Lumps of black manganese pigment crafted into drawing implements indicate that Neanderthals communicated, and imply that they could speak, according to Francesco d’Errico of the University of Bordeaux. Such drawing tools have been found at 39 Neanderthal sites across Europe.

Examination of the skeletons from Akhenaten’s city, Tell el-Amarna, shows that ordinary Egyptians suffered from anemia, bone fractures, stunted growth, and high juvenile mortality rates. Art from the period suggests, however, that the people enjoyed wealth and abundance. “We are seeing a more realistic picture of what life was like,” said Barry Kemp, director of the Amarna Project.  

The remains of three known relatives of German poet Friedrich Schiller were exhumed in order to obtain DNA samples. Scientists will try to determine if either of two skulls said to belong to Schiller, who had been buried in a mass grave in 1805, is really his.  

At a conference in Paris last month, museum officials gathered to discuss the repatriation of human remains, and “confront skeletons in the closet.” The meeting was prompted by a recent case, in which the French government prevented a museum in Rouen from returning a tattooed Maori skull to New Zealand.  

Russia will return six stained-glass windows taken by Soviet troops from a church in Germany during World War II. Six years ago, 111 windows, which had been stored in the Hermitage, were returned. The remaining six panels were recently discovered at the Pushkin Museum.   

Scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have played back a phonautograph  made in 1860. (A phonoautograph is a visual recording of sound.) “This is a historic find, the earliest known recording of sound,” commented Samuel Brylawski, former head of the recorded-sound division of the Library of Congress.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Friday, March 28, 2008. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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