At least two soldiers have died today in an exchange of rockets and gunfire over a disputed patch of land near the Preah Vihear temple in Cambodia. The political and military crisis between Thailand and Cambodia began when the temple was named a World Heritage site last summer.

In Greece, an employee of the Archaeological Museum of Dion and another person thought to be his accomplice are suspected of illegally offering more than 200 artifacts for sale.  

Tuberculosis has been identified in the 9,000-year-old bones of a mother and infant found buried in a submerged village off Israel’s coast. “The strain we have found as far as we can tell is identical to some of the bacteria that are going around infecting people today,” said Helen Donoghue of University College, London.  

In the Philippines, archaeologists uncovered a gold death mask, large ceramic items, and a dagger that had been buried with a Cebu chieftain. “This is one of the most significant finds in Cebu, so far,” said Boomboom Miano, a curator of the Fort San Pedro Museum.  

Anthropologist John Lukacs of the University of Oregon has some new ideas about why hunter-gatherer women and women in agricultural societies tended to have poor dental health compared to men.  

A 3,000-year-old relief depicting a bearded, winged man wearing a headband was unearthed at Rabat Tepe in Iran.  

Figurines of wig-wearing musicians were uncovered in a 1,500-year-old tomb in central China.  

Are you planning a visit to the Meadowcroft Rockshelter? Here’s what you’ll need to know.

DNA tests on hairs collected in east India have shown that the hairs did not drop from a yeti after all, but from a Himalayan Goral, a type of goat. “Perhaps we have a more modest discovery – extending the known range of the goral rather than confirming the existence of the lowland yeti,” said Ian Redmond, a senior consultant for the UN’s Great Ape Survival Project.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Wednesday, October 15, 2008. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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