Vandals destroyed a field school excavation by Southern Illinois University students and stole equipment from a large, locked storage box at the site.

British army officer cadets will fire replicas of eighteenth-century weapons in order to assess their range and other capabilities. Scholars from Glasgow University will use the information to study the Battle of Culloden, fought between government and Jacobite forces in 1746.

The Tullie House museum in Cumbria, England, will open a new Roman gallery next week, without the Crosby Garret helmet. The bronze helmet, discovered by a metal detectorist, was auctioned off to an anonymous bidder. “I have written repeatedly through the auction house requesting if not a loan, at least to be able to take measurements so we could create a replica, but we have heard nothing. We still have absolutely no idea who bought it,” said Hilary Wade, director of the museum.

An investigation into the death of archaeologist Mario Bergeron at a site in Old Montreal has led to citations for his archaeological company, and the construction and engineering firms working on the project.

There’s more information on the threat to archaeological sites from the wildfire in eastern Arizona at National Geographic News.

This video at BBC News shows some of the hundreds of Inca tombs that are being recorded in the difficult terrain of Peru’s Andes Mountains.

DNA analysis of a shrunken head in the collections at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv shows that it probably belonged to an Afro-Ecuadorian man. Scientists think he was killed during battle sometime between 1600 and 1898.

The contents of a septic tank beneath an apartment building in Herculaneum have revealed much about the diet of the average Roman. “What we’ve found is a fantastically good snap shot of what the Romans were using in their kitchens, from pots and pans to glassware and broken cups,” said Andrew Wallace-Hadrill of the Herculaneum Conservation Project from the British School at Rome.

Did the early residents of what is now southern France brew beer? Laurent Bouby of the Centre de Bio-Archeologie et d’Ecology found traces of barley in ceramic vessels and on the floor of a dwelling near a hearth and oven.

Researchers from Northwestern University have recreated copper artifacts produced by the Mississippians of Cahokia some 600 years ago. “I am delighted that through the scientific process we were able to confirm some of the techniques and end some of the disputes about how the copper artifacts were made,” said anthropologist James Brown.

Scientists have been unable to confirm the identity of human remains recovered from a cemetery in Central Texas. Archival clues suggest that the grave belonged to Texas Ranger James Coryell, who was killed in 1837.

A team from the University of Maryland is excavating the Annapolis home of James Holliday, who was born a slave in 1809 and freed in 1819. Holliday worked as a messenger for the superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, and he purchased the middle-class home in 1850.

Some kids in Wyoming thought they had found a piece of a dinosaur egg, but it turned out to be a piece of human skull. The authorities went back to the site and found other bones.

In this recording, Irving Finkel of the British Museum does his best to speak Akkadian, the language of ancient Mesopotamia.

Two archaeology-themed board games are reviewed in the “Geek Dad” column at Wired.com.