In the late 1800s and early 1900s, residents of Appalachia covered the graves of their dead with grave houses, which resembled the homes of the living. “These structures are disappearing fast. That’s why I’m trying to record as many as I can,” said hobbyist John Waggoner.

Navy chaplain Captain Emilio Marrero, Jr., says that he and others worked to protect Iraq’s archaeological sites from harm, disputing many of the charges against American troops for damage caused by military camps. “We were very conscientious. I really felt like at steward,” he said.  

Katherine Szabo of the University of Wollongong is studying ancient tools made of shells made in Australasia. “It’s not a material that anyone’s looked at or that anyone particularly understands very well,” she said.  

Here’s more information on the cast of a Hobbit skeleton that will go on display next month at Stony Brook University’s Staller Center for the Arts in New York. “A cast of the entire skeleton of the specimen has never been displayed anywhere, inside or outside of Indonesia. This is a real first,” said Stony Brook anatomist William Jungers.  

A prehistoric settlement has been uncovered near an airport runway on the island of Guernsey in the English Channel. “We don’t tend to find archaeology of where people lived – we only seem to get the places where the dead were buried with dolmens and suchlike,” said archaeologist Phil de Jersey.  

Self-described small-town doctor Larry Cartmell also studies ancient diseases in his spare time with physical anthropologist Douglas Owsley. “I actually grew up thinking I would be an archaeologist. I got sidetracked, somehow, and went to medical school,” Cartmell said.  

Archaeologists in Hungary are concerned that the government’s decision to publish listed sites will put them in danger by making them known to looters. The government wants land buyers to know ahead of time if a new property will have to be excavated.

Italian archaeologist Maria Rosaria Belgiorno says she has uncovered the oldest temple on Cyprus, at Pyrgos-Mavroraki, where she has also found a news-making ancient perfumery. Maria Hadjicosti of the Cyprus Antiquities Department said, “We cannot dismiss the claim but we cannot verify it either.”

A piece of ironware from the Kaman-Kalehoyuk site in Turkey is thought to be about 4,000 years old, making it the world’s oldest steel.  

Maciej Henneberg of the University of Adelaide has been the subject of disciplinary action for serious misconduct from his university for his criticism of Mike Morwood’s theories on the “Hobbits,” the tiny hominids from the Indonesian island of Flores. Henneberg wrote a book that Morwood says “contains many factual errors.”  

A cast of the Hobbit skeleton will be displayed at Stony Brook University next month.  

Rice was cultivated in southeastern China between 6,600 and 6,900 years ago, according to a new study of grains from the Neolithic Hemudu sites, which were discovered in the 1970s. Domestic rice has to be threshed, but wild rice will lose its coat automatically.  

A private historical organization in Florida has hired an underwater archaeologist to look for three Confederate cargo ships that burned in 1863. Blockade runners tried to get past Union ships in smaller ports in northern and central Florida after the major port at New Orleans was captured. 

Here’s some more information on the mapping of Charleston Harbor in Civil War News. “The main thrust is to look at this as a battlefield,” said underwater archaeologist Jim Spirek of the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology.  

The alleged kingpin of a group that stole statues from temples and sold them in a gallery or smuggled them out of the country has been arrested in India’s state of Tamil Nadu. “He co-ordinated with various groups and was behind the majority of the idol thefts in the state,” said G. Thilakavathi of a special CB-CID team.  

Bottle hunters are suspected of digging up and destroying a site in Christchurch, New Zealand, that had been prepared for excavation by students from Otago University.  

BBC News has a story on the discovery of some of the remains of the 57 missing Irishmen of Duffy’s Cut.  

Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, chronicles the restoration of the Step Pyramid at Saqqara in his blog. He and his team have found a previously unknown shaft near the northern end of the eastern face of the pyramid.