Scientists have identified fossilized hair from hyena coprolites found in South Africa. The hairs may have belonged to an early Homo sapiens or Homo heidelbergensis.

Carved stone tenon heads thought to be 4,000 years old were uncovered in Chupacoto, Peru.   

What could be a Viking ship has been spotted on the bottom of Sweden’s Lake Vanern. Sweden’s other Viking ships have all been uncovered in land burials.  

A newly discovered cave painting has revealed that Australia’s extinct marsupial “lion” had a striped back, a tufted tail, and pointed ears.  

In Honduras, an excavation at Copan has unearthed a skeleton that may have belonged to one of the first Maya kings. A roof in the temple of Oropendola had collapsed on top of the bones, leaving them in poor condition.  

Construction workers were demolishing a wall of a school that was once part of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau when they found a message in a bottle. “It was an attempt to leave a trace of our existence as we thought we were going to die,” said Waclaw Sobczak, whose name and the names of five other prisoners were written on the note, dated September 20, 1944.  

Four of Iran’s “salt men” will be fitted out with new protective cases. The natural mummies were uncovered at the Chehrabad Salt Mine, and have been damaged by moisture and insects in their current display cases.  

Some of the bacteria and fungi growing inside Lascaux Cave are becoming biocide resistant, according to microbiologist Claude Alabouvette of the University of Bourgogne. To complicate the efforts to protect the cave’s prehistoric paintings, the biocide breaks down into compounds that the damaging bacteria and fungi could use as nutrients. “Now we are wondering what is more dangerous, treating or not treating,” he said.  

The Acropolis Museum is set to open its doors on June 20, and Greek Minister for Culture and Athletics, Antonis Samaras, has reissued a request to the British Museum for the return of the Parthenon Marbles.  

Dan Vergano of USA Today investigates the lives of the Pazyryk people of the Altai Mountains.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Monday, May 11, 2009. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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