Sardinian scientists say they’ve identified the plant used in antiquity to induce a “sardonic grin” in condemned men before they were put to death. “The Punics were convinced that death was the start of a new life, to be greeted with a smile,” said Mauro Ballero of Cagliari University.

Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities is trying to manage the population and environmental changes that are harming the country’s ancient sites. “The extraordinary monuments of Luxor survived for 5,000 years in large part because of the dry conditions and low population,” said Ray Johnson of the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute.    

Are the bones of a pirate resting in a box in North Carolina? Writer and filmmaker Kevin P. Duffus wants to know if skeletal remains in the custody of the state belonged to landowner and merchant Edward Salter, who died in 1735. Some think Salter was a cooper who was forced into piracy on the Queen Anne’s Revenge by Blackbeard.  

Construction workers in Nashville unearthed the remains of a Union soldier. Historians think he may have died in November 1864, when the Battle of Nashville occurred.  

Archaeologists unearthed 1,000-year-old tools and a small pit house in western Kansas.  

Torture in the ancient world is the topic of a new book in German by Martin Zimmerman titled, Extreme Violence in the Visuals and Texts of Antiquity. You can read an overview of its contents in English at Spiegel Online.

An ivory carving of a female figure is being called the oldest known sculpture of the human form in today’s edition of Nature. The figurine was discovered in fragments in Germany’s Hohle Fels cave last September, and is thought to be between 35,000 and 40,000 years old.   Nicholas Conard of the University of Tubingen, and Marina Malina, an archaeological technician on the Hohle Fels excavation team, talk about their discovery in this video from Nature.    Learn more about Nicholas Conard’s work right here at ARCHAEOLOGY.

Here’s more information on the small pyramid and ritual center built by the Tarascan Empire that was discovered in central Mexico by a team from Colorado State University.  

Traces of five 3,000-year-old houses have been found in an area north of Amsterdam that had been thought to be too wet to be inhabitable. Each house was surrounded by a drainage ditch that channeled water away from the settlement.  

Iraqi archaeologists have been learning about recent technological advances at Chicago’s Field Museum. This article mentions what the visitors have to offer in return.  

Neanderthals were sophisticated hunters who adapted their techniques to the environment and prey, according to a study by Dutch researcher Gerrit Dusseldorp.  

Greece will ban chewing gum and high heels from the Herod Atticus Amphitheater at the Acropolis. Offenders could risk a fine and criminal charges.