Two pieces of a 3,000-year-old monumental gate complex from the Neo-Hittite Kingdom of Patina have been unearthed at Tell Tayinat, which is located in southeastern Turkey. The first piece is the head and waist portion of a colossal statue depicting a bearded man with curly hair. It has inlaid eyes of white and black stone. The back of the sculpture is covered with a hieroglyphic text recording the deeds of King Suppiluliuma. The second sculpture is a column base bearing a winged bull and a sphinx. The gate complex was probably destroyed, buried, and paved over by the Assyrians, who conquered the region in 738 B.C.

Artifacts from South Africa’s Border Cave indicate that modern tool use began 44,000 years ago, or 20,000 years earlier than previously thought. The artifacts include ostrich eggshell beads, points made of bone that could have been shot as arrows from bows, wooden digging sticks, a lump of pitch, a lump of beeswax, worked pig tusks, and notched bones that may have been used for counting. Some of the points were coated with a poison made from castor beans. “Such bone points could have penetrated thick hides, but the lack of ‘knock-down’ power means the use of poison probably was a requirement for successful kills,” explained Paola Villa of the University of Colorado.

The tomb of a young Maya man has been discovered in Mexico, at the city of Uxul. He had been buried with nine ceramic vessels and plates, one of which bears a date that corresponds to the year 711 A.D. “We feel that the person that was buried there is a son of a local ruler, someone who was not in direct line to the throne,” said Kai Delvendahl of the University of Bonn. The tomb did not contain royal status items, such as jade jewelry. The style of the ceramics suggests a connection to the ruling dynasty of Calakmul, a regional center.  There are additional photos of the site and the excavation.

Israeli archaeologists report that they have found a small stone seal bearing an image of a large animal with a cat-like tail attacking a human figure at the site of Beit Shemesh, which sits near the Philistine border. The seal dates to the eleventh century B.C. and could point to the development of the biblical story of Samson and the lion.

Rome’s Colosseum is listing about 16 inches to the south, according to a report released by Rossella Rea, director of the monument. Giorgio Monti of La Sapienza University thinks there may be a crack in the slab of concrete on which the building sits. His university and the environmental geology institute IGAG will study the problem, and the possible effects that the traffic that travels by the monument may have.

The remains of five airmen lost in a plane crash in 1942 have been recovered by the American Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command from the waters of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec. Archaeologists from Parks Canada discovered the well-preserved PBY Catalina and personal artifacts in 2009. “When we actually saw that the fuselage was in one piece, we immediately stopped operations and contacted the American authorities,” said Marc-Andre Bernier, chief underwater archaeologist for Parks Canada. The remains will be identified by DNA analysis. Four members of the plane’s crew were rescued by fishermen from the nearby village of Longue-Pointe-de-Mingan before it sank.

Christina Warinner of the Center for Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich is studying fossilized dental plaque not only to learn what people ate, but also about bacteria in their mouths and nasal passages, and proteins produced by their immune systems. “I’m finding 1,000 times more DNA by weight in fossilized calculus than in bone,” she said. She’s using this information to examine the relationship between disease, diet, and the environment.

Coastal erosion and rising sea levels threaten ancient archaeological sites buried in the soft sandstone cliffs of California’s Point Reyes National Seashore. “We have to be honest. Most of the sites are going to be destroyed. But we should at least know what we’re going to lose. That’s my goal,” said Mike Newland of Sonoma State University and the Society for California Archaeology.

High-tech aerial imagery and computer-supported image analysis have been used in Europe to discover thousands of archaeological sites. For example, five burial mounds have been located on the Glauberg, a hill in central Germany, which was thought to have yielded all of its archaeological secrets. In southwestern Germany, a large system of fortifications has been found. “No one had this construction on their radar. It was completely unknown,” said Jörg Bofinger of the Baden-Württemberg office of historical preservation.

An artifact stolen from a locked display case at the Bixby Memorial Library in Vermont has been recovered by the local police department. The theft has prompted officials to take an inventory of the library’s museum holdings and change its visitors’ policy. “It is a shame that something that was open to the public…now has to be monitored because of the thoughtlessness and disrespect of someone,” commented Police Chief George Merkel.

Egyptian officials are working to woo tourists back to their country. Six tombs on the Giza plateau will be reopened, and in Sakkara, the Serapeum, an underground temple, will also be reopened after a ten-year restoration project. “We want to give people a reason to come back, to give them something new,” said Ali Asfar, director general of archaeology for the Giza plateau. In addition, tour operators want the new government to restore security, clean the streets, and regulate Cairo’s notorious traffic.