Tim White of the University of California, Berkeley, and his team unveiled what they say is the oldest-known member of the human family tree — a 4.4 million-year-old skeleton dubbed “Ardi,” short for Ardipithecus ramidus. “It’s not a chimp. It’s not a human. It shows us what we used to be. It bridges a gap,” he said. This article offers images of Ardi’s skull.   National Geographic News explains how Ardi fits into human evolutionary theory. The bones show that Ardipithecus could walk on two legs without lurching from side-to-side like a chimp, but she could also climb trees. “What Ardi tells us is there was this vast intermediate stage in our evolution that nobody knew about. It changes everything,” said Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University.   A full-body sketch of Ardi is shown at Bloomberg, along with the story of her discovery.

An amphitheater that seated 2,000 people has been found within a third-century imperial palace outside of Ostia, on the coast west of Rome. “It’s a very enigmatic building, it’s not meant to be seen from miles around, it’s very discreet. We are not entirely sure what went on in the amphitheater,” said Simon Keay, leader of the British excavation team.   This article mentions the discovery of toilet facilities at the amphitheater.   More photographs of the excavation are available at BBC News.  

An international team claims to have found the world’s oldest brain, in a cave in Armenia. The brain fragment and its red and white blood cells were found clinging to a 5,000-year-old skull, which had been placed within a buried ceramic vessel.  

A Colorado artifact dealer charged with illegally trafficking in American Indian objects during the federal crackdown in Utah has pleaded not guilty in federal court.

 Helen Donoghue, a specialist in infectious disease at University College London, examined tissue samples from the mummy of an Egyptian woman known as Irtyersenu. She determined that the woman died of tuberculosis, and not from the growth on her ovary, as had been thought in 1825.  

Seven Roman statue bases were found during a new survey of the Blue Grotto, a cave on the island of Capri in southern Italy. In 1964, three statues of gods were recovered from the cave, which was Emperor Tiberius’s favored swimming hole. “The sculptures were all placed at the same level. It is likely that other statues will come to light as the project continues with new underwater investigations,” said diver Vasco Fronzoni.  

Here’s more information on the discovery of the foundations of Nero’s rotating banquet hall and part of the kitchens in his palace, the Domus Aurea, on Rome’s Palatine Hill.  

Turkey has allocated money to restore a Roman lighthouse located in the ancient city of Patara. “The world’s oldest lighthouse was known to be the one in Lacaruna, Spain. The lighthouse we have found is 60 years older than the one in Spain,” said Havva Isik, of Akdeniz University.  

Volunteer G. Pat Macha and others have found the wreckage of a Lockheed-Martin T-33A that went missing after take-off from Los Angeles International Airport on October 15, 1955. Two Air Force pilots died in the crash.  

A wooden walkway in Otago, New Zealand, is being preserved in a solution of polyethylene glycol. The walkway is about 150 years old, and was found during the construction of a new shopping mall.  

Kazuto Matsufuji of Doshisha University says he has found 120,000-year-old stone tools in western Japan. The country’s previously oldest stone tools on record were less than 100,000 years old.  

Richard Moter has been carefully recording what he finds at a slave cabin in Virginia owned by his family. “A lot of these sites have been destroyed by loggers and landowners. I’m in here just trying to piece together the story,” he said. Scholars from the University of Mary Washington have helped him in his quest.    

Dendrochronologists are studying a log cabin in Missouri’s Rock Bridge Memorial State Park. Park officials are unsure if the cabin’s original logs were used in a renovation project in the late 1960s or early 1970s. “It’s nice to have the cabin, but if it’s not historical then we can’t maintain it,” said superintendant Jim Gast.