Two teams of scientists are using RNA to study ancient crops and the process of plant domestication. RNA molecules are active within a cell, and can indicate which genes are turned on and off. They are also notoriously unstable. “With ancient DNA you can see what an ancient organism might have looked like. With ancient RNA we can see what it actually looked like,” said molecular biologist Sarah Fordyce of the University of Copenhagen.

An ancient ceremony conducted by the Zoque people of Mexico has influenced the evolution of fish swimming in the sulfur cave known as Cueva del Azufre. The Zoque stun the fish with a toxin each spring in order to catch them for food. Scientists have shown that fish exposed to the ritual are more resistant to the toxin than fish that live elsewhere. “What is most exciting to me is that we were really able to find these connections between the natural world and culture,” said Michael Tobler of Oklahoma State University.  

High levels of lead in the bones of samurai-class children who lived in Japan 400 years ago may have been caused by their mothers’ lead-based white face powder. The children that survived into adulthood probably suffered from severe intellectual impairment, according to the study conducted by Tamiji Nakashima of the University of Occupational and Environmental Heath.  

Archaeologists are racing to collect fragile artifacts from the melting ice in northern Europe’s mountains before they deteriorate.  

Skeletal remains linked to the modern Huron-Wendat people are being kept in basements at the University of Toronto, and the Huron-Wendat want them repatriated. The bones were excavated in the 1950s and early 1970s from land owned by the Ontario Heritage Trust. The modern Huron-Wendat group, however, is based in Quebec. “Heritage is a provincial responsibility and not [a] federal [one]. The fact that the Huron-Wendat live in Quebec has slowed us down quite a bit,” said Susan Pfeiffer of the University of Toronto.  

Caddo pots, bowls, and bottles recovered by the Army Corps of Engineers were packed and ready to be handed over to the Caddo tribe when they were stolen from Southern Arkansas University four years ago. Archaeologist Jamie Brandon hopes that the well-documented pottery will be recovered soon.  

The face of a girl who died of typhoid fever in fifth-century B.C. Athens has been reconstructed. Her intact skull and teeth were unearthed at the Keramikos site in 1995 during subway construction.  

Construction of a castle using medieval-period building techniques continues in France, despite the lack of funding.  

Edward Low, 77, has died before his lawsuit against the Ohio Historical Society reached court. Low discovered a 2,400-year-old carved piece of sandstone from the Early Woodland Adena culture as a child, and claimed that he loaned it to the society for research and display. The Ohio Historical Society says it was a gift, but can provide no documentation to prove it. It has been said in the past that Low wanted to donate the artifact to a museum near his boyhood home.

An entire suit of Roman armor and some weapons have been unearthed at the Roman fortress of Caerleon. “It’s in a pretty good condition considering Roman armor was usually made of iron and that does not survive very well in wet, cold soil like we have in Wales. It’s turned into rust but it still retains its outline,” said Peter Guest of Cardiff University.

A bronze Roman parade helmet, complete with face mask, has been unearthed by a treasure hunter in Cumbria, England. It could be sold at auction to the highest bidder because single bronze items are not covered by England’s Treasure Act. “This is an internationally important find and one which everyone agrees should be in a museum in this country and we are supporting the efforts of Tullie House museum in Carlisle to acquire it,” said Roger Bland, head of the Portable Antiquities Scheme.  

Centuries’ worth of grimy campfire soot has been removed from the intricate 2,000-year-old paintings on the rocks of Siq al-Barid, or Little Petra. “Everybody knows Petra for its rock monuments. Very few people do realize that these monuments were painted. We have to imagine Petra as a painted city,” said Stephen Rickerby of London’s Courtauld Institute.  Photographs of Petra’s cave art are posted at National Geographic Daily News. 

Conservation of the partial ship unearthed at the World Trade Center site continues at the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory. Discovery News offers an update from head conservator Nichole Doub.  The vessel is most likely a brigantine, used for coastal trade, according to Warren Riess of the Darling Marine Center at the University of Maine.  

The Cottesloe family has granted a historian access to the diaries kept by their ancestor, Betsey Wynne, between the years of 1789 and 1857. Wynne’s experiences included sailing aboard her husband’s warship during the Napoleonic wars. “They’ll give a richer sense of the cosmopolitanism and culture of the generation that spanned this incredible period of change,” said historian Elaine Chalus of Bath Spa University.  

Archaeologists want to know more about what life was like for the enslaved African-Americans who lived at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia home. “The overall goal is to show what really happened at Monticello,” said Fraser D. Neiman of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.  

A report from Vietnam says that 8,000-year-old tools made from stones and animal bones have been found in Tham Choong Cave to the north.  

Since the end of communist rule, archaeological research has flourished in Bulgaria. “In order to get to the medieval fortress of Lyutitsa you had to cross a number of checkpoints and run the risk of being arrested at any moment,” remembers Irko Petrov, director of the regional archaeology museum.  

Russian scientists have uncovered the remains of the child Emperor Ivan VI, who was overthrown after 404 days and sent into exile. He died at the age of 24 during an escape attempt.  

Two huge water reservoirs have been discovered at the Maya city of Uxul in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. “We conducted a trial dig in the center of one of the water reservoirs. We found that the bottom, which is at a depth of two meters, was covered with ceramic shards – probably from plates – practically without any gaps. But we don’t know yet whether it’s like this throughout the entire aguada,” explained student Nicolaus Seefeld. 

BP’s plans to sink an oil well off the coast of Libya could put the country’s archaeological sites and shipwrecks at risk. “They are very important sites and they are very fragile. If there is a problem with oil, like in the US, and it washes on to the shore it’s going to be very difficult to clean the remains because the stones are porous,” explained Claude Sintes, director of the Museum of Ancient Arles in France and director of the sub-aquatic team of the French archaeological mission to Libya.  

Anthropologist Pat Shipman of Penn State University thinks that the ability to observe, control, hunt, and eat other animals may have driven human evolution. “Domestication was reciprocal,” she writes in Current Anthropology.