Unfired musket balls, bayonets, and cavalry ornaments unearthed in rows suggest that archaeologists have found the spot where hundreds of Mexican soldiers surrendered to the Texas Army after the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836. The victory sealed Texas’ independence from Mexico.

Skeletal structure and mitochondrial DNA indicate that there may have been four subgroups among the Neanderthals, according to new research by scientists from the University of Marseille, France.  

The remains of more than 40 individuals were reburied at one of the earliest settlements in New Zealand. Their thirteenth-century village was excavated more than 70 years ago. “It was utterly required in terms of human dignity. The koiwi [bones] and taonga were removed very early on for what was then the standard [practice in] archaeological discovery,” said Antony Wright, director of Canterbury Museum.  

Two sets of human skeletal remains have been unearthed in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, at a construction site. A cemetery at that location appears on an 1849 map.  

A bone flute found in a Neolithic grave in Inner Mongolia has been restored and played by modern musicians.   

Here’s more information on the rock art discovered at Machu Picchu. Art historian Reinaldo Morales Jr. thinks the painting is of an animal figure and that it predates the founding of the city, ca. 1450 A.D.  

You can read what Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s chief archaeologist, has to say about the recent developments at Taposiris Magna on his website. There are also pictures of the temple, the mummies found there, and links at the bottom of the page to more information on the artifacts.  

Otto Schaden of the University of Memphis, Tennessee, who is excavating KV-63 in the Valley of the Kings, has also updated his website.  

The wreck of the U.S.S. Patasco, sitting on the bottom of Charleston Harbor, will be explored by a team from the University of South Carolina. No artifacts will be raised.

Excavations at the Tayinat Citadel in southeastern Turkey have uncovered a well-preserved monumental temple that spanned the time period from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age, often thought of as a time of cultural decline and ethnic strife. But Tayinat shows evidence of being the capital of a powerful kingdom with cultural connections to the Aegean world, according to Timothy Harrison of the University of Toronto.

A 78-year-old Wisconsin man will reportedly plead guilty to trafficking in archaeological objects taken from public lands and American Indian lands in South Dakota.  

In Scotland, a group of re-enactors replicated the 1746 Jacobite six-hour night march from Culloden to the Muir of the Clans and then back again. Reporter Steven McKenzie gives a first-hand account of the trek, including how archaeologist Tony Pollard, who led the project for the Center for Battlefield Archaeology, “lay down on the pavement and openly admitted to almost weeping at the road sign saying five miles to Culloden Moor.” Here’s a video and little more information about the marchers.   

Researchers from the University of Sydney are using digital cameras suspended from a hot air balloon and a ground-level scanning device to create the first digital survey of Cyprus’ ancient theater at Paphos.  

A farmer in Ireland’s County Tyrone unearthed a piece of Bronze Age gold jewelry while plowing a field. “It would have been owned by a wealthy person, possibly a priest, a high ranking warrior or tribal chieftain,” said archaeologist Richard Warner.  

James Delgado will host the 130^th anniversary of the Archaeological Institute of America at a gala honoring Harrison Ford and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Do you have your ticket?  

Two life-size bronze statues from Pompeii have arrived in Malibu, California, on loan from the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, Italy. The Getty Museum will restore the statues and display them for two years as part of a collaboration agreement reached in 2007.