Altinum, a Roman city located seven miles north of Venice, has been spotted using satellite imaging. “The hypothesis is that as Altinum also succumbed to the Barbarian invasions, the inhabitants fled farther down the lagoon to build Venice on the islands,” said Paolo Mozzi of the University of Padua.

Excavations at Aslantepe in eastern Turkey have uncovered a settlement from the Early Bronze Age and a building from the Hittite era. “We are trying to find two layers in Aslantepe dating back to Early Bronze Ages, and we have unearthed a part of city walls dating to 2,900 B.C. – 2,800 B.C. This city wall is like an acropolis,” said Marcella Frangipane of La Spienza University.  

The thirteenth-century remains of 14 horses were uncovered in the Russian town of Staraya Russa.  

The bones of a fourth-century Roman suffering from tuberculosis were excavated from a shallow grave at the University of York. “A burial such as this, close to living quarters, is unusual for this period when most burials were in formal cemeteries. It is possible that the man was buried here because the tuberculosis infection was so rare at the time, and people were reluctant to transport the body any distance,” said Cath Neal, an archaeologist with the university.  

In Tamil Nadu, India, modern dwellers are destroying an Iron Age burial site marked with cairn circles, menheirs, and cist-slabs. People who lived at the merchant settlement of Vellaripatti were buried here between 1000 and 500 B.C.  

A 7,000-year-old skeleton was found in Godawaya, Sri Lanka.  

The rebuilt Apple River Fort in Apple River, Illinois, is one of 13 historic sites in the state that will close due to budget cuts. The fort was built with private funding after community members found the archaeological remains of the original fort, where settlers fought a battle of the Black Hawk War of 1832.  

Nicole Kidman will reportedly produce and star in a new archaeological adventure movie called The Eighth Wonder.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Wednesday, September 17, 2008. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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