Skeletal remains excavated in Gloucester, England, in the 1970s turn out to have belonged to a large man born east of the Danube River. Historians theorize that he was a Goth mercenary in the Roman Army ca. 400 A.D.

Here’s a little more information on the two middens discovered along the banks of New Zealand’s Whanganui River.  

Are you planning a trip to western Ireland? Be sure to visit Ceide Fields, a Neolithic farming village preserved in a peat bog.  

Easter Island is suffering from too many visitors–the environment is threatened by their sewage and trash.   

A dozen pre-Columbian graves and earthen enclosures made by the Killke culture were discovered in Cuzco, Peru, by archaeologists from the National Institute of Culture. Five of the burials had been looted.  

Prehistoric human remains unearthed in a Nebraska pasture will be handed over to the Santee Sioux Tribe. The area is an acknowledged historical tribal burial site.  

The remains of a Civil War soldier uncovered during construction work in Franklin, Tennessee, will be laid to rest tomorrow. “We don’t know if he’s a Confederate or Union soldier,” commented Franklin Mayor John Schroer.  

France’s culture minister says the Louvre Museum will return five fragments of a burial fresco to Egypt. Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s chief archaeologist, says the images were chipped from the walls of a tomb by thieves in the 1980s.  

Meanwhile, in the United States, federal prosecutors want a 3,000-year-old wooden sarcophagus in Miami to be returned to Egypt.  

More photographs of the artifacts recently returned to Afghanistan from Britain are now available. “We lost a lot of things from our museum and from illegal excavation in different parts of Afghanistan. This is very important,” said Omara Khan Massoudi, director of the National Museum.

Happy Columbus Day!  The news will return Tuesday, October 13.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Friday, October 9, 2009. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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