A jawbone and teeth discovered in a cave in southern China suggest that early modern humans arrived in Asia at least 100,000 years ago, and they may have interbred with Neanderthals and other archaic hominid species. It has been thought that modern humans migrated out of Africa about 60,000 years ago.

Armenia’s archaeology is in the news today. The bodies of adults and children who lived between the end of the Neolithic period and the beginning of the Bronze Age were unearthed in a cave in Armenia, according to this report from an Armenian news service.  Some skin and hair were preserved in one of the children’s burials. DNA testing may be possible.  A skirt made of reeds dating to the fourth millennium B.C. was found in a cave in Areni, as well as a mummified goat.  

More than 400 pieces of human bone from at least 97 different people have been recovered from the banks of a partially drained artificial lake that is situated between Bosnia and Serbia. DNA testing will be used to try to identify the victims.  

Sacred swords excavated in the early twentieth century have been identified as the ones placed under the Great Buddha of Todaiji Temple, one of the historic monuments of the ancient city of Nara, Japan. The swords were removed from the treasury and dedicated to the temple by Empress Komyo in the year 760.

Should museums display human remains?  

Yale University alumni living in Peru have called for their alma mater to resolve an ongoing dispute over Machu Picchu artifacts. In 1911, Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham found the Inca citadel and shipped many of its treasures home. “What is driving Yale to insist upon retaining this stuff? I think they get a lot of credit for the research they’ve done. But after the 100 years is over, it’s time to move on,” said Frederic Truslow, a lawyer living in Lima.  

An oil boom working on the clean-up in the Gulf of Mexico snagged a nineteenth-century anchor from the mouth of the Perdido River in Alabama.  

A decorated gunpowder gourd dated 1793 may have been used to store a handkerchief soaked in the blood of beheaded King Louis XVI. The handkerchief is gone, but brownish stains inside the squash were analyzed for DNA. Scientists are now looking for a known French royal sample for comparison.

Archaeologist Bill Kelso announced that the location of the 1608 church at Virginia’s Jamestown fort has been found. His team has excavated the deep holes where its timber columns stood, and discovered a row of graves in the area that would have been the church’s chancel. “That’s when we started high-fiving,” he said.

It had been thought that Christopher Columbus and his crew carried syphilis back to Europe from the New World, but seven skeletons discovered in Britain show signs of the disease long before his transatlantic voyage. “We’re confident that Christopher Columbus is simply not a feature of the emergence and timing of the disease in Europe,” said Brian Connell of the Museum of London.  

A new study published in PLoS ONE suggests that high temperatures killed the residents of Pompeii within ten seconds of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius 2,000 years ago. “Field and laboratory study of the eruption products and victims indicate that heat was the main cause of death of people previously supposed to have died by ash suffocation,” the scientists wrote.  

Urban resorts, industrial development, and sport divers are damaging Turkey’s underwater cultural heritage, says Ufuk Kocabas of Istanbul University. He thinks that the country’s penalties for plundering historic shipwrecks are insufficient.  

An 8,000-year-old skeleton has been discovered in Bulgaria.  

Human remains, stone tools, and pottery dating to the 1300s have been unearthed at an U.S. Army corps of Engineers’ building project in Mississippi.  

Stone flakes estimated to be 10,000 years old are being excavated from a campsite in Maine. “The materials that Native Americas used for stone tools are sort of distinctive. It’s just not any sort of rock, it’s not granite typically, but it’s stone that would break in a certain way that would allow spearheads to be made and other scraping tools,” said Ellen Cowie of the Northeast Archaeology Research Center.  

An inscribed stone slab estimated to be 1,000 years old was unearthed at the site of a proposed cricket stadium on the eastern coast of Sri Lanka.  

A shortage of raw glass in late Roman Britain prompted the recycling of large quantities of it, according to a new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.  “Indeed, further investigation using trace elements analysis and isotopes is necessary to identify potential manufacture regions,” said Caroline Jackson of the University of Sheffield.  

Robert Krulwich writes about early photography in this installment of his NPR blog, “Krulwich Wonders.” Could these images be the first pictures taken of human beings?