An international team of archaeologists has discovered a 35,000-year-old ivory workshop within a larger mammoth hunting site in Germany. The open-air workshop had been divided into different work zones, where the ivory was split and then carved. Such organization of tasks is thought of as modern human behavior.

A stone that may have served as a lunar calendar 4,000 years ago has been found in a cave in northern Vietnam. The stone is carved with 23 parallel lines and may have been used for counting. It had been placed in a tomb with 14 larger stones. Older stone tools and food remains were also recovered from the cave.

This year’s expedition to the Queen Anne’s Revenge wreck site is being sponsored by donations from the Friends of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, grants, and donations from private businesses. Only small artifacts will be recovered because the team has a smaller barge to run the operation, and the conservation lab in Greenville, North Carolina, is running out of space. “We should have about 35 percent of the site left when we finish this fall,” said Wendy Welsh of the North Carolina Underwater Archaeology Branch. Archaeologists are eager to finish excavating Blackbeard’s eighteenth-century pirate ship before any more hurricanes impact the site.

A group of rock climbers reported seeing a man digging around the bases of rocks in the Barbed Wire Boulders area of Lake Tahoe. In addition to removing Washoe Tribe artifacts, the digging may have destabilized large boulders and trees, making the area dangerous for visitors. Several artifacts have been recovered by the California Department of Fish and Game, but no arrests have been made. The investigation continues.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Wednesday, September 26, 2012. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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