German authorities returned a 4,500-year-old ax head recovered from an antiques dealer to Iraq this week.

An international team of scientists has met near the Ngorongoro crater to witness the excavation of the 3.6 million-year-old footprints discovered in the Laetoli riverbed in the 1970s. “After that the experts may decide on the best way they should be preserved either by relocating them elsewhere or leaving them at the same site,” said Donatus Kamamba, director of Antiquities for Tanzania.  

Dale Fuchs of The Independent has summarized the ongoing story of the legal dispute for 600,000 gold and silver coins between the salvage company Odyssey Marine Exploration and the government of Spain. Odyssey recovered the coins from a shipwreck it has dubbed the Black Swan, but Spain claims the wreck is the Spanish frigate Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, which was sunk by the British in 1804.  

Here’s an update on the state of rock art and archaeological sites in Somaliland. “At the moment we do not do any excavations because we are not able to host objects,” said Sada Mire, the country’s first archaeologist.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Wednesday, February 9, 2011. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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