After years of dispute, Yale University has reportedly agreed to return to Peru more than 4,000 artifacts taken from Machu Picchu by Hiram Bingham between 1911 and 1915. “We are very pleased that Yale University has responded so positively,” said Peru’s President Alan Garcia. 

A pool that was part of a bath house built by Rome’s Tenth Legion has been discovered in Jerusalem. “It is very important because in all the excavations in the Jewish quarter (we have) never found a building from the second and third century,” said Ofer Sion, director of all excavations in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.  

Cave art in Wisconsin may offer a clue to the disappearance of the Effigy Mound people 1,000 years ago. The images of hunters with bows and arrows shooting at deer, some with fawns in their abdomens, could indicate that the human population outstripped their primary food source.  

A 3,000-year-old pit containing apricot and melon seeds has been uncovered in southeast China. The cellar was probably used to preserve fruits for aristocrats, according to Sun Zhouyong of the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology.  

Fragments of guns thought to date to the fifteenth century have been found in North Yorkshire, England, at a War of the Roses battlefield. It was not uncommon for such early guns to explode in the user’s hands. “We have fragments of handguns that exploded during the Battle of Towton – how rare can you get? It’s unbelievable,” exclaimed archaeologist Tim Sutherland.  

Jamaica’s government has not signed the 1972 UNESCO Convention prohibiting the illicit trade of antiquities, and artifacts are leaving the country without any way to protect them. The Archaeological Society of Jamaica wants to heighten awareness of the importance of artifacts to the country’s heritage. “There are persons out there, in the farms, etc, who’re digging up artifacts, they don’t know what they are. They just think these are things that are bothering their crops, so they just throw them away. If they understood that this was a part of their heritage, then they would say, ‘wow,’” explained Ivor Conolley, head of the Archaeological Society of Jamaica.  

The recent auction of a bronze Roman cavalry helmet in England has people asking questions about The Treasure Act, which defines treasure in terms of the value of the metal. “It is strange that a national treasure can be sold at public auction by an anonymous vendor to an anonymous buyer,” said Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, a former professor of archaeology at Cambridge University.  

Nushin Arbabzadah argues in The Guardian that a fifth-century Buddhist monastery unearthed to the north of Kabul should be preserved in order to help provide the Afghan people with a secular identity based upon a pre-Islamic past. “It is only through such evidence that Afghans can fully understand who they are in addition to being Muslims,” she writes.  It has been almost ten years since the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan.  

Italy’s cinemas, concert halls, and theaters closed today in protest against cuts to the culture budget, after the collapse of the House of the Gladiators in Pompeii. “I would like to draw the government’s attention to another collapse that risks irreversibly disfiguring our country: that of live performances,” said Sergio Escobar, director of Milan’s Piccolo Theater.

A member of Italy’s art squad spotted two first-century statues that had been stolen from Italian museums in the 1980s while on vacation in New York City. No arrests have been made.

Some of the Korean artifacts taken during Japanese colonial rule will be returned.  

A delegation from Yale University will travel to Peru to discuss the fate of the Machu Picchu artifacts removed by Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham between 1912 and 1916. “I think management of this issue is well underway and we will soon have positive news,” said Peru’s President Alan Garcia.  

Noodles, baked cakes, and porridge all made from millet were unearthed in a 2,500-year-old cemetery in Xinjiang, China, which has a desert climate. Mummies, weapons, leather goods, and a sweater have also been found.  

A Roman road junction has been discovered at the site of a railroad project in March, England.  

Conservators say that a large grant to English Heritage from the Heritage Lottery Foundation will help pay for the work needed to be done at Stonehenge. Parking and visitor facilities are inadequate, and busy roads mar the view.  

Seventeenth-century colonists in Maryland had a slightly different diet than they did in England. The staff at Historic St. Mary’s City tests historic recipes and talks to visitors about feeling full in the New World. There’s a recipe for you to try, too.  

Four sets of human remains have been recovered from a construction site in Yukon. The bodies are thought to have been hanged convicts from the Gold Rush era. “I’m not sure we’ll ever say with certainty who the individuals are, but I think that we can go through a process of elimination and begin to put some kinds of identities on some of the people,” said government archaeologist Greg Hare.  

Just in case you’ve missed all of the recent reports on the exhumation of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, here’s one more. It will take several months to complete the tests on his remains.