Marine ecologist Claudio Richter and others have identified a rare species of giant clam that was once the dominant variety. Did early hunter-gatherers cause the decline, and did they migrate out of Africa to search for more clams?

Alain Beauvilain of the University of Paris at Nanterre discovered the fossilized bones of Sahelanthropus tchadensis, aka Toumai, in Chad in 2001. Earlier this year, the controversial fossils were dated between 6.8 and 7.2 million years ago, using soil samples taken from the site. But Beauvilain says that the skull was found on the surface of the soil. “How many times was it exposed and reburied by shifting sands before being picked up?” he asked.  

The 6,500-year-old skeleton of a woman was unearthed in southern Poland.  

A 10,000-year-old cult center and a cemetery where mostly young men were buried were uncovered at Kfar Hahoresh in the lower Galilee. Phallic figurines, shells, pottery, a sickle blade, and a whole herd of cattle were also found.  

Ian Gilligan studies prehistoric clothing at Australian National University. “Over the last five to 10 thousand years there have been a lot of enormously big changes in the way humans live,” he said.  

More than 1,500 unexploded bombs dropped by the German Luftwaffe during World War II are still scattered over Scotland.  

Construction of an underground parking lot is underway on the historic Pincio hill in Rome. “This project is a monstrosity. That’s all there is to it. There are no possible compromises,” said Giorgio Muratore, an architecture professor who advises the city’s mayor.  

Here’s another article on the discovery of a copper vessel containing a golden jar, bones, and a gold wreath of oak leaves buried in a temple at Vergina, in northern Greece. “Archaeologists must explain why such a group…was found outside the extensive royal cemetery. [They must also] work out why the bones of the unknown – but by no means insignificant – person were hidden in the city’s most public and sacred area,” said Chryssoula Saatsoglou-Paliadeli of the University of Thessaloniki.  

Physical education teacher Greg Baney has taught the kids at Oaklyn and Priestley elementary schools in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, to play the ancient Maori game of Ki-o-rahi in gym class. Way to go!

Excavations at a temple at the Macedonian site of Vergina revealed two copper vessels, one within the other. The inner vessel held human bones and a golden oak wreath.   This article from Bloomberg doesn’t have a photograph of the artifacts, but it is easier to read.

The head from a Buddha statue and a Greek coin were unearthed in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, by a team of French and Afghan archaeologists.  

An area of west Brazil once thought to be virgin forest shows signs of farming, artificial ponds, and walled settlements arranged in grid-like patterns connected by roads, according to a study published in Science.  

At least nine wooden ships that once sank in an Oslo, Norway, inlet have been discovered during tunnel construction. The ships are thought to have sunk sometime after a massive fire destroyed the city center in 1624.  

The remains of an Australian soldier who fell from a rope during a helicopter rescue in Southern Vietnam in 1969 appear to have been found. The missing soldier’s ID tags were also found, but the remains will still undergo forensic examination.  

Kauai’s Planning Commission defeated a motion to ask a landowner to stop building and to wait for community members to come up with enough money to purchase his property. At least 30 ancient Hawaiian burials are known to exist at the site.  

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration archaeologists found the wreck of the Gledstanes, a British whaling ship that sank in Hawaiian waters in 1837. A second sunken whaling ship has not been identified yet.  

A small bit of horse harness was dug up at Birnie, Scotland, beyond the frontier of the Roman Empire. “It comes from a chariot and it shows something of the contacts these people had and their aspirations, I suppose. The chariot was the flashy run around of the period,” said Fraser Hunter of the National Museums of Scotland.  

In Lincolnshire, England, some 56 miles of canals hidden in the fen landscape were spotted using aerial photographs. The waterways may have been traveled by monks carrying quarried stone to rebuild their monasteries after the Viking raids of the ninth century.  

Josh Sackett, the seven-year-old son of two archaeologists, has been keeping a video blog of his visits to the Roman Baths at Bath, England, since last October. “Josh is a complete natural and has recorded some really great pieces,” said Stephen Clews, who manages the attraction. This link will take you the official website for The Roman Baths, Bath. Click on “Just for fun” to reach the kids’ pages, and you’ll find Josh’s video diary at the bottom of the list to the left.