A large, 1,000-year-old market center has been uncovered in eastern Missouri. Archaeologists want to know how the site, where they have found ornate pottery, copper ear spools, stone tools, and beads, in addition to traces of buildings, hearths, and food remains, was connected to Cahokia Mounds in Illinois.

Pig Point, Maryland, could be the most important archaeological site in the state of Maryland. Archaeologists have uncovered traces of prehistoric, oval Algonquian wigwams; tools made of stone, bone, and antler; food remains; pottery; an intact paint pot; and a polished stone that had been worn as jewelry.

A woman charged with stealing artifacts from public lands in Utah may strike a deal with federal prosecutors and change her plea on Monday. Her husband, Dr. James Redd, committed suicide the day after the couple was arrested. It was later revealed that they were also being investigated for fraud.

Two brothers have been charged with excavating an American bomber plane from the bottom of a lake in Canada’s Yukon Territory without a permit.

Here’s more information about the skeletal remains some say belonged to poet and artist Everett Ruess, who disappeared in 1934. Utah’s state archaeologist, Kevin Jones, is not convinced of the identification.

Mitochondrial DNA taken from the remains of Bronze Age Etruscans, and people who lived in the Tuscan region during the Middle Ages, was compared to samples from the modern Italian population. “Immigration and forced migration have diluted the Etruscan genetic inheritance so much as to make it difficult to recognize,” concluded David Caramelli of Florence University and Guido Barbujani of Ferrara University. The scientists did find a clear genetic link between the medieval Tuscans and the current Tuscans, however.

A spokesperson from the Vatican Museums’ diagnostics laboratory tempered the Pope’s announcement that the bones of St. Paul had been identified. Ulderico Santamaria, also of Tuscia University, said at a press conference that the analysis did not offer conclusive proof that the bones within the tomb of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls in Rome belonged to the Christian saint.

Was a riding spur at the Wayne County Historical Society in Ohio really worn by General George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn?

An eighteenth-century temple built as part of a landscape garden in Wiltshire, England, will be restored to its original glory. The Temple of Apollo was designed to resemble the ancient temple of Baalbec, in Syria, and the Temple of the Sun at Kew Gardens. It has become a favorite romantic spot.

Happy Fourth of July

Scientists from Australian National University have studied 3,000-year-old burials of young children at An Son, in southern Vietnam. “The burial of a new born baby without any associated grave goods and positioned within discarded kitchen material may suggest high levels of infant mortality, as well as a reduced emotional investment in very young children that may not live long anyway,” said archaeologist Peter Bellwood. Older children were buried with high-quality goods. 

Lothar von Falkenhausen first traveled to China to study its archaeology 30 years ago. He talks about his discoveries and his career in this article for UCLA’s web site. “We have seen history happen. China – no matter where you are in China – is completely different now from what it was like in 1979. You don’t even have to be an archaeologist to realize that,” he said.   

In central northern Bulgaria, researchers are analyzing samples of bone from a grave dating to between 6300 and 6150 B.C. The bones belonged to a child between the ages of 12 and 13.  

Kevin Jones, Utah’s state archaeologist, and physical anthropologist Derinna Kopp, are not convinced that a burial site in southeastern Utah contained the bones of “artist and romantic vagabond” Everett Ruess, who disappeared in 1934. They recommend additional, independent studies.  

Descendants of 1812 war hero General Zebulon Pike want to exhume his supposed grave in Sackets Harbor, New York, for DNA testing of the bones. They also want to boost tourism to the town and make a documentary film of the experience. But the town’s mayor, Eric Constance, says “The mood [of the townsfolk] is just let the general rest in peace.”  

In honor of the Fourth of July, the Wall Street Journal has published an essay on Thomas Jefferson’s “particular delight.”  

Excavations in the Great Hall at England’s Taunton Castle have revealed a privy that may have been used by “Hanging” Judge Jeffreys, who sentenced 144 people to be hanged, drawn, and quartered following an attempt to overthrow Roman Catholic James II in 1685.  

Archaeologists will return to Belgenny Farm, called the birthplace of Australia’s agriculture.