A complete chariot was discovered at a Thracian tomb in southeastern Bulgaria, and a separate pit yielded two horses and bronze and leather objects that may have been harnesses. Be sure to click on the photograph to see more images of the chariot and other artifacts from the 1,900-year-old tomb.

Ten people will be charged with smuggling and selling ancient jewelry and coins dug up in western Romania.  

Iran is stepping up efforts to prevent the sale of Persian artifacts at home and abroad.  

Evidence of milk fats have been found on unglazed pots unearthed in northwest Turkey. The pots date to 6500 B.C., and indicate that milk from cattle was used 2,000 years earlier than previously thought to make butter, yogurt, or cheese.    

French archaeologists have mapped 135 sites in northern Afghanistan, and they are employing “old looters” to help them. “People are so poor. They are just looking for ways to buy bread. We need to open their minds as they don’t know the value of their history. We have to give them that knowledge and then they will protect it,” said Saleh Mohammad Khaleeq, chief of the cultural department of Balkh.  

In Richmond, Virginia, excavation has begun at Lumpkin’s Jail, on land known as the Devil’s Half Acre. The site was the largest slave market outside of New Orleans until the Civil War. Enslaved people were held in the jail until sold.  

Daniel D. Lorello, a former archives and records management specialist at the New York State Library and Archives, has pleaded guilty to stealing historic documents and artifacts and selling them on the Internet and at collectors’ shows. He could be sentenced to six years in prison and must pay $73,000 in restitution.  

BBC News has picked up the story on the DNA tests and CT scans being performed on the remains of stillborn fetuses discovered in Tutankhamun’s tomb. A photograph of one of the mummies appears with the article.  

The uncovering of a building foundation in east London that could have been The Theatre, where Shakespeare’s early plays were performed, is also still in the news. This article from the Associated Press has been jazzed up with quotes from archaeologists. “We were there, scratching our heads, looking into the trenches, thinking, ‘this could be it,'” said Lo Lyon of the Museum of London.

Footings of the northeastern corner of The Theatre are thought to have been uncovered in east London. William Shakespeare’s early plays were performed here with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, until the building was dismantled and its timbers used to construct The Globe in 1599.

Antiquities and weapons were seized from a bus on the Indus Highway by officers from Pakistan’s Intelligence and Investigation FBR. Two people were arrested.  

A cave in eastern Morocco has yielded Paleolithic burials of two infants. Their bones had been covered with red ochre and their graves marked with blue-colored limestone rocks. “My feeling is that they died naturally and were grieved, and buried in a way similar to that of older members of the community,” said paleoanthropologist Louise Humphrey of the Natural History Museum in London.  

The third and final location of the well-known Wilson Pottery has been designated a State Archeological Landmark by the Texas Historical Commission. “The significance of Wilson Pottery is apparent in the unique stoneware that was created as well as in the pottery’s history as being one of the few owned and operated by an African-American in the post-slavery South,” said state archaeologist Pat Mercado-Allinger.  

Excavation of a monastery in the north of Scotland suggests that the Picts, often depicted as “wild tribesmen,” had “built a highly sophisticated culture.” The monastery was burned and its carved stones were smashed in the ninth century, probably by invading Vikings.  

The Bangkok Post has published some information on Ta Moan Thom, the second ancient temple to be caught up in the border disputes between Thailand and Cambodia.  

Aerial photographs revealed 4,000-year-old graves, walls, palisades, and pillars arranged in rings similar to Stonehenge in eastern Germany. “It is the first finding of this kind on the European mainland which we have been able to excavate fully and which shows a structure we have until now only seen in Britain,” said Andre Spatzier, head of the excavation team.  

Two mummified fetuses found in Tutankhamun’s tomb will undergo DNA tests to see if they are related to the pharaoh.  

Here’s another article on new DNA research that challenges the idea that chickens were brought to South America by Polynesians before the arrival of Europeans.