Excavations in an Armenian cave have yielded what may be the oldest-known preserved human brain from the Old World. Wine-making tools and debris, skulls, metal knives, fruit seeds and grains, rope and cloth, and pottery were also found.

In New Zealand, archaeologists think they have found traces of a 700-year-old building, one of the oldest in the country.   

British and Italian scientists are working together with the latest technology to study a painted statue of a wounded Amazon warrior discovered in the volcanic ash at Herculaneum.  

DNA testing of the parchment of medieval manuscripts may help researchers determine when and where a manuscript was written. “Dating and localizing manuscripts have historically presented persistent problems because they have largely been based on the handwriting and dialect of the scribes who created the manuscripts – techniques that have proven unreliable for a number of reasons,” said Timothy Stinson of North Carolina State University.  

Clothing unearthed two years ago in a tomb in South Korea will be designated as cultural assets. The clothing dates to the sixteenth century, before the Japanese invasion of 1592.  

The remains of an American soldier killed in North Korea in 1950 have been identified by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command. Master Sgt. Cirildo Valencio will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.  

Human hunting and gathering has had a “profound impact” on plants and animals. Humans have tended to hunt large prey animals, while other predators pick off the small and the weak. “It’s an ideal recipe for rapid trait change,” said Chris Darimont of the University of California, Santa Cruz.  

Watch Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s antiquities chief, hand over a looted bronze figurine to Iraq’s charge d’affaires, Abdel Hadi Ahmed, at National Geographic News.  

The Times Online from Britain has featured ARCHAEOLOGY’s article, “Secrets of Maya Beauty,” today.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, January 13, 2009. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

Comments posted here do not represent the views or policies of the Archaeological Institute of America.