A gallery in France’s Cave of a Hundred Mammoths seems to have been set aside as a place for palaeolithic children to practice finger fluting, or creating decorations in soft clay with their fingers. “It shows collaboration between children and adults, and adults encouraging children to make these marks. This was a communal activity,” said Jessica Cooney of Cambridge University.  See more of “the world’s first finger paintings” in this video at BBC News.

Two Roman forts have been uncovered in Camelon, Scotland, along with 60 pairs of leather shoes, pottery, jewelry, coins, bones, and an ax. “This proves that the Romans were there for a greater length of time, which is different to their normal routine of coming in, building something and then tearing it down so the natives can’t use it once they have left,” said archaeologist Martin Cook.

The remains of a World War II soldier from Massachusetts have been recovered in a remote area of Bosnia. His plane is thought to have been shot down in 1944.

More than 1,000 land mines have been removed from the Syrian-Turkish border so that the excavation of the Iron Age city of Karkamis can begin. “Our aim is to totally uncover the city with its pathways, squares, walls and temples,” said Nicolo Marchetti of Bologna University.

 In an area north of Dublin, Ireland, construction crews discovered a early medieval cemetery.

Twelve pieces of 800-year-old slate marked with incised designs have been found at Nevern Castle in Wales’ Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. “They were found in only one place in the castle and were probably intended to ward off evil,” said Chris Caple of the University of Durham.

Italy will assist in the training of Iraqi archaeologists and remodel several exhibit halls in Iraq’s National Museum.

Scholars think that a Greek inscription in the collections of Rome’s Capitoline Museums may date to the second century, making it the earliest-known Christian inscription to have survived. Gregory Snyder of Davidson College in North Carolina says the inscription is a funeral epigram that combines the teaching of an early Christian philosopher and pagan elements.

The severe drought in Texas has caused a drop in the level of the water in Lake Whitney, exposing five archaeological sites dating back 8,000 years. More than 30 people have been caught digging illegally.

Human footprints estimated to have been made between 4,500 and 25,000 years ago have reportedly been found in northern Mexico.

In Gloucestershire, England, National Trust researchers have uncovered the footprint of a square building on a spot where a nineteenth-century map places a round one. “There was a circular building shown on the 1838 map called a ‘temple folly’ but what we’ve got is a square building, which is a bit odd,” said archaeologist Jim Gunter.

In southern Australia, students from Flinders University are looking for signs of a school that once stood in Mary MacKillop Memorial Park in the 1860s. “We’ve found slate, which was used in that time to write on and could be associated with the school,” said archaeologist Cherrie Deleiuen.

Kentucky is one of two states in the U.S. that do not have a welcoming museum of natural history—its exhibit space was shut down in 2008 due to budget cuts. “There are archaeological sites all over the state, and a lot of people don’t know that. It’s a shame that people don’t realize that,” said George Crothers of the University of Kentucky Museum of Anthropology.

Wired offers an explanation of the equation used in carbon-14 dating.