A cache of ancient Celtic coins was discovered in the Netherlands by a metal detector hobbyist. Archaeologists say the gold coins were minted in the mid first century B.C. by the Eburones, who killed 6,000 Roman soldiers during Julius Caesar’s campaign against them. The silver coins were made by tribes further to the north, perhaps indicating that they cooperated in the fight against the Romans.

Pipeline construction in Cumbria, England, revealed a first-century A.D. Roman settlement used by the traders, artisans, and women and children attached to the soldiers living in the nearby fort. “The ancient Romans were pioneers in sanitation, so it’s perhaps fitting that this discovery was made during a sewage pipeline project. The find has caused a lot of excitement among the engineering team,” said Melvin Dawson, who works for the local utilities company.  

The wide, fossilized hips of a female Homo erectus suggest that these human ancestors may have given birth to babies with huge heads. “This H. erectus would have even wider hips [than modern women]. … What this means is the offspring were not as helpless as a modern human,” said paleontologist Scott Simpson of Case Western Reserve University.  

A hospital in Berlin will return 18 Aborigine skulls that had been part of a museum collection to Australia. The skulls have been in Germany for more than 100 years, but it is unclear how they arrived at the hospital.  

A father and son pleaded not guilty to allegedly unlawfully collecting artifacts in Nevada and taking them home to Folsom, California. The two men face a ten-year prison sentence and a fine of up to $850,000.  

Five more graves were discovered when work began at the future site of the African burial ground memorial park in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. “The balancing act we face is we want to create a memorial there that honors the burial ground, but at the same time, we don’t want to further disturb those buried there,” said Deputy City Manager Cindy Hayden.  

Depression-era Camp Patterson, in Havelock, North Carolina, was operated by the Civilian Conservation Corps to employ African-American men between 1935 and 1941. “This is one of the best preserved African-American CCC camps that we have, and ultimately this will lead to the National Register of Historic Places,” said U.S. Forest Service archaeologist Joél Hardison.  

Chris Mills was struck in the leg by part of the keel of a nineteenth-century merchant ship while he was walking near the water in Ocean City, Maryland. No one else wants the 4,000-pound, L-shaped piece, so the city has given in to Mills. “This is a great day for me,” he said.

A fourth Christian church was uncovered in Palmyra, Syria. This one is the largest so far, measuring 51 by 30 yards. “In the northern and southern parts of the church there are two rooms that are believed to have been used for baptisms, religious ceremonies, prayers, and other rituals,” said Walid al-Assaad, head of the Palmyra Antiquities and Museums Department.

The controversial cave beneath the third-century church of St. Georgeous has been closed by the Kingdom of Jordan. The cave has been called the first church in the world, and local residents had hoped it would bring tourist dollars to their community. The Minister of Tourism and Antiquities denies the claim that the closure is permanent. “We at the ministry have plans to restore the mosaics in the group of churches unearthed in the area and to publish brochures and booklets concerning the churches discovered,” said Antiquities Department Director General Fawwaz Khreisha.  

Archaeologists digging in Vietnam’s Phia Mun Cave have found more than 1,000 artifacts and 12 burials from the Neolithic Hoa Binh culture.  

A bowl fragment dated 1676, and ceramic decoys used to encourage hens to lay eggs, were unearthed in Northern Ireland. “Because it’s in one of the old areas of Belfast, our discoveries are helping us to build up a picture of what was happening from the beginning of when it first became a town,” said archaeologist Audrey Gahan.  

The 2,500-year-old Greek cemetery near the town of Himera, in northern Sicily, has been found to be much larger than previously thought. “Preliminary estimates indicate the presence of around 10,000 tombs, which gives the site a good claim to being one of the most important discoveries of recent years,” said Antonello Aninoro, Sicily’s regional councilor for culture.  

Here are a couple of additional photographs taken at the Phoenician cemetery discovered in Lebanon.  

Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council for Antiquities, talks to reporters about the pyramid he’s excavated at Saqqara in this video from National Geographic News.