Prehistoric bones and stone tools unearthed near Verona and stored in a former military armory in northern Italy are covered with a bright blue sheen that could cause irreparable damage. Scientists think the blue pigment may have been formed by a pollutant transferred to the artifacts by hydrocarbon vapors. (Oil and other lubricants were once stored in the armory to keep the weapons in working order.) The pollutant may even have come from the padding in the storage cabinets. Italy has strict laws protecting cultural heritage, and the case has been referred to Verona’s public prosecutors.

Did Madrid’s National Archaeological Museum acquire 22 antiquities that were illegally excavated and exported from Italy? Polaroid photographs of artifacts from convicted antiquities trafficker Giacomo Medici’s warehouse in Geneva, in addition to pictures of items from warehouses owned by Gianfranco Becchina, whose trial is just underway, are “suspiciously similar” to objects purchased by the museum in 1999.  

A hot air balloonist spotted several dark circles while floating over Oxfordshire, England. “In twelve years of ballooning, I have never seen anything as clear as this. It was like looking down on a map,” said Michael Wolf. Hot, dry conditions in the farmer’s field made it possible to see the marks, which could represent Bronze Age barrows.  

A forgotten air raid shelter from the Second World War turned up in London. “The building of it would have been ordered by the Government of the day for people who couldn’t afford an Anderson shelter in their garden or who didn’t have garden,” said historian John Phillips.  

The entrance to a 500-year-old burial chamber was opened in a church in Suffolk, England, when a woman’s foot dislodged a marble flagstone. “I was thrilled when they told me I had discovered this vault they did not know was there. One or two people have now started calling me the Tomb Raider,” she said.  

A shuttle bus could soon carry tourists to Stonehenge and other Neolithic hotspots.  

National Park Service archaeologist Chris Finley and Crow tribal members have found 22 fragments of tepee poles in the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area in Montana. The poles were probably made from lodge pole pine, which does not grow in the area. “You can see how out of place it is if you know what you’re looking at,” Finley said.  

A student from West Virginia University discovered a gold coin bearing the image of Emperor Pius at an excavation in Bethsaida, Israel. “Dude, did I just find a coin?” she asked. The coin is the first of its kind to be unearthed in Israel.  

A frescoed dining room has been found in an imperial Roman residence in Novae, Bulgaria.  

Nicholas K. Laws, who pleaded guilty to one count of trafficking in stolen artifacts after the federal sting operation in Utah, has been given 24 months of probation. “He was never doing what he did to make a fast buck like the other defendants,” his lawyer told the judge.  

The growth pattern of a human infant’s brain corresponds to the parts of the brain that changed as humans diverged from other primates, according to an examination of brain scans by David Van Essen of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “The correlation isn’t perfect, but it’s much too good to put down to chance,” he said.

A tiny fragment of clay tablet is said to be inscribed with the oldest writing yet found in Jerusalem. “It was written by a highly skilled scribe who, in all likelihood, prepared tablets for the royal household of the time,” said Wayne Horowitz of Hebrew University. The tablet is estimated to be 3,400 years old, and is thought to have been sent from the Canaanite ruler of Jerusalem to the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten.

How did primates make the switch to bipedalism? This installment of NPR’s series on human evolution investigates the when, how, and why questions anthropologists ask about the “mobile savage.”  You can also see the differences between the skeletons of humans and chimps in this interactive article.  

Archaeologists are attempting to map the battlefields of the Pequot War, fought between English colonists and the Pequot tribe in the 1630s, on land in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New York.  

The bones of a tortoise have been discovered among the remains of cats and dogs at Stafford Castle in England’s West Midlands region. The tortoise was probably kept as a pet in the nineteenth century. “It seems very likely that this specimen was imported from North Africa or the Mediterranean,” said Richard Thomas of the University of Leicester.  

You can help in the search for the tomb of Genghis Khan, using satellite imagery. A team on the ground in Mongolia will check out areas of possible archaeological interest.  

Excavation of the undisturbed slave quarters at Montpelier, the home of James Madison, is underway in Virginia.  

Flooding has damaged the Harappan site of Jognakhera in northern India, where 5,000-year-old copper smelting furnaces have been found.  

A spear point discovered by a family on a hike in Boone’s Cave State Park in North Carolina turns out to be 10,000 years old. “For somebody to find something like this in the park, it’s the first one I’ve heard of being found and actually turning it in. Most people don’t think about the historical value,” said park ranger Sheila Zuccaro.  

There are a few more pictures of the two 4,300-year-old tombs recently unearthed in Saqqara at National Geographic Daily News.