Two new Hobbit studies published in Nature support classifying Homo floresiensis as a new species. The first suggests that the tiny, small-brained, flat-footed tool-makers descended from an undocumented hominin more primitive than Homo erectus. The second study examined the evolutionary process known as insular dwarfing, and concluded that adapting to an island environment can shrink brains far more than had been thought possible.   Here’s more information on the analysis of the Hobbit foot, and two photographs of the fossils. “A foot like this one has never been seen before in the human fossil record,” said William L. Jungers of Stony Brook University.  

An imperial ritual complex and 16 settlements have been discovered in western Mexico by Christopher Fisher and a team of students from Colorado State University.  

Two American tourists have returned a chunk of terracotta they pocketed on vacation in Rome 25 years ago.   Although the BBC has a slightly different version of the story.   An article from the Italian news service ANSA offers a bit more information on objects tourists have tried to sneak out of the country.  

Perfectly preserved bodies have been recovered from tombs dating to Korea’s Joseon Dynasty (1392 – 1910). These wealthy people had been buried in double-sided coffins and covered with a limestone mixture.  

Scientists from the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago are making high-resolution digital images of clay tablets from Persepolis.  

A wooden spear tip once coated with resin has reportedly been found in a riverbank in Slovenia.  

Five-year-old Marshall Hayum of Maynard, Massachusetts, found a 4,000-year-old plummet while on a nature walk with his class. The stone plummet would have been used to anchor fishing nets.  

A streetcar built for Pittsburgh Railways in 1911 will become a display at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum.

Shell beads were found in 82,000-year-old layers in a limestone cave in eastern Morocco. Now archaeologists have found more beads in even earlier layers of the cave. Similar shell beads have also been found in South Africa. “These new finds are exciting because they show that bead manufacturing probably arose independently in different cultures and confirms a long suspected pattern that humans with modern symbolic behavior were present from a very early stage at both ends of the continent, probably as early as 110,000 years ago,” said Nick Barton from the University of Oxford.

Israeli authorities have recovered a second-century A.D. document written in Hebrew from two men who tried to sell it at a Jerusalem hotel. The men were arrested and face prison time if convicted of looting and trafficking.  

For the past 500 years, Romans have pasted satirical political comments on six “talking” statues around the city.  Plans are now afoot to restore four of them, and to prohibit further postings. “Our goal is to make people respect Rome’s huge artistic patrimony,” said Viviana Di Capua, president of a resident’s association in Rome’s historic center. Where will Romans paste their criticisms of this project?  

The Kybele is a replica of a Phoenician-style bireme that will leave Turkey and sail for southern France. “It’s the most precise replica of the boats from that era possible. It was built from what was found during digs,” said archaeologist and boat captain Osman Erkurt.  

Using a 40,000-year-old partial skull and jawbone discovered in Romania, forensic artist Richard Neave reconstructed the face of the man or woman called the first modern European. The model will be used in a BBC television show.