A metal artifact that may have been a war shield has reportedly been found at what is believed to be an Inca citadel in northern Peru. Rangers at the Cordillera de Colan Reserved Zone in Amazonas made the discovery while on patrol.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan visited the mass graves of Japanese soldiers recently unearthed on the island of Iwo Jima. “Because we lost the war, for a long time there was not much enthusiasm about projects like this, but time is running out. The families of the dead, their brothers and sisters, are in their 80s,” said Yukihiko Akutsu, who heads the search mission.  

A snowstorm in Israel has destroyed the modern sea wall that surrounds the ancient port of Caesarea. “There is no disagreement among experts that the current situation, if it is not improved, will lead to the destruction of one of the flagship archaeological sites of Israel,” said architect Zeev Margalit.  

Calls for the resignation of Italy’s Culture Minister Sandro Bondi continue. “The minister is responsible for having chosen a management style at Pompeii that favored appearance over substance. No expert would have done this. Technicians, restorers, and archaeologists were denied any say in the matter,” said Tsao Cevoli, president of Italy’s association of archaeologists.  

Skeletons uncovered in Pompeii in the 1980s have provided scientists with information about how people lived. Among the discoveries are markers of congenital syphilis, long thought to have first reached Europe with Christopher Columbus’ sailors in the fifteenth century.  

How did people amuse themselves during their free time 5,000 years ago in Mexico? Archaeologist Barbara Voorhies, a professor emerita at the University of California, Santa Barbara, thinks they played dice games and kept score using holes arranged in C-shapes on special clay floors.  Here are more photographs of the potential game boards.  

Anthropologists Yolanda Fernandez-Jalvo and Peter Andrews have examined recently chewed bones and some that were on the dinner menu in the 1960s for The Journal of Human Evolution. They want to be able to recognize the evidence of human consumption on ancient animal bones.  

A Druid leader has asked that cremated human remains excavated from Stonehenge be reburied.  “We shall pursue every avenue open to us within the law to ensure the timely return of our ancestors,” said Frank Somers of Aes Dana Grove and The British Druid Association.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, December 14, 2010. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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