Officials of the Madre de Dios regional government of Peru have decided to protect isolated tribes in the Amazon rainforest from illegal logging and oil exploration, after the Brazilian government released photographs of them taken in Brazil from a helicopter. The people had been pushed out of Peru by the destruction of their habitat.

New radiocarbon dates of rat bones and rat-gnawed seeds suggest that humans didn’t reach New Zealand until 1300 A.D., or about 1,000 years later that some had thought. “As the Pacific rat or kiore cannot swim very far, it can only have arrived in New Zealand with people on board their canoes, either as cargo or stowaways. Therefore, the earliest evidence of the Pacific rat in New Zealand must indicate the arrival of people,” said Janet Wilmshurst, who led the four-year study.  

The International Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP), based in Sarajevo, lends its expertise in identifying the dead buried in mass graves to countries around the world.  

Here’s an update on the Axum Obelisk, which was returned to Ethiopia in 2005. “This strong granite monolith has suffered a lot of trauma in its life and it is not in very good shape so assembling it is a very delicate and complex operation,” said Nada al-Hassan, who is in charge of the restoration.  

This article from Pakistan on the rock art along the Karakoram Highway says that 30,907 carvings and inscriptions will be submerged by the Diamer-Basha Dam.  

China’s famous terra-cotta warriors reportedly survived last month’s earthquake, according to this article at CCTV.com. Be sure to look at the photograph on page three.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Wednesday, June 4, 2008. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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