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Charlesfort Identified
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A reexamination of pottery fragments found more than a decade ago at a site on the
southern tip of Parris Island, South Carolina, has led to the identification of
Charlesfort, an outpost built in 1562 by French Protestants seeking religious
freedom.
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Wind-Powered Furnaces
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As early as the seventh century A.D. Sri Lankans made steel
in furnaces powered by monsoon winds, a previously unknown ancient
technology.
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Maya King Unearthed
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The tomb of a fifth-century A.D. Maya king has been found
at La Milpa in northwestern Belize.
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Neandertal News
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Identification of a 34,000-year-old Neandertal temporal bone found at Arcy-sur-
Cure, France, is providing new insight into the relationship between the last
Neandertals and contemporary Homo sapiens. Also, a discovery by
François Rouzaud of the French archaeological service suggests Neandertals
were more sophisticated in their use of fire than previously
believed.
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Rare Buddhist Writings
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A collection of 13 birch-bark scrolls found in pottery jars from the ancient Buddhist
kingdom of Gandhara in northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan are thought to
be the oldest manuscripts with Buddhist writings ever
discovered.
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Israel's Reburial Debate
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Archaeologists and ultraorthodox Jewish groups are expected to vie for seats on a
committee that will review the excavation of some sites in Israel where human
remains are found.
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World's Earliest Wine
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Residue on a potsherd dating to the time of the first permanent settlements in the
Middle East suggests that wine-making began ca. 5,100
B.C., 2,000 years earlier than previously
thought.
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Getty Gets
Fleischman Collection
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The Getty Museum is acquiring the $80 million classical antiquities collection of
Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman of New
York.
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Pottery Bonanza
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Egyptian, Persian, and Greco-Roman pottery has been found in a workshop at the
site of Athribis, modern Benha, 50 miles north of
Cairo.
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Jewelry Repatriated
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Precolumbian gold and turquoise jewelry once for sale at Sotheby's has been returned to Peru by U.S. Customs Service agents.
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Oldest North
American Mummy
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A mummy excavated in 1940 and stored at the Nevada State Museum in Carson
City was recently dated to ca. 7420 B.C., making it the
oldest mummy ever discovered in North America.
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Celtic Masterpiece
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A 2,500-year-old life-size statue of a Celtic aristocrat, found this past summer near
Frankfurt, Germany, is being hailed as one of Europe's most important
archaeological discoveries in recent decades.
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The Mummies' Threads
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Study of garments worn by 3,000-year-old mummies excavated in western China's
Tarim Basin (see ARCHAEOLOGY, March/April
1995) has yielded the world's oldest cashmere
threads.
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Field Notes
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Tut Ale; Park Service Inventory; Middle-Aged Ice Man; Manuscript Repatriated;
Raising the Resurgam; Indian Mound Excavation
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