The stylized engravings on stones made by the Iron Age Picts in Scotland were analyzed with a mathematical process, and have been shown to be part of a written language. “It is more than plausible that the Pictish symbols are examples of a script, in the sense that they encoded some information, which also had a spoken form,” agreed Paul Bouissac of the University of Toronto. He was not involved in the study. 

The first tree ring chronology for Asia shows that the Khmer Empire capital of Angkor was subjected to decades of drought followed by intense monsoons that may have damaged the city’s canal system. 

Police in Peru recovered Paracas, Chavin, and Moche artifacts, in addition to the mummy of an Inca child, from two homes in the Cusco region. The objects would have been sold on the black market. 

PeruRail is offering limited train service to Machu Picchu, which will reportedly reopen on Thursday. The rails had been wiped out during flooding and landslides in January. 

Archaeologists have started to dig at Shakespeare’s home in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. 

Results of the forensic canine examination of the Port Angeles waterfront in Washington State are in—and the dogs only found seven percent of the shoreline interesting. “I think it is good, and hopefully it relieves a lot of the surrounding areas about the potential [for development] out there in that aspect,” said Frances Charles, Lower Elwha Klallam Tribal Chairwoman. Construction of a bridge in the area had to be halted when an American Indian village, called Tse-whit-zen, and burial site were discovered.  

The last surviving population of woolly mammoths, which lived on Russia’s Wrangel Island until about 4,000 years ago, was wiped out quickly, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The first archaeological evidence of human occupation of the island appears after the death of the mammoths, so a storm or new disease could have been to blame for their demise.  

A 400-year-old shipwreck near North Carolina’s Currituck Beach Lighthouse is being damaged by surf and storms. Local volunteers and state engineers plan to salvage what is left.

Part of the ceiling of the Domus Aurea collapsed in Rome today. That particular area had not been open to the public.

An unusual lead sarcophagus discovered at the ancient site of Gabii last year will be moved to the American Academy in Rome for further study. The coffin dates to the fourth or fifth centuries A.D., and had been buried in the middle of the city. “To see someone who is at first glance a person of high social standing associated with later layers of the city … opens a potentially new conversation about this urban twilight in central Italy,” said Jeffrey Becker of the University of Michigan.

Historian Jane Peyton claims that brewing beer was women’s work until the Industrial Revolution, when it became the domain of men. “I know men will be absolutely stunned to find this out, but they’ve got women to thank for beer,” she quipped.

Some 20 Christian burials from the fourth and fifth centuries were reportedly unearthed in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Nepal’s fourth-century Changunarayan Temple is on the verge of collapse, due to landslides and illegal sand quarrying. The temple is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In Bangladesh, two police officers have been placed at the site of a brick structure that was uncovered along the Padma River, but they have been unable to control the crowds that want to see it.

Two people arrested in Utah during the federal sting operation pled guilty on Monday to stealing government property and illegally trafficking in American Indian artifacts.

Buddhist monk Hey Moon is campaigning for the return of Korean cultural items from Japan.

Renovators have discovered 600-year-old bee hives built into the two stone pinnacles of Scotland’s Rosslyn Chapel. “These hives were never intended to be a source of honey. They were there purely to protect the bees from our inclement weather,” said architect Malcom Mitchell.