The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum at the University of California, Berkeley, has the remains of some  12,000 American Indians, and some 400,000 artifacts, in its collections. The museum says that 80 percent of the bones are unaffiliated with federally recognized tribes, and that the bones of about 260 individuals have been repatriated under NAGPRA. “We don’t appreciate them keeping our ancestors locked up in a drawer,” commented Ted Howard, cultural resources director of the Shoshone-Paiute tribes.

The discovery of ancient mitochondrial DNA in quids, the yucca fibers chewed by “Native Southwesterners” between 800 and 2,400 years ago, is in the news again. This was the first time that DNA was extracted from artifacts rather than human remains.

A royal bronze coffin was reportedly found within a marble-walled tomb in Yemen.

Writer Chris Welsch returns to Athens after 20 years and marvels at the changes.

Archaeologists have been hired to collect information on the JB-2 missile launch sites on Florida’s Santa Rosa Island. The sites were built in 1944 to test the American version of guided missile technology.

A second-century A.D. stone bridge has been reconstructed near the Roman fort and supply base at Corbridge in northeastern England. The bridge once crossed the Tyne and “would have been a magnificent entry point to the Hadrian’s Wall area,” said Paul Bidwell of the Tyne and Wear Museum.

Sonar, underwater cameras, and scanning equipment will be used to study the medieval city of Dunwich, also known as “Britain’s Atlantis,” off the coast of Suffolk.

Concerned citizens saved the carved stone head of a medieval bishop from a pile of rubble in Ireland’s County Galway.

In Norway, archaeologists have uncovered a 2,000-year-old gold ring.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Monday, January 14, 2008. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

Comments posted here do not represent the views or policies of the Archaeological Institute of America.