New research on 40,000-year-old fossils from the Sima de la Palomas, Spain, shows that they were clearly Neandertals. These “last Neanderthals” were not swept away by modern humans, but they did exhibit some modern human features.

Archaeologist Gertrude Bell was instrumental in creating a pro-British government in Iraq in 1917. BBC News remembers her as the British prepare to withdraw troops from Iraq once again.  

Huge T-shaped stones have been uncovered in Turkey at Gobekli Tepe, which could date to 9500 B.C. Now archaeologists are asking which came first, monumental building projects or farming? “The intense cultivation of wild wheat may have first occurred to supply sufficient food to the hunter-gatherers who quarried 7-ton blocks of limestone with flint flakes,” writes Stephen Mithen of the University of Reading.  

Volunteers and archaeologists want to know if a wreck on Florida’s Crescent Lake is the Alligator, which sank 99 years ago. The steamboat carried cargo, tourists, and early archaeologists to sites in northeast Florida.  

Here’s more information from National Geographic News on the artifacts found at El Chorro de Maita, home to Cuba’s Arawakan Indians, and the study of documents created by the first Spanish colonizers.  

Italian archaeologists working in the Palestinian town of Magdala say they have found sealed jars of ointment dating to the first century A.D. The excavators, who are Franciscans, have linked the discovery to Christian scripture. “We think these are balms and perfumes and if chemical analysis confirms this, they could be similar to those used by Mary Magdalene in the Gospels to anoint the feet of Christ,” said Father Stefano De Luca, who heads the project.  

A first-century Roman temple, bath, and villa have been unearthed in Nottingham, England. The temple was made of large, smooth sandstone blocks.

The 41 artifacts found near the Huapalcalco pyramid in central Mexico could represent a culture that lived in the valley of Tulancingo between 600 and 900 A.D. “It is likely that the Huapalcalco pyramid has been built by people from this new culture,” said Carlos Hernández of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History.

Cuban and American archaeologists are working together at El Chorro de Maita, an Arawakan village inhabited at the time of Columbus’s first voyage. Documents produced by the first Spanish colonists are also being examined for clues to life in sixteenth-century Cuba.  

In Brazil and Argentina, pre-Columbian people built earthen ovens near burial mounds. “After they buried an important person on the burial grounds, they feasted on meat that had been steamed in the earth ovens and drank maize beer,” said archaeologist José Irarte.  

The burial of a warrior was uncovered at the site of the Khoda-Afarin Dam in Iran. The dam was completed a year ago, but rescue excavations continue.  

A protest against the construction of the Ilisu Dam in southeastern Turkey took place in Istanbul. The dam would inundate the ancient city of Hasankeyf and more than 80 other archaeological sites.   

Machu Picchu is in today’s news, with another study of which European or American adventurer may have arrived at the remote Inca stronghold first. The twist with this version is the implications it may have for Yale University’s claim to artifacts collected by Hiram Bingham in the early twentieth century.  

Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, responds to the Los Angeles Times editorial by Nina Burleigh, ‘Hoaxes from the Holy Land.”

Ponder this one just for fun: A geologist and an architect suggest in a British television show that the Sphinx may have originally had the head of a lion.