Italian Culture Ministry officials are making a list of landmarks, including a museum of archaeology and art housed in a sixteenth-century castle, that were damaged by the earthquake in L’Aquila. “The historic center of L’Aquila has been devastated,” said Giuseppe Proietti.

A 16-year-old boy was killed and other teenager was injured when the roof of a man-made sandstone cave collapsed on them. The cave was one of many known as the Hermitage Caves in Shropshire, England, although archaeologists have not been able to pinpoint when the caves were made.  

To the south, road construction crews may have uncovered sandstone slabs from the foundation of Liverpool Castle, built in the early thirteenth century to protect the new port of Liverpool. What was left of the castle after the Civil War was demolished in 1726.

Beneath Boston’s Old North Church, archaeologist Jane Lyden Rousseau has found what could be the only charnel house in New England, and 37 tombs containing the remains of notable early Americans.   

Erosion is claiming a Chumash village on San Miguel Island, and other archaeological sites on the Channel Islands, for the Pacific Ocean. Early seafaring hunter gatherers may have stopped off at these islands on their way to North America. “We’re never going to stop marine erosion. That’s why we really have to come up with ingenious ways to salvage the sites while we can,” said Torben Rick of the Smithsonian Institution.  

Here’s another article on the decision to open up the “bent” pyramid near the Egyptian village of Dahshur to tourists. “This is going to be an adventure,” Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s chief archaeologist, told reporters.  

Eliane Karp-Toledo, former first lady of Peru, spoke at Yale University, calling for the repatriation of all the Machu Picchu artifacts housed there.   She referred to a letter written by Hiram Bingham and sent to Yale in 1916, in which he urged the university to return the Inca artifacts he had found.   

The J. Paul Getty Museum will return a first-century B.C. fresco to Italy. Their fragment was shown to be part of a larger landscape fresco, along with a fragment owned by a private collector.  

Scientists are examining each of the stones in Jerusalem’s Western Wall. Engineering tests indicated that some of the newer stones are deteriorating and present a safety hazard to tourists and pilgrims.  

Five foot-shaped enclosures, said to be used by ancient Israelites as a mark of ownership and as ceremonial centers at the beginning of the Iron Age, have been unearthed in the Jordan Valley and Samaria, according to Adam Zertal of the University of Haifa.  

Explore archaeology with Legos and enjoy!

The Baths of Caracalla in Rome “suffered some damage” in this morning’s earthquake, according to city archaeologist Angelo Bottini. In the medieval city of L’Aquila, the epicenter of the quake, thousands of buildings were destroyed and more than 90 people killed.   This Associated Press article has more information on L’Aquila’s architecture.

Looters have targeted the archaeological sites revealed by shrinking Haditha Lake in Iraq’s western Anbar province. “We are worried that organized theft could become a problem. We need protection, and a lot of resources,” said chief archaeologist Ratid Ali Faraj.  

Marc Fehlmann, who teaches at Eastern Mediterranean University, thinks that most of the artifacts looted from Cyprus soils stay in Cyprus. “The market is with local Cypriots and rich Cypriots abroad. I can’t prove it, but there is a lot of hypocrisy,” he said.  

The plight of rock art in Utah’s Nine Mile Canyon gets national attention with this article from Bloomberg. Industrial trucks use a road through the canyon as part of the natural-gas extraction industry, kicking up dust mixed with corrosive chemicals. “We think they can get everything they want out of there without destroying the place,” said Pam Miller of Eastern Utah University.  

Archaeologists looking for evidence of the “Lost Colony” at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site dug up bits of bone, fish scales, ceramics, metal buckles and buttons. “It’s a candidate for the first permanent English settlement on Roanoke Island, but I certainly wouldn’t want to bet on it at this point,” said Nick Luccketti of the James River Institute for Archaeology in Williamsburg.   

What is a shaman, and how can you identify one in an archaeological site? Blogger K. Kris Hirst discusses a new study by Christine VanPool that will be published in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology.   

Volunteers spent a Saturday picking up debris at the site of Johnson’s Island Civil War Military Prison, located in Ohio. “The cleanup really helps because we have a lot of people coming out here during the school year. It just makes the place seem friendlier,” said Allison Galbari, a student from Heidelberg University.   Learn more about the site right here at ARCHAEOLOGY.  

The Battlefields Trust and English Heritage will work together to find and list 100 historic battlefields in England. “The project will help us pin down where many of these battles were, what happened and what we need to do to preserve them,” said Frank Baldwin, chairman of the Trust.  

Scientists from the Lighthouse Archeology Maritime Program rescued a unique canoe from an alligator park in St. Augustine, Florida. “It’s probably the last of its kind. Research shows that it’s a design local to St. Augustine,” said archaeologist Robin E. Moore.  

Easter Island, home of more than 900 moai, still draws too many tourists. “We have more than 50,000 visitors during the year, which means more than 11 times the total population of the island. … We would prefer a high-quality tourism. Maybe not more people, but people with more money asking for more professional services,” said local tour guide Cristian Reyes.