Three tractor-trailers packed full of looted antiquities will be returned to Italy by two art dealers from Switzerland, once the hub of the artifact trade. “The market has moved on to Germany, which has far looser laws,” said Swiss archaeologist Guido Lassau.

The minerals in a stalagmite from a cave in China are telling scientists about the cycle of monsoons for a period of more than 1,810 years. Dry periods in history coincide with the decline of the Tang, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, and even the Maya. Wet periods probably contributed to greater crop production, increases in population, and stability.   A photograph of a cross section of the stalagmite is available from BBC News.  

Cobblestones and pottery dating to the seventeenth century have been unearthed in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  

Excavations by 750 archaeologists in a suburb of Istanbul have revealed 32 ships, Neolithic skeletons, coins, amphorae, a woman’s shoe, and a basket of cherries, among thousands of artifacts. Known as the Marmaray Project, the area was once a Byzantine port of Constantinople on the Marmaris Sea, but it will become an underwater railway that will link the European and Asian sides of the city.  

The National Park Service conducted a prescribed burn at Hopewell Culture National Historic Park in Chillicothe, Ohio. The fire restores native grasses and reduces the growth of woody plants and trees, which can harm the archaeological site.  

The phenomenon of celebrity rose with the publication of obituaries in seventeenth-century British magazines and newspapers, according to Elizabeth Barry of the University of Warwick.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Friday, November 7, 2008. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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