There is a new lead in the case of the missing Peking Man fossils, which were discovered near Beijing in the 1930s. Some of the fossils had been boxed up for transport to the American Museum of Natural History in New York for safekeeping during World War II, but they never arrived, and may have ended up buried at Camp Holcomb, an American military base at the port city of Qinhaungdao, instead.

Tourism Development Committee Chairwoman Leslie Combs of Kentucky’s legislature refused to call for a vote on a proposed measure that would have allowed treasure hunters to look for artifacts in state parks and historical sites with metal detectors. The session closes in a few days. The proposal had been passed Kentucky’s Senate.

Scientists estimate that Hawaiians harvested many more fish annually between 1400 and 1800 than is possible today, according to a new study published in Fish and Fisheries. John Kittinger of the Center for Ocean Solutions explains that Hawaiian rules for fishing were community based, strictly enforced, and based upon knowledge of individual reef systems.

Nicholas Dunning of the University of Cincinnati, Timothy Beach of Georgetown University, and Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach of George Mason University suggest some non-environmental factors that may have contributed to the collapse of Classic Maya societies in this article for Live Science.

The debate over whether climate change or hunting caused the mass extinction of megafauna rages on. A new study published in Scienceconcludes that humans alone are to blame for the loss of large-animal life in Australia 40,000 years ago.

A shipyard that produced iron warships for navies around the world before it closed in the early twentieth century has been uncovered in east London. “There are no longer any detailed plans of the final layout of the works and these results will help piece together how the site operated,” said archaeologist Jay Carver.

A ceremonial club presented to Captain James Cook by the Nuu-chah-nulth people of Nootka Sound in 1778 has returned to British Columbia. The carved club was donated to the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. It has been held in private collections since the early nineteenth century.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Friday, March 23, 2012. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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