A cave in eastern Morocco has yielded 20 perforated shells thought to have been used as jewelry 85,000 years ago. Fourteen such bits of finery were discovered in the cave last year.

The idea that comet impacts wiped out North America’s large mammals in the Younger Dryas event 13,000 years ago was a hot topic of debate at the Society for American Archaeology meeting in Vancouver.  

BBC News has more information on the 700 Latin American artifacts recently seized by Spanish police after an Interpol investigation in Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador. The artifacts were to be auctioned in France, but will be returned to their countries of origin after analysis in Madrid.  

French citizen Yves Lebourgeois is out on bail after being accused of trying to smuggle antiquities out of Yemen. He faces five years in prison if convicted.  

More than 450 artifacts, including cylinder seals, pots, and cups, have been bought by the Iraq Museum in Baghdad from Iraqi citizens who reportedly purchased them from smugglers and illegal excavations.  

At the International Conference on Jiroft Civilization in Tehran, Piotr Steinkeller of Harvard University claimed that the prehistoric site is the lost city of Marhashi. Archaeologist Yusef Majidzadeh has also named the site, but he says it is the ancient city of Aratta.  

Two skeletons dating to the early nineteenth century were uncovered during the construction of a public bathroom at Quebec’s Plains of Abraham. “It’s surprising that they have survived because if you look, there is so much construction around them. They are on a tiny island that is miraculously preserved,” said archaeologist Vanessa Oliver-Lloyd.  

An excavation is planned for the Missouri home of John A. Quarles, called “a heavenly place for a boy” by his nephew, Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain. “I see this as something that needs to be done,” said anthropologist Karen A. Hunt, who owns the property.

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

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