, discuss it with their peers and present their findings.