IOWA (USA) HAS HUGE SITE OCCUPIED C. 1700 YEARS AGO

Some 1,700 years ago, the people who live in what is known officially as archaeological site 13LA582 west of Oakville, Iowa (USA), were hunter-gatherers who also grew native crops like sunflower seeds. They lived in a doughnut-shaped village around a communal area and occupied 20 to 25 tree branch and bark wigwams capable of housing up to 10 people each.

The group is believed to be part of the Weaver culture located not far from the confluence of the Iowa and Cedar rivers in Louisa County where fish and game were plentiful, said Dave Benn, a research archaeologist. "They ate a huge number of fish, and we also found turtle and deer bones," Benn said of the diet of the people about whom little is known. "They lived well, they ate well, and there was a lot
of food here."

A team of archaeologists toiling under a plastic canopy off Louisa County Road H22 are carefully unearthing remnants of the village from a 10-foot-by-213-foot trench cut right through the middle of it. They are hoping to gain a greater insight into the lives of these prehistoric people who once flourished throughout the region.
"There were villages up and down the banks of rivers all through the area," said Benn. "This one is a particularly good find, probably the best I've seen in a decade." In eight weeks of meticulous digging and cataloging, the site has yielded 100,000 artifacts, Benn said. Many are unrecognizable bone fragments and pottery shards, but there are also stone arrowheads and spear points, stone axe heads and pits laden with ancient trash that give a glimpse of how the village lived.

The digging is expected to wrap up in about a week, said James Ross, an archaeologist for the Army Corps who has been overseeing economic and environmental impact of construction of a new levee. The site was discovered as an archaeological survey was done in anticipation of construction of the levee and is one of only three of its kind known to exist.

"The site will be covered over. We will have all the artifacts, and we will know where everything is. Covering it over will protect everything just as it is," Ross said. The artifacts are expected to find their way to the curator's office of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Iowa, where they could end up in an exhibit open to the public.

Source: Quad-City Times (17 February 2009)
http://tinyurl.com/aeejd6

NEW ACROPOLIS MUSEUM TO OEN IN JUNE

The long-awaited museum where Greece hopes to one day display the Elgin Marbles alongside other ancient masterpieces from the Acropolis will be inaugurated this summer. Culture Minister Antonis Samaras said Friday the opening ceremony will bheld on June 20. Initially, Greece had planned to open the New Acropolis Museum ahead of the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Crouching at the foot of the Acropolis, the new glass and concrete museum is the centerpiece of Greece's campaign for the return of the Elgin — or Parthenon — Marbles from the British Museum in London. The British Museum has repeatedly refused to relinquish the 2,500-year-old sculptures, which formed part of the Parthenon Temple's decoration until Scottish diplomat Lord Elgin removed them to Britain 200 years ago. At the time, Greece was still an unwilling part of the Ottoman Empire. The British Museum argues that it legally acquired the Marbles, which form an integral part of its collection and are easily accessible to visitors from all over the world.

But Greek officials say the 129 million-euro ($166 million) new building will allow all the surviving Parthenon sculptures to be displayed together — with the 5th century B.C. temple appearing as a backdrop through glass walls.

Designed by U.S.-based architect Bernard Tschumi in collaboration with Greece's Michalis Photiadis, the new museum will contain more than 4,000 ancient works in 215,000 square feet (20,000 square meters) of display space. A delicate operation to lift hundreds of statues from an old museum on the Acropolis using cranes was completed in early 2008, prompting officials to promise an opening that September. But the final exhibition blueprint was only approved this week.

The Parthenon was built between 447-432 B.C., at the height of ancient Athens' glory, in honor of Athena, the city's patron goddess. It survived virtually intact until a massive explosion caused by a Venetian cannon shot in 1687, when the Parthenon was being used a gunpowder warehouse by a Turkish garrison.

For a good read see Stealing Athena by Karen Essex, a delightful book based on the history of Mary Nesbit Elgin, the wife of Lord Elgin of marbles fame. Most of us don't know much about Lady Elgin and, as it turns out, Mary Elgin's life was quite tragic since Elgin was really only interested in spending HER money yet she was instrumental in getting the sculptures shipped to England.He was a pretty nasty guy whose nose was disappearing because of syphyllis. Her life in the Ottoman court and the depiction of Athens at the turn of the 19th century is really fascinating.

NEFERTITI BUST -- GERMAN TRICKSTERS ?

Egypt may renew its official demand for the return of the famous Nefertiti bust after a newly-surfaced document claims German archaeologists tried to trick Egyptian experts about its importance in 1913. A chief archaeologist in Cairo is leading the charge.

"This time I mean it very seriously," is how Egypt's chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, characterized his fresh demand for the bust of Queen Nefertiti, which German archaeologists brought home in 1913. He was reacting to SPIEGEL magazine piece that suggested the Germans had tricked Egyptian experts about the true nature of the now-legendary bust.

The bust of Nefertiti is almost 3,400 years old.Hawass has long called on Berlin to return the bust of Nefertiti, which sits in the city's Egyptian Museum, but SPIEGEL revealed in this week's edition of the magazine that an obscure document from 1924 charged the German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt with "cheating" to secure the bust for Germany.

The secretary of the German Oriental Institute reported in 1924 on a 1913 meeting between Borchardt and a senior Egyptian official. Egypt and Germany had an agreement to split antiquities found by Borchardt's team "à moitié exacte," or 50-50, but the secretary reported in his memo that Borchardt "wanted to save the bust for us."

The bust lay wrapped in a box in a dim room when the Egyptian official, chief antiquities inspector Gustave Lefébvre, looked over artifacts from the Borchardt dig. The secretary wrote that Borchardt presented Lefébvre with an unflattering photo of the bust and claimed it was made of gypsum, when in fact it has a limestone core under a layer of stucco. Whether Lefébvre went to the trouble of lifting the bust out of the box isn't clear. But the secretary, who witnessed the meeting, claimed there was "cheating" involved, since the Germans misrepresented the material.

The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation has possession of the bust and rejects any charge of cheating. The idea that the antiquities were not divided according to the rules in 1913 "is false," the foundation has claimed in a statement. Lefébvre, in other words, just overlooked the importance of the piece.

The well-preserved Nefertiti bust depicts the queen of Sun King Akhenaten, who was pharaoh of ancient Egypt at the peak of its imperial power almost 3,400 years ago. Egypt has demanded it back from Germany for various reasons since the 1930s. It's now a star attraction at the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, which receives half a million visitors per year.

TWENTY MUMMIES FOUND BELOW SAQQARA

Egyptian archaeologists have found more than 20 mummies in a burial chamber dating back at least 2,600 years. Eight wooden and stone sarcophagi were also discovered during the excavations at the Saqqara site, said Zahi Hawass, Egypt's chief archaeologist.

One limestone sarcophagus sealed with plaster is thought to be more than 4,000 years old. Despite decades of excavations at the Saqqara necropolis south of Cairo, new finds are frequently made. Correspondents say it is rare for such an intact burial site to be unearthed. The mummies, 22 of which were found in niches along a wall, were in a tomb dating to 640BC, Mr Hawass said.

A mummy was found in the only sarcophagus to have been opened so far, and Archaeologists said they were expecting to find more mummies in the others.

NEANDERTHAL GENOME

Scientists report that they have reconstructed the genome of Neanderthals, a human species that was driven to extinction some 30,000 years ago.

The Neanderthal genome, when fully analyzed, is expected to shed light on many critical aspects of human evolution. It will help document two important sets of genetic changes: those that occurred between 5.7 million years ago, when the human line split from the line leading to chimpanzees, and 300,000 years ago, when Neanderthals and the ancestors of modern humans parted ways; and second, the changes in the human line after it diverged from Neanderthals.

An early inference that can be drawn from the new findings, which were announced Thursday in Leipzig, Germany, is that there is no significant trace of Neanderthal genes in modern humans. This confounds the speculation that modern humans could have interbred with Neanderthals, thus benefiting from the genes that adapted the Neanderthals to the cold climate that prevailed in Europe in last ice age, which ended 10,000 years ago. Researchers have not ascertained if human genes entered the Neanderthal population.

Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig led a team that had to overcome daunting technical obstacles to produce the draft of the Neanderthal genome. He was assisted by the company 454 Life Sciences, which invented a new DNA decoding machine that works by analyzing millions of very small fragments of DNA in parallel. DNA from Neanderthal bones is fragmented in just this way.

Dr. Pääbo began his project more than 10 years ago, when he succeeded in extracting the first verifiable piece of Neanderthal DNA. Most Neanderthal bones have no recoverable DNA and those that do are heavily contaminated with modern human DNA from the many scientists and curators who handled them. Distinguishing human and Neanderthal DNA is hard because they are so similar.

Archaeologists have long debated whether Neanderthals could speak, and they have eagerly awaited Dr. Pääbo’s analysis of the Neanderthal FOXP2, a gene essential for language. Modern humans have two changes in FOXP2 that are not found in chimpanzees, and that presumably evolved to make speech possible. Dr. Pääbo said Neanderthals had the same two changes in their version of the FOXP2 gene. But many other genes are involved in language, so it is too early to say whether Neanderthals could speak.

Dr. Richard Klein, a paleoanthropologist at Stanford University, said Dr. Pääbo’s project was “incredibly exciting” and could eventually shed light on the behavioral differences between Neanderthals and modern humans

OLDUVAI GORGE -- COMMENT FROM READER

I received this morning this comment:
Nancy-whoever you are-I certainly hope you are not a student of Manuel's. He is increasingly known in the paleoanthropological community as having lost his marbles. In case that doesn't translate well-he is delusional as well as corrupt and willing to cheat lie and steal to make his views heard. Too bad in his fervor he forgets to actually do any solid science. There is a reason so many of his articles are followed up by replies citing gross inaccuracies-even misquotes-and faulty logic.Authorities have NOT supported him-only the ones he has bribed. As it is. He has DESTROYED Mary's Zinj site and in doing so has pissed off some very influential people. None of this post is true and you will be seeing shortly just how wrong you are. He will not be working there much longer-just like Kenya and Ethiopia-he will get kicked out. Of course you wont post this. At best it will make you wonder-or at least piss you off a bit-either way you are wrong and just as delusional as he is

I WAS VERY DISTRUBED TO RECEIVE THIS COMMENT. FIRST OF ALL I HAVE NO IDEA WHO MANUEL IS! SECONDLY, THE WEIRD THING IS I HAVE NO MEMORY OF POSTING THIS ARTICLE. FRANKLY, I USUALLY MAKE MY POSTINGS AS BRIEF AS POSSIBLE (THUS THE TITLE) AND THIS LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE HAS PUT THIS IN TO MY "ARCHAEOLOGY BRIEFS" WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE. (NAIVELY, THIS MIGHT BE POSSIBLE?) ITS JUST NOT MY STYLE. I HAVE SEVERAL LISTS THAT I READ EACH WEEK AND POST NEWS THAT I AM INTERESTED IN. I HAVE BEEN TEACHING PREHISTORIC PEOPLE FOR OVER 30 YEARS IN SCHOOLS AND I'VE ALWAYS BEEN A BIG FAN OF THE LEAKEYS. YEARS AGO I WAS FORTUNATE TO HEAR LOUIS LEAKEY IN PASADENA WHEN HE CAME TO LECTURE. I ALSO HEARD MARY LEAKEY WHENEVER SHE SPOKE. THUS, I WANT TO CLARIFY FOR THE PERSON WHO SEEMED TO KNOW WHAT HE WAS TALKING ABOUT AND APOLOGIZE FOR POSTING SOMETHING (IF IT WAS REALLY ME!) THAT SEEMS NOT TO BE ACCURATE.

GOLDEN AGE OF ARCHAEOLOGY IN CHINA -- SHANXI PROVINCE DIG

In the remote village of Yangshe on the banks of the Yellow River, Chinese archaeologists are little by little bringing an ancient culture back to life after nearly 3,000 years. The vast cemetery they are excavating belonged to the rulers of the Jin state, which is finally emerging in all its remarkable diversity in what is now northern China's Shanxi Province.

"We are undergoing a golden age in archaeology in China that has lasted from the late 1980s until today," said Ji Kunzhang, a leading archaeologist at the Shanxi Archaeological Research Institute who oversaw the Yangshe dig.

At the Yangshe dig, the outstanding feature is a large pit containing 48 chariots and 105 horses that were buried with a Jin ruler particularly noted for his military campaigns during the Western Zhou Dynasty (1120-781 BCE). The find is the largest horse and chariot pit dating from the Shang and Zhou dynasties (1600-256 BCE) so far
found in China and predates the terracotta warrior tomb of China's first emperor, Qin Shihuang, by more than 600 years, Ji said.

Among the finds are ceremonial carriages exquisitely painted with red lacquer and which include finely crafted doors with bronze hinges. Armored war carriages protected by bronze plates are also among the finds. "We believe the chariots and horses were the actual cavalry used in the military campaigns of the Jin leader," Ji said. "So far we have counted at least 105 horses, which we believe were drugged and buried alive as some of their heads were erect and others had their legs bound," he added.

The Jin cemetery was first discovered in 1992, but funding for major excavations only began in 1996. Since then all 19 tombs have been excavated with the dig of the largest horse and chariot pit alone taking four years, Ji said.

"The Museum of the State of Jin, which begins construction in March, will sit on top of the horse and chariot pit and is expected to be opened by 2010," he said. The 100-million-yuan (13-million-dollar) museum will house a treasure trove of bronze and jade artifacts from all 19 tombs of the early Jin rulers and their wives.
Sources: Agence France Press, The Daily Star (2 February 2009)
http://tinyurl.com/acvqcp

DARWIN & LINCOLN

Although the fact has very little to do with archaeology, that is our usual subject, everyone should know that strangely enough, Darwin and Lincoln were born on the same day: February 12, 1809.

See the excellent article "from the editor" in February's issue of The Smithsonian Magazine. Its called Evolution and Equality: What do Darwin and Lincoln and the Freedom Riders have in Common? Monmaney, the author, says "Despite all the hullabaloo leading up to their shared bicentennial, it still seems incredible that Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln, two of the most important and most admirable people of the 19th century, whose deep contributions to their time continue to be felt in ours, were born on the same day."

IRAQ MUSEUMS REPAIR & A MONUMENT HONORING ALEXANDER FROM THE GREEKS

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and his Greek counterpart Dora Bakoyannis held a press conference after their meeting in Athens, Greece, on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2009. Bakoyannis said Greece has agreed to provide technical and financial aid to repair and reorganize Iraqi museums and cultural sites damaged and looted during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis said Greece and Iraq have also agreed to build a monument honoring the Greek warrior Alexander the Great at an ancient battlefield in southern Iraq. Zebari welcomed the Greek offer of cultural assistance, which he said followed an Iraqi request.

Zebari said the battlefield monument would underline the interaction of civilizations in the region. It will be built near the city of Mosul, where Alexander won a crushing victory over a Persian army in 331 B.C. At the time, Iraq was part of the Persian Empire, which stretched throughout most of the Middle East.

ANCIENT CHINESE CAPITAL OF CHANG'AN IS MAPPED

As the capital of the Western Han Dynasty (202 BC to 8 AD), Chang'an was a metropolis with an area of 36 square kilometers, about four times the size of the contemporary Rome. Its ruins lay in the suburb of today's Xi'an, capital of northwestern Shaanxi Province.

"After about five decades of work, we can map out the city's clear layout now, but we still know little about how its 240,000 residents lived," said Liu Zhendong, the head of an excavation team from the Institute of Archaeology under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), in an interview with Xinhua here.

The 12-gate, walled city had eight avenues, each of which were 45 to 55 meters wide and lined with trees. Its wall was 12 meters high, 25,700 meters long and surrounded by an eight-meter-wide moat. To run around it would be equal to take running half marathon.

"Archaeologists have excavated several major palaces and city gates but have not discovered the residences of ordinary people," Liu said. "Did they live in courtyards like those in old Beijing? We do not know." The city was divided into 11 neighborhoods. Those of royal families and nobles were in the city's southern part while shops, workshops and houses of common people were situated in the northeast.

"Some construction material was unearthed, such as stone slabs with inscriptions of names of locations, or their owners," he said. "This area will be our focus in the coming years." Meanwhile, the archaeologists will work on the later relics that laid
upon the Western Han ruins as Chang'an remained the capital of several later
kingdoms. "We believed that the palace area of later kingdoms were in this area,"
he said. The team has just excavated a palace gateway in December and unearthed well-preserved palace walls and stone bases of pillars.

"Like the ancient site of Pompeii, the study of large-scale ruins requires about 100 or 200 years of excavation," said Liu Qingzhu, a veteran archaeologist from the same institute as Liu Zhendong. Archaeologists have just excavated about 0.1 percent of the total area of Chang'an ruins.


http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/29/content_10733164.htm

CHINA -- EARLIEST MAN-MADE CAVE HOUSES

Archaeologists in China have unearthed the earliest man-made cave houses and privately-owned pottery workshops which date back 5,500 years. After four years of excavation, a row of 17 cave houses were found on a cliff along the Jinghe river in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Wang Weilin, deputy director of the Shaanxi Archaeology Institute and chief archaeologist of the excavation, said. They were
built between 3,500 and 3,000 BCE. Mr. Wang said the row of houses were within a 16,000-sq.m. site which was being excavated.

The cave houses belonged to a late Neolithic culture named Yangshao that originated in the middle reaches of the Yellow river and was considered a main origin of Chinese civilization. Yangshao was best known for red pottery ware with painted patterns. Each cave house was about 10 square meters and divided into two rooms. One room was dug into the cliff while the other, possibly made of wood and mud, was
built on the outside of the cave, said Mr. Wang.

Archaeologists also found pottery kilns and caves to store pottery beside the houses as well as pottery wares, fragments and tools. "Most of the cave houses had a pottery kiln beside it. We believe these cave houses were homes to families of pottery makers," said Mr. Wang.

In previous excavations of Neolithic settlements in China, one pottery kiln was usually found to have been used by all families, he said. "Here we found the earliest evidence that a certain group of people were specialized in making pottery, a sign of division of labor." Caves to store pottery also show private ownership of
property had emerged, added Mr. Wang. North of the cave houses, archaeologists also discovered sections of a moat about six to nine meters wide. Early Yangshao settlements have mainly been found in Shaanxi, but during the middle stage people spread to nearly half of what's considered today's China.

MIAMI (USA) CIRCLE STILL NOT VISIBLE!

The Miami Circle (Florida, USA), the 2,000-year-old remnant of the city's original inhabitants, has just been designated a National Historic Landmark, an honor that puts it on a select list of the country's most significant archaeological sites.

A decade after taxpayers paid nearly $27 million to save the 2.2-acre bayfront site
from development, there's little to see there other than a weedy plot of land and a circular depression where the main feature was buried in protective fill. But what you can see may not quite accord with the site's importance: a colossal new condo and hotel development that backs up to the site's southern edge with massive concrete walls, two yawning service garages and loading docks overlooking the ancient circle.

Frustration is growing among some advocates and elected officials who say the state of Florida and Icon Brickell developer Related Group have not lived up to pledges to provide a public riverwalk and park at the site. Related Group officials, who built an adjacent baywalk on their property that would provide public access to the circle, say they remain willing to put up money for improvements, but have not specified how much. Meanwhile, there appears to be little immediate prospect for a riverwalk or park.

Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, whose district includes the circle site, called the delays 'unacceptable.' Bob McCammon, the history museum's president, says the national landmark designation from the U.S. secretary of the Interior will open the door to potential federal grants for the circle site. The Downtown Development
Authority, a semi-independent arm of the city, and the state-chartered Miami River Commission are pressing the museum to forgo a master plan until more money becomes available, and instead build the riverwalk immediately after the seawall reconstruction is done. The state is sticking with its plans, however. No matter what happens on the site in the near future, the circle itself will likely remain invisible for a long time.

Sources: Miami Herald, Palm Beach Post (27 January 2009)
http://tinyurl.com/cxohey

SILBURY HILL (UK) -- NEW INSIGHTS

Silbury Hill (Wiltshire, England), the largest man-made mound in Europe, is 30-metres high and 160-metres wide. It is more than 4,000 years old (c 2,400-2,000 BCE), and its purpose has been a well-kept secret for at least half that time. Several years ago, a hole appeared at the summit of the Neolithic monument, around the spot where the Duke of Northumberland had sunk a shaft to carry out excavations in 1776. Further investigation showed that other tunnels from later digs were also unstable.

Contracting a team of engineers to stabilize the internal structure provided a chance to gain a greater insight into date and function. The work was only completed last winter, but while it could take two years to fully evaluate the finds, it seems Silbury had a part to play in later history that no one had hitherto imagined.

Archaeologists found a series of medieval pot-holes on top of the hill, indicating a large building. The discovery of two arrowheads also suggested it had a defensive purpose in the period of the Danish invasions early in the 11th century. There is speculation, too, that Silbury was originally dome-shaped in its prehistoric form, and that its current flat-topped aspect was the result of later lopping off to
create its military function.

So the mound wasn't simply some ghostly feature that became abandoned in prehistoric times, says Rob Harding, the English Heritage project manager for the site. According to Harding, there is also evidence of Roman usage in the platforms along the side of the hill. "Often, the Romans adopted the local gods and forms of worship when they arrived in new countries, so we think it would have had some sort of ceremonial function for the Romans. But it is possible it was disused in the period prior to their arrival in 43 BCE."

As Harding admits, none of this brings us remotely closer to finding a conclusive
explanation for why it was originally built. "You can rule out the idea that it formed a settlement, or an enclosure. We believe it had some sort of ceremonial or religious function, but we've found no evidence of human sacrifice or offerings to the gods, so we can't prove it."

Because it's a fragile, though remarkably uneroded monument, access to the slopes and summit of Silbury is barred, but, says Harding, from the top you can see across to Avebury henge. I've been to Avebury, the wonderful stone circles whose remains lie on a hill to the east. Nearby there is also West Kennett Long Barrow. It's a fairly confident assertion that this great ensemble of monuments, in what now forms the Avebury World Heritage Site, formed some kind of "planned" landscape. Do visit!

Source: Telegraph.co.uk (29 January 2009)
http://tinyurl.com/b6gj5b