Researchers have taken a second look at 8,000-year-old stone artifacts from the Sha’ar HaGolan site in Israel, and now think they may have been used for starting fires, not as “cultic phallic symbols.” Microscopic marks on the conical ends of the cylindrical objects could have been made by spinning them with a bow on fire boards. This process creates friction that would ignite tinder. Naama Goren-Inbar of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and her team will test the idea. “We have fire evidence in modern humans and Neanderthals, from charcoal, ashes and hearths, but there was nothing ever found that was connected with how you ignite the fire,” she explained.

A 1,300-year-old olive oil factory has been found in Hod Hasharon, a suburb of Tel Aviv, by the Israel Antiquities Authority. The factory consists of a pressing floor for the olives, a piping system, trenches, and cisterns for storing the oil. Stone weights for pressing the olives were also recovered. The pressing floor had been constructed out of worked blocks placed in the soft earth.

Here’s an update on the toll the fighting has had on cultural heritage sites and museums in Syria. While historic sites such as the castle of Krak des Chevaliers have been damaged by shelling, other sites have been looted during the chaos. For example, in Apamea, Roman mosaics have been bulldozed from the floors of ancient buildings and capitols stolen from the colonnade along the city’s main road. Battles have also been fought near Palmyra. “The situation of Syria’s heritage today is catastrophic,” said Lebanese archaeologist Joanne Farchakh. She specializes in studying what happens to cultural heritage sites during times of war.

Ten figurines and other ornamental objects such as earrings, necklaces, needles, and beads, have been uncovered at the political, economic, and military center of Marcahuamachuco in northern Peru. The figurines were made by applying a thin layer of metal over a stone or wood base. The metal was then shaped to represent men wearing hats, earmuffs, and other clothing items. Marcahuamachuco is known for its circular, double-walled structures, which date to between 400 and 800 A.D.

This video from BBC News shows the excavation of the 500-year-old burial of an Aztec woman next to more than 1,000 pieces of bone. The unusual grave site was unearthed at the site of Templo Mayor in Mexico City. The video also shows the tree trunk that was found near the burial. It is thought to have been a sacred part of the temple complex.

Chemical traces of  “black drink” have been found for the first time ever on pottery vessels from Cahokia. Black drink, which is mentioned in seventeenth-century accounts of Europeans exploring southeastern North America, is brewed from the leaves of a shrub that grows along the coast between eastern Texas and Florida, where it was served in shell cups. The new tests indicate that Cahokians were trading for the highly caffeinated beverage between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. “We haven’t yet analyzed other types of pottery, so we can’t say that these beakers were for black drink exclusively,” said Patricia Crown of the University of New Mexico. These beakers were found in an area thought to have ritual significance. Similar beakers have been found at other sites as far north as Wisconsin.

Archaeologists from Mexico’s National Institute of History and Anthropology have found a woman’s complete skeleton surrounded by hundreds of pieces of bones from individuals from different age groups. The 500-year-old burial was discovered near the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan. A circular structure made from volcanic rock was also found in an area of ceremonial buildings. It contained a tree trunk that may have been part of a sacred tree dedicated to the god of war, Huitzilopochtli.

A 2,000-year-old Roman shipwreck has been discovered in deep water off Italy’s northwestern coast. The ship had been transporting an estimated 200 amphorae filled with food. The containers had been buried in sandy mud, and are well preserved, with their lids of pine and pitch intact.

A mass burial pit unearthed in London in the 1990s was thought to hold the remains of thousands of people killed by the Black Death or the Great Famine of the fourteenth century, but radiocarbon dates for the bones told a different story. Evidence of a massive volcano on the other side of the world that would have caused temperatures to drop and crops to fail is now being blamed for the deaths. “It’s amazing to think such a massive global natural disaster has been identified in a small area of east London. I’m always surprised when incredible discoveries like this come to light—this is the first archaeological evidence for the 1258 volcano,” said osteologist Don Walker of the Museum of London.