Two new genetic studies published in Nature confirm the “out of Africa” theory of human migration. The studies show that Africans and people of African descent are the most genetically diverse, and that “Diversity has been eroded through the migration process,” one researcher, Noah Rosenberg of the University of Michigan, said.

A dealer in Civil War relics was killed earlier this week when a large cannonball he was “working on” exploded. Police removed about 75 items from the man’s home, which were then destroyed by Army and Marine explosive-ordnance-disposal experts.  

Two World War II-era bombs were unearthed in the Philippines.  

Charles Colthurst, owner of Blarney Castle, defends Ireland’s “kissing stone.”  

A shipwreck on Coos Bay’s North Spit in Oregon has been identified as the George L. Olson. The wood-hulled schooner was launched in 1917 and ran aground on the spit in 1944.   A pair of cannons washed up on Oregon’s well-named Cannon Beach. The cannons probably broke away from the nineteenth-century survey schooner USS Shark.

The trial of former J. Paul Getty Museum curator of antiquities Marion True and antiquities dealer Robert Hecht continues in Italy.  

How do archaeologists estimate the size of ancient populations? Slate Magazine’s “Explainer” has the answer.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Thursday, February 21, 2008. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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