The lost Viking settlement of Linn Duchaill may have been found at last in Ireland. Three areas of the site have been excavated, and evidence of carpentry, smelting, and ship repair have been unearthed. “We are unbelievably delighted,” said archaeologist and team leader Mark Clinton. The other Viking outpost in Ireland eventually became the city of Dublin.

Michael Petraglia of Oxford University and his research team claim to have found stone tools made by modern humans in the Arabian Peninsula and India that are 70,000 to 80,000 years old. “I believe that multiple populations came out of Africa in the period between 120,000 and 70,000 years ago,” he said. Genetic evidence suggests that such a migration began just 60,000 years ago.  

New 3D maps of the Titanic wreckage show that the break-up of the ship was “messier” than had been thought. “It’s almost like you cracked it open and spilled everything out. You see pieces of the engine, boilers … where we thought there might be one or two big things, we found five. … When we start to piece together how Titanic actually made its way to the bottom, those pieces will be key,” said expedition co-leader Dave Gallo of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.  

A Turkish farmer near the Black Sea uncovered a Roman mosaic on his property two years ago, leading to the excavation of a villa that could be part of a third-century settlement.  

Two 4,000-year-old temples thought to have been built by the Bracamoros culture have been unearthed in Peru’s northern jungle. “We are standing before one of the first civilizations of Peru,” said archaeologist Quirino Olivera.  This article has photographs of the site.  

National Geographic Daily News has photographs of the 10,000-year-old human skeleton discovered in an underwater cave near Tulum, Mexico.  

In Jacksonville, Oregon, archaeologists are investigating the nineteenth-century homestead of pioneer photographer and horticulturalist Peter Britt.  

The discovery of King Herod’s royal box at his theater is still making headlines.

Did volcanoes wipe out the Neanderthals? Russian anthropologist Liubov Golovanova says that volcanic dust deposits in a cave in the Caucasus suggest that an ecological catastrophe may have been to blame for their demise.

The seventeenth-century French ship La Belle, which was discovered in Matagorda Bay, will eventually be freeze dried at Texas A&M University. “The French wanted to put a colony [along the Mississippi River’s coast] to be in direct opposition to the Spanish,” explained Peter Fix of the Conservation Research Laboratory.  

Researchers from the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources will try to treat a dozen cannons still underwater at the site of the shipwreck thought to be the Queen Anne’s Revenge. “It’s imperative that we stop the damaging effects of salt water on these treasures,” said field director Chris Southerly.  

A burial mound that may have been used by the ancient Bulgars has been found beneath the medieval town of Pliska, Bulgaria, near the northern Black Sea coast.  

Bulgarian archaeologist Ivan Hristov has been excavating a Roman fortress and horse-changing station along a section of Roman road described as “a real highway of the antiquity.”  

Discovery News offers an aerial view of the Samaritan synagogue uncovered near the city of Beit Shean in Israel.  

Hundreds of people have donated money to help purchase a rare Roman parade helmet for the Tullie House museum in Carlisle, England. The bronze helmet was discovered by a young man with a metal detector and is due to be auctioned off next month. “We’re getting checks, children’s pocket money as well as lots of money donated on the Just Giving website and we’re also hoping that larger organizations can help us too,” said museum staffer Andrew MacKay.  

The Coast Guard is working with a private recovery team to try and find three men and the J2F-4 Grumman Duck biplane they were flying in 1942 when they were lost off the southeast coast of Greenland.