The skeleton of Australopithecus sediba is characterized by traits typical of Australopithecus and early Homo, and it may have formed an evolutionary link between the two, according to Darryl de Ruiter of Texas A&M University and Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand. The fossils of A. sediba were first described last year, although it is possible that they represent a late-surviving form of Australopithecus africanus, and not a new species. 

The bones of a slaughtered herd of gazelles have been unearthed at Tell Kuran, in northeastern Syria. Guy Bar-Oz of the University of Haifa thinks the gazelles had been herded into long wall formations called desert kites by hunter-farmers 6,000 years ago. “They had no refrigerators; they would have to consume this meat in a very short time. This is why you’d connect it to some ritual get-together or feasting,” he explained. 

A megalithic tomb in the Netherlands has been damaged by a fire that was probably started by partying teens. One of the tomb’s massive stones was cracked and shattered by the heat. 

Mining companies in Australia have allegedly dodged cultural heritage laws and damaged Aboriginal cultural heritage sites in Queensland. 

In Turkey, ground-penetrating radar was used to check the route of a tunnel running underneath the Bosporus and on the European shoreline. 

The main street through Herculaneum has been opened to the public. The ancient Roman city of Herculaneum was buried in ash during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. 

More than 100,000 people have seen the artifacts from Machu Picchu that were returned to Peru from Yale University. The exhibit opened on April 5 in Peru’s Government Palace.

Dave Kurr was looking for a geocache in Arizona’s Prescott National Forest when he discovered an intact clay jar that could be centuries old. He marked its coordinates and contacted Kelley Ann Hays-Gilpin of Northern Arizona University. “He’s an angel, because he did the right thing. He’s just been so generous. He just knew that was for everybody, and for the Yavapai descendants,” she said. 

Peter Kenyon of NPR visited the ancient Greek city of Cyrene and found Libyans taking refuge from the war. 

A stone adze that was probably used to carve wood has been uncovered in New Zealand. “We’re looking at a part of time when people have just become Maori. It represents an early phase of the development of Maori culture,” said Peter Adds of Victoria University. 

This month marks 150 years since the start of the Civil War. How have its battlefields and monuments been preserved in the North and South? “We’ve spent a century and a half turning (the war) into a gigantic North-South football game in which everybody was a hero. In other words, we depoliticized the whole meaning of the war. And insofar as it was captured, it was captured by the descendants of the Confederates,” said historian Steven Mintz of Columbia University.

Listen to a recording of the trumpets from Tutankhamun’s tomb being played during a 1939 BBC broadcast. 

Bloomberg reported that a one-year jail sentence was imposed on Zahi Hawass yesterday, after a lawsuit accused him of not carrying out a court ruling to halt bidding from companies to run a bookstore in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. A lawyer for the Ministry of Antiquities filed an appeal. “He will present evidence that the bid for the bookstore contract was finished before the original court ruling, so therefore we could not follow the ruling to stop the bidding,” Hawass wrote in his blog.  Here’s what the New York Times had to say about the case.  Then, Dr. Hawass announced on his website that the Administrative Court in Egypt had accepted the proposal to stop the court ruling. 

And Ahram Online also reports that Hawass has been accused of using ancient artifacts to promote an American clothing line marketed under his name. “We never would have sat a model down in a 3,000-year-old artifact,” replied photographer James Weber. The photo shoot took place at the recent King Tutankhamun exhibition in New York, and any objects handled by the model were replicas. Profits from the sales will benefit the Children’s Cancer Hospital in Cairo. 

Archaeologists and volunteers digging at Fin Cop, an Iron Age hill fort in England’s Peak District, uncovered the remains of nine women and children in a defensive ditch. “For the people living here, the hurriedly constructed fort was evidently intended as a defensive work in response to a very real threat,” said contract archaeologist Clive Waddington. It had been thought that this was peaceful period in ancient Britain. 

The investigation of Little Salt Spring continues in Florida. “We now have the largest collection of the oldest wooden artifacts anywhere in the world. It will increase our understanding of the way people lived 10,000 years ago,” said John Gifford of the University of Miami. 

Artifacts dating to 8,500 years ago have been unearthed at Pig Point in Maryland. “The site provides the most intact layer after layer of artifact that I know of,” said Anne Arundel county archaeologist Al Luckenbach. Pottery, arrow and spear points, traces of wigwams, fires, and food remains have all been found. 

The Cyrus Cylinder has returned to the British Museum after a seven-month loan to Iran’s National Museum.