Archaeology Magazine Archive

A publication of the Archaeological Institute of America

Special Introductory Offer!
latest news
Archaeology Magazine News Archive
2008-2012


Visit www.archaeology.org/news for the latest archaeological headlines!

Monday, August 31
August 31, 2009

Three men charged with trafficking in archaeological resources have been sentenced in South Dakota. A fourth has pleaded guilty and will be sentenced next year. They have forfeited more than 12,000 artifacts between them.

The Army Corps of Engineers cautions that a proposed floodwall at Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana, could dredge up American Indian ancestral bones. “It’s almost a given that where there’s a shell midden, there are human remains,” agreed Ken Carleton, archaeologist for the Mississippi Band of Choctaw.  

The skull of an American soldier who died in 1777 after being held on a British prisoner of war ship could be reburied after forensic study. As many as 1,000 men had been held on the ship; 46 of the men were dumped in Milford, Connecticut, where they died of smallpox and were buried in a mass grave. The skull was found in a local museum collection.  

The bodies of the last two Australian soldiers missing in action in Vietnam will be returned home today for burial.  

Miami’s Lemon City cemetery, where African-Americans were buried in the early twentieth century, will likely be preserved as a historical monument.  

Ancient monuments in Pakistan’s Taxila Valley are threatened by quarrying and blasting. The vibrations produced by mining equipment have also damaged artifacts in the Taxila Museum.  

British archaeologists dug test pits at a twentieth-century campsite in the Forest of Dean, but found little more than tent pegs. “The conclusion I draw from that is that people were very careful to take everything away with them,” said Lisa Hill, a doctoral candidate at St Cross College, Oxford.  

Take a tour Magdeburg Cathedral, the first Gothic church in Germany, with archaeologist Rainer Kuhn as your guide.

  • Comments Off on Monday, August 31

August 28, 2009
August 28, 2009

Greek archaeologists have discovered a burial at the ancient Macedonian capital of Aigai with two large silver vessels and other artifacts.

This travel piece suggests visiting Sudan’s pyramids instead of Egypt’s, and hiking Bolivia’s Cordillera Apolobamba rather than Peru’s Inca Trail.

Here’s a recap of work at El Coporo in Guanajuato, which is being prepared for public access in a couple years.

An early Viking trading post has been found at Laerdal, Norway, according to this brief report.

The steamer Samuel F. Hodge, which sank in Lake Ontario in 1896, has been located.

The Guardian has a great series of articles about archaeology: “Beginner’s guide to archaeology,” “Archaeology: The great treasure hunt” (a find photogallery), “The keeper of London’s archaeological treasures” (the Museum of London), “The Roman foundations of Cambridge,” “Archaeology at Vindolanda: ‘I’ve found a writing tablet!,'” “Time Team’s Mick Aston—why I love to dig,“Racing against time to save prehistoric Orkney treasures,” “Digging deep” (amateurs and the Portable Antiquities Scheme), “Unearthing Manchester’s Victorian slums,” “Unearthing bronze-age Dartmoor,” “‘It’s a gladiator. Or perhaps it’s a god?'” (Vindolanda overview), and “Archaeology for all” (a community dig in Hertfordshire). Bravo!

  • Comments Off on August 28, 2009




Advertisement


Advertisement

  • Subscribe to the Digital Edition