Stone tools thought to be between 130,000 and 700,000 years old have been found on the Greek island of Crete, suggesting that humans traveled there over water. “The results of the survey not only provide evidence of sea voyages in the Mediterranean tens of thousands of years earlier than we were aware of so far, but also change our understanding of early hominids’ cognitive abilities,” read a statement from the Culture Ministry.

Four mosaics dating to the third century A.D. have been uncovered in Antioch, and they have been identified as scenes from plays written by the Athenian comic poet Menander. “The importance of these mosaics is two-fold. One, they help us to reconstruct each of the four plays. Two, they illuminate significantly the tradition of illustrating Menander and reveal variations in the illustrations of the plays,” said Kathryn Gutzwiller of the University of Cincinnati.  

There’s more information on the opening of the tomb of an Urartian king in the Turkish newspaper, Hürriyet Daily News.  

The Wall Street Journal tells the story behind “The President’s House: Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation,” which opened last month in Philadelphia. The exhibits were constructed on top of the eighteenth-century foundations of the original President’s House and its slave quarters.  

A new hotel tax in Rome will charge tourists for repairs and maintenance for the ancient city. The price of museum entrance for non residents was also raised.

Haim Watzman of Nature examined the press coverage of Avi Gopher’s discovery of eight human teeth in a cave in Israel. Many news outlets claimed that the teeth could “rewrite the history of human evolution.”

Some 5,000 people reportedly are speaking a Greek dialect in northeastern Turkey that is the closest living language to ancient Greek. The language, called Romeyka, has no written form. “With as few as 5,000 speakers left in the area, before long, Romeyka could be more of a heritage language than a living vernacular. With its demise would go an unparalleled opportunity to unlock how the Greek language has evolved,” said Ioanna Sitaridou of the University of Cambridge.  

Near Lake Van in eastern Turkey, archaeologists opened the tomb of Urartian King Argishti, located in the western wing of his castle. He ruled during the eighth century B.C.  

Archaeologists and conservationists from the World Monuments Fund are working at Babylon and other ruins of Mesopotamia with a grant from the U.S. State Department. “We’re looking at not just archaeology. We’re looking at the economic opportunities and viability for local people. They need to see something out of this site. That’s possible, and possible at the same time to preserve the integrity of the site,” said project manager Jeff Allen.  There’s a lot more information about Iraq’s ancient sites, including two video tours and several photographs, at this New York Times blog.  

Dan Vergano of USA Today offers an update on the continuing exploration of the sacred pools known as cenotes. “Cenotes were seen as an opening into the underworld by the Classic Maya,” said Lisa Lucero of the University of Illinois. She has been investigating cenotes at Cara Blanca in Belize.  

Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, thinks that 2011 could see the discovery of King Tut’s wife’s tomb, the secret doors of the Great Pyramid, and the tomb of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony.  

A well-preserved canoe thought to be between 500 and 800 years old was found in Florida’s Lake Munson last month.  

The earliest-known human ancestor was probably threatened by the two new sabertooth cat species discovered in Chad. “With our present data, we don’t know what precisely the interactions were between a primate and a big carnivore. But probably these interactions were not so friendly,” said Patrick Vignaud of Poitier University.