Did the Carthaginians sacrifice their children? A study of remains from the tophet (burial ground) at Carthage suggests most of the children died prenatally or soon after birth and were unlikely to have lived long enough to be sacrificed.

Three cheers for volunteer Shelley Rasmussen, who drives 50 miles each way each Tuesday to lead tours at ASU’s Deer Valley Rock Art Center. Her  pay? Nothing—it’s a labor of love.

Homeless people in Bristol, UK, have taken part in a small-scale archaeological dig in the heart of the city, with the help of students from the University of Bristol, English Heritage, and the police. See our story “Archaeology of the Homeless” for archaeologists studying the material culture of the homeless in the Midwest.

Here’s a story about the work of the Rim Country Chapter of the Arizona Archaeology Society, which traces its roots to an “Introduction to Archaeology” class at Gila Pueblo Community College in Payson during the 1980s.

Home renovation in the Old City turned up a fragment of an 1,100-year-old plaque from when Jerusalem was ruled from Baghdad by the Abbasid empire. It is thought to have been made by an army veteran to express his thanks for a land grant from the Caliph al-Muqtadir, the “Emir of the Faithful.”

Well, let’s get the Tut news out of the way first…

The LA Times covers the basic information thoroughly, if not terribly critically (not many people are doing that, by the way). So, he died of broken leg and malaria; we have some relatives identified with DNA.

In the Times Online, Tutankhamun is said to be “the product of an incestuous relationship that may have led to a weakened constitution and his early death…a sickly teenager with a club foot who probably died of complications related to malaria.” A university parasitologist is quoted disagreeing about the malaria bit.

The “incestuous” label matches with a Tut family tree on the Discovery website, which indicates the mummies claimed to be his father and mother were blood relations.

I have some questions about the results and our new issue’s cover story, “Warrior Tut,” by W. Raymond Johnson suggests Tut was actually fairly active.

Meanwhile…

Students at a college in the UK are digging up their school’s grounds—again. In the past, they’ve turned up Roman, Bronze Age, Neolithic, English Civil War artifacts.

This story brings back memories of doing highway archaeology surveys… The setting? Delaware’s Route 9. The weather? “We started with rain and are ending with snow.”

An 800-year-old copper workshop has been found near Monk’s Mound in Illinois.

Restoring the Everglades—hooray! Just watch out for those historic and ancient sites, okay?

Kaibab National Forest is the place to be during March, which is Arizona’s official Archaeology Month. Free archaeology programs there will include hikes to the Keyhole Sink Petroglyph site and lectures each Thursday at 6:30 p.m.

Finally… Saudi historian and archaeologist Ahmad Al-Zuwailaei discusses keeping the past (interpretation and even basic preservation) away from ideologues and partisans.