The 41 artifacts found near the Huapalcalco pyramid in central Mexico could represent a culture that lived in the valley of Tulancingo between 600 and 900 A.D. “It is likely that the Huapalcalco pyramid has been built by people from this new culture,” said Carlos Hernández of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History.

Cuban and American archaeologists are working together at El Chorro de Maita, an Arawakan village inhabited at the time of Columbus’s first voyage. Documents produced by the first Spanish colonists are also being examined for clues to life in sixteenth-century Cuba.  

In Brazil and Argentina, pre-Columbian people built earthen ovens near burial mounds. “After they buried an important person on the burial grounds, they feasted on meat that had been steamed in the earth ovens and drank maize beer,” said archaeologist José Irarte.  

The burial of a warrior was uncovered at the site of the Khoda-Afarin Dam in Iran. The dam was completed a year ago, but rescue excavations continue.  

A protest against the construction of the Ilisu Dam in southeastern Turkey took place in Istanbul. The dam would inundate the ancient city of Hasankeyf and more than 80 other archaeological sites.   

Machu Picchu is in today’s news, with another study of which European or American adventurer may have arrived at the remote Inca stronghold first. The twist with this version is the implications it may have for Yale University’s claim to artifacts collected by Hiram Bingham in the early twentieth century.  

Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, responds to the Los Angeles Times editorial by Nina Burleigh, ‘Hoaxes from the Holy Land.”

Ponder this one just for fun: A geologist and an architect suggest in a British television show that the Sphinx may have originally had the head of a lion.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, December 9, 2008. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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