A section of retaining wall that protects Vietnam’s Thang Long Royal Citadel has collapsed, flooding the UNESCO World Heritage site with muddy water. The damage was caused by the construction of a new National Assembly House. 

Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities, announced that a special police force will be put in place to protect the country’s archaeological sites and museums. 

The War Between the States began 150 years ago today, when Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter. Be sure to see the images that accompany this Discovery News article on how Civil War photography changed modern warfare. 

Were Neanderthals just unlucky? Mathematicians Armando Neves of the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil and Maurizio Serva of the University of Aquila in Italy developed a model which shows that even low rates of interbreeding with modern humans could have led to Neanderthals’ extinction. 

Steve Caruso, an Aramaic translator, has examined the text of the lead codices reported to be early Christian documents discovered in a cave in Jordan. Archaeologist Peter Thonemann of Oxford University analyzed the images engraved on the pages. They agree that the little books are fakes.  And a television show titled “The Nails of the Cross,” has also been released just in time to capitalize on the Easter season. But as the Israel Antiquities Authority commented, “There is no doubt that the talented director Simcha Jacobovici created an interesting film with a real archaeological find at its center, but the interpretation presented in it has no basis in archaeological findings or research.”

A German Dornier 17, thought to be the last known example of the Nazi airplane, has been found intact at the bottom of the English Channel. “It’s one of the most significant aeronautical finds of the century,” said Ian Thirsk of the RAF Museum in London.

A team of Australian, New Zealand, and Turkish archaeologists have begun to investigate Gallipoli in anticipation of the 100^th anniversary of the campaign in 2015. Many artifacts were preserved near the surface. “Despite the historical importance of the Gallipoli battlefield, our knowledge of this area to date has been based on maps and written accounts. This area has never been studied in detail through modern archaeological methods,” said Australia’s Veterans’ Affairs Minister Warren Snowdon. 

Minister of State for Antiquities Zahi Hawass told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo that around 1,000 artifacts have been stolen from museums and archaeological sites since the uprisings began in Egypt in January. 

An intact tomb dating to the Western Han Dynasty has been excavated in northwestern China. The 2,000-year-old tomb was the only one out of 14 in the family cemetery of General Zhang Anshi that had not been looted. 

In southwestern New Mexico, archaeologists have uncovered traces of an earthen building and heated rocks that were used for cooking by prehistoric hunter-gatherers. 

Bones discovered in Vernon, British Columbia, turned out to be from a First Nations cemetery. 

Jinny Gudmundsen of USA Today thinks that the kids’ computer game, “Roman Town,” by Dig-It! Games is a fun and educational introduction to archaeology.