Remember Pearl Harbor Day and read about the USS Sacramento, whose bell is now mounted near California’s Sacramento River. On December 7, 1941, the USS Sacramento shot down two enemy warplanes and rescued sailors from stricken ships.

The Ohio Historical Society and Edward Low are locked in a dispute over the ownership of an Adena tablet that has been on display at the historical society since 1971. Low found the tablet as a boy in West Virginia, and says he lent it to the society, but the society claims it was a gift. “I never intended for them to keep it. I told them it’s not for sale,” Low said.   

Scientists think that a massive volcanic eruption about 73,000 years ago may have pushed humans close to the brink of extinction. Those people who survived may have adopted new strategies that allowed them to push other human species, such as Neanderthals, out of the picture.   

Last month, about 100 human bones were found within a house in Gibson, Louisiana. Local authorities suspect that the bones came from American Indian burial mounds on the property.  

The city of St. Augustine, Florida, has launched a website featuring its archaeology. “With the upcoming 450^th anniversary it’s great to have this website available for the public and educators to learn about the city’s archaeological heritage,” said Mark Knight, director of the city’s Planning and Building Department.  

Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, expects 12 countries to participate in a conference to be held in Egypt in March. “I am calling on all nations who want their important artifacts returned to attend the conference,” he told reporters. Hawass is expected to meet with a German delegation tomorrow to discuss the fate of the famed bust of Nefertiti, now housed in Berlin’s Neues Museum.   Here’s an article on the planned meeting from a German newspaper.  

Renovation of a kitchen in an eighteenth-century home in Kent Island, Maryland, has turned up thousands of artifacts. “If you’re going to buy an old house, you should care enough to think [this is] fun,” said the homeowner.

 The submerged ruins of a second-century A.D. city have been discovered off the coast of Libya. Archaeologists think it may have been destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami known to have struck the area in 365 A.D.

The ancient Roman city of Pompeii has been added to Google Street View. “Giving people a chance to take a virtual stroll through Pompeii will give an extraordinary boost to Italian tourism,” said Mario Resca of the Italian Culture Ministry.  

Were people cannibalized at a site in southern Germany 7,000 years ago? Or were their bodies just dismembered, defleshed, and reburied? “Human sacrifice at Herxheim is a hypothesis that’s difficult to prove right now, but we have evidence that several hundred people were eaten over a brief period,” said Bruno Boulestin of the University of Bordeaux.  

More 10,000-year-old artifacts have been uncovered in Scandinavia. This time, a settlement and evidence of tool production push back human occupation of the area around Oslo, Norway, by 2,000 years.  

A skull fragment found in Wyoming could have come from a child or teenager buried along the Oregon Trail, according to the Natrona County coroner, Connie Jacobson. “Because of the weather conditions, we are just going to secure the site until summer. We are not going to go out there again,” she said.  

A Texas man and his grandson flying kites over the Thanksgiving holiday stumbled across human bones in an empty lot scheduled for development. Archaeologists were called in to investigate the area.   Here’s the follow-up story.  

Archaeologist Joan Geismar learned more about the eighteenth-century headstone unearthed in New York City’s Washington Square Park by reading the newspapers of the time.