Conservationists are ready to begin work on the hull of the HMS DeBraak, which sank at the entrance to Delaware Bay in 1798 and was recovered in 1986. The DeBraakis known for its remarkably well-preserved collection of military cannons and wool, leather, and linen artifacts.

CNN has more information on the Sidamara Sarcophagus and Turkey’s recent request to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum to return a piece of it. “The Ministry has a good relationship with the V&A Museum and we are hopeful that an agreement between the two parties can soon be reached,” said Tolga Tuyluoglu, director of Turkey’s culture and tourism office in London.

Several decorated clay discs were reportedly unearthed at Noatak National Preserve in northwest Alaska by a team from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Geographer Charles Lafon of Texas A&M University analyzed the rings of several species of pine trees for evidence of forest fires. He found that combining information from multiple trees can allow scientists to determine when the fires occurred. “The fires probably were ignited by a combination of humans and lightning strikes,” he said.

A 1,400-year-old tomb has been found in southern Mexico. Edgar Pineda of the National Institute of Anthropology and History explained that it had been built by the Chontal ethnic group, and that it had probably been situated beneath a building in the center of an ancient city.

Some 26,000 acres of land in northern Arizona have been added to Petrified Forest National Park, including areas that could contain basketmaker villages and petroglyph sites.

Housing development in Sydney, Australia, has revealed campsites and artifacts made by the Darug people.

Here’s more information on the joint excavation projects conducted by students from the University of Massachusetts Lowell and Queen’s University in Belfast. “Lowell was an early Irish center of immigration. The more we collaborated, the more we identified a common interest of studying the pre- and post-immigration lifestyles of the Irish,” said Frank Talty of the Center for Irish Partnerships at the University of Massachusetts.

The first textile mill in Todmorden, a town in West Yorkshire, England, is being excavated as part of a flooding defense project. The mill was built in 1782 and it closed in 1961.

Archaeologists from the Maryland State Highway Administration, the Maryland Historical Trust, and the U.S. Navy have been working together to remove the silt covering an early U.S. gunboat that was scuttled in the Patuxent River during the War of 1812.