Excavations have continued in Maryland at Pig Point, a 3,000-year-old American Indian site on a bluff overlooking the Patuxent River. Archaeologists have uncovered unique pots; items from as far away as Ohio, Michigan, and New York; and charcoal dating as far back as 210 A.D. “Some of these artifacts are one of a kind, and we don’t have an easy way of fitting them into our mental template … It’s a great, great site,” said Maureen Kavanagh of the Maryland Historical Trust.

Why have Stone Age artifacts been turning up in Iron Age graves in Norway? “People probably considered old objects as a heritage from their ancestors. Recycling of old burial mounds for new graves is an indication of this relationship,” said German archaeologist Eva Thate.  

Four ancient castles have been uncovered in western Turkey.  

Flooding has prompted the removal of human skeletal remains from the grounds of Central Wyoming College. The bones have been sent to the University of Wyoming for examination.  

Check out the continued discussion about how you can use Google Earth to stop looting.  

Human bones unearthed at the Civil War-era Fort Holmes on North Carolina’s Bald Head Island may have belonged to slaves. “Some of these workers were actually slaves that were loaned from area plantations, others were conscripted freemen,” explained state archaeologist Nathan Henry.  

South Carolina’s General Assembly has passed a new, tougher law against treasure hunting on Hilton Head Island.  

This article in the Yemen Observer states that one person was killed and others were wounded last week at a demonstration at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Zabid. The demonstration was in response to a decision by the local authorities to remove the homes of poor people living near the monument.  

A mass grave containing the bones of some 500 people has reportedly been found near Vladivostok, Russia. Archaeologist Yaroslave Livansky thinks they were killed by Stalin’s secret police in the 1930s.  

The 31 marine fossils found in graves at Palenque are one piece of the puzzle suggesting that the Maya believed their land had once been covered with water. “When gods ordered water to retire, their city emerged and the actual era began. Mayans from Palenque had the notion that the Earth was different a thousand years ago, and that the world was mutable, subject to transformation,” said Martha Cuevas, who was part of a joint study conducted by Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History and the National Autonomous University.

A 12,000-year-old site has been unearthed in Keene, New Hampshire. “Not very much at all is known about these people. What is very special about this site is that this is one of the very early sites. These were some of the first people to come into this area at the end of the Ice Age,” said archaeologist Robert Goodby.

Restoration of the Veetrirundha Perumal temple, built in 850 A.D., has begun in southern India. The temple has murals from three dynasties, spanning some 700 years.

A team of Mexican archaeologists will return to Egypt, where they are conserving the 3,500-year-old Theban Tomb 39. “The place is exceptionally beautiful due to the amount of hieroglyphs found on the walls, which can be deciphered, as well as the good conservation state of the murals,” said Angelina Macias Goytia of the National Institute of Anthropology and History. The tomb will soon be open to the public.  

A rare photograph of two enslaved African-American boys has been found at the home of a man thought to be a descendant of one of the boys. “It is a very difficult and poignant piece of American history,” said Will Stapp of the Smithsonian Institution. The collector who found the picture wants to resell it to a museum.  

The young woman whose remains are known as the Santa Rosa mummy may have died from complications of Cantrell’s syndrome, which causes defects in the diaphragm, abdominal wall, pericardium, heart, and lower sternum. The 700-year-old mummy was examined as part of restoration work.  

In Canada’s Yukon Territory, a Gold Rush-era steamboat named the A.J. Goddard has been designated a historic site, thus protecting it from salvagers. The steamboat sank in 1901, while carrying miners and supplies across Lake Laberge.  

Two more photographs of the seventeenth-century ship’s hull discovered off the North Carolina coast are available. “These are amazing vessels. The technology involved is incredible. You can see the wood is amazing. Also, we don’t have anything like it today,” enthused Bradley Rodgers of East Carolina University.  

The skeletal remains of a man believed to have been Edward Salter, a retired member of Blackbeard’s pirate crew, will be examined by scientists at the Smithsonian Institution, and then reburied in North Carolina.  

Excavations at Fairbanks House, the oldest wood-frame house in North America, have yielded many more artifacts than archaeologists expected. The Dedham, Massachusetts, home was inhabited by members of the Fairbanks family from 1636 until 1904.