In Scotland, archaeologists have unearthed two Bronze Age collared urns at the base of a standing stone that had fallen over during the winter. “This goes some way to proving that Carlinwell Stone is a genuine prehistoric standing stone, rather than something put up later,” said John Sheriff of the Royal commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland. 

A group of students from North Dakota State University traveled to American Samoa for field research, where they discovered stone tools, ornaments, fishhooks, shells, and an intact cooking pot. “Nothing like that has ever been found in that region of the world,” said Jeffrey Clark, their professor. 

The number of tourists traveling to Asia is soaring, sometimes putting ancient World Heritage sites like Angkor and the Great Wall of China at risk. 

Archaeologist Marina Piranomonte thinks that as many as 50 tombs dating to the first century B.C. could be hidden beneath the Stadio Flaminio, a rugby stadium in Rome. “I feel it is very apt to dig here since rugby has its roots in the Roman game of harpastum. The game took off in Britain and we have a source who recounts how the Romans were defeated 1-0 by a British team in 276 A.D. This was the first in a series of defeats that has not yet stopped unfortunately, but as least I am hoping the British will be envious of our necropolis,” she said.

Modern humans may have originated in southern Africa, according to a genetic study of modern hunter-gatherer groups. “Populations in southern Africa have the highest genetic diversity of any population, as far as we can tell,” said Brenna Henn of Stanford University. Diversity declines when small groups establish new populations.

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that the first farmers were only able to produce about three-fifths of the food collected by foragers. Samuel Bowles of the Santa Fe Institute thinks the advantage came in easier child rearing and defensive strategy. 

Simon James of the University of Leicester thinks that the 19 Roman soldiers and one Persian soldier, whose remains were unearthed in Syria at Dura-Europos in the 1930s, died from breathing in toxic fumes, making them the earliest victims of chemical warfare in the archaeological record. 

An intact figurine of a water bird has been excavated from a fifth-century burial in Asago, Japan. 

A nineteenth-century painting depicting Oregon’s Fort Hoskins has come to light, much to the delight of archaeologist David Brauner. He’s been excavating the Civil War outpost for years, but there are no know photographs of it. “We hoped sooner or later we’d see an image of at least one of the buildings at Fort Hoskins, but I’d kind of given up,” he said. 

The proposed construction of a vast artificial cave in a Canary Island mountain would put some 200 ancient carvings at risk.