Neanderthals had big noses simply because earlier hominids had them, according to palaeoanthropologist Nathan Holton. “A lot of these anatomical differences are probably more likely due to these chance changes,” agreed his colleague, Robert Franciscus. The two researchers studied the facial dimensions of Neanderthals and modern humans.

The Associated Press has picked up the story of Yaron Svoray, who has been looking for rejected loot and debris from the 1938 pogrom known as Kristallnacht in a dump north of Berlin.  

Archaeologists have recovered a small object that could be the first coin to come from the wreck thought to be the Queen Anne’s Revenge. “I think this is going to be one of our top priorities; it could have a date or something on it,” said Shanna Daniel, assistant conservator for the project.  

Tourists will soon be able to visit the wreck of the HMHS Britannic in submersibles. The wartime hospital ship sank in 1916, and now sits beneath 400 feet of warm water off the coast of the Greek isle of Kea. “This project is not just about tourism but also about education, conservation, and marine archaeology,” said Simon Mills, who bought the shipwreck from the British government in 1996.

Charcoal and seeds from a copper mine in southern Jordan have been dated to the tenth century B.C., touted as the time of the reign of the biblical King Solomon. It has been thought that a society complex enough to operate the large-scale mine in this area, known in the Bible as Edom, did not arise until the seventh century B.C. “We can’t believe everything the ancient writings tell us. But this research represents a confluence between the archaeological and scientific data and the Bible,” claimed archaeologist Thomas Levy of the University of California, San Diego.    Levy and his team present their case in a twelve-minute video, posted at the Los Angeles Times, which also provides comments from Levy’s critics.

Yesterday, Spain’s monarchs returned 45 artifacts to Peru, including 12 thought to have been looted from the tomb of the Lord of Sipan. Spanish police had seized 253 objects last year from a warehouse owned by antiquities dealer and former U.N. cultural attaché Leonardo Patterson. The remaining artifacts will be repatriated soon.  

More information on Machu Picchu’s yanacona, or royal retainers brought from the far corners of the Inca empire, is available at National Geographic News.  

In Germany, archaeologists have excavated at three different sites to learn more about Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism. Be sure to view the photo gallery.  

A protective roof has been built to shelter Çatalhöyük from Turkey’s weather. The 9,000-year-old settlement is one of the world’s oldest-known sites of animal domestication and wheat cultivation.  

Russian archaeologist Sergei Pogorelov wants to investigate the site where the skeletons of the last tsar and his family were found in 1991. Nicholas II abdicated the throne in March 1917, and was executed by the Bolsheviks on July 16, 1918.