A new study of Neanderthal facial structure suggests that they were able to open their large mouths very widely. “Why were they able to do this? This is something that only a time machine could help us answer,” said anatomy professor Yoel Rak of Tel Aviv University.

Meanwhile, a new study of hominid skulls, as well as skulls of a gorilla, a chimpanzee, and Homo sapiens, classifies Neanderthals as clearly distinct cousins to Homo sapiens. Some scientists hold that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens may have interbred.  

Ireland’s massive road-building projects have unearthed so many artifacts that the National Museum of Ireland reportedly doesn’t have anywhere to store them. One storage area is so full that “curators cannot even gain access to the material let alone catalogue it,” said political party Fine Gael spokesperson Olivia Mitchell.  

In The Rocks neighborhood of Sydney, Australia, a colonial road dating to 1788 was uncovered during the renovation of a church.  

The digging is over at Stonehenge. This article from the Los Angeles Times reviews what the scientists hope to learn.  

Ohio archaeologist Brad Lepper worked with a part-time preacher to uncover the story behind Newark’s Holy Stones, which were said to prove that all men descended from Adam and Eve. They say that the fake artifacts were created in the days before the Civil War. “This discovery undermined polygenesis and the reason for slavery. We believe the stones were created as anti-slavery artifacts,” Lepper said.  

DNA tests prove that the bones in Friedrich Schiller’s tomb aren’t his. The German writer died in 1805, and what were thought to be his remains were moved and reburied in 1826.  

The electric battlefield map at Gettysburg National Park has been rendered obsolete by a new museum featuring films and computerized exhibits. But some Civil War buffs want  to keep the map out of storage. “The electric map is an artifact in and of itself,” said Emily Rosensteel O’Neil, daughter of the map’s creator.

Akhenaten was a subject for this year’s conference on the deaths of historic figures, held at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Physician Irwin Braverman of Yale University suggested that the feminine pharaoh had a hereditary condition called familial gynecomastia.

We’ve been waiting for a couple of days, and here it is–an interview with archaeologist Dieter Noli. He talks about his 20 years advising De Beers and the late fifteenth-century shipwreck discovered off the coast of Namibia in this article. (Don’t bother watching the video posted to the left of the article.)  

Nine hundred boxes of artifacts excavated from Tse-whit-zen, a 2,700-year-old fishing village in Washington State, are “hung up in a bureaucratic no man’s land.” Some $10 million was spent on archaeological work at the failed dry-dock site, but funding has since dried up. Who owns the artifacts, and who should pay for their analysis?  

A section of Paglicci Cave’s exterior wall has collapsed, putting the rest of the cave, located in southern Italy, in imminent danger. The cave is known for its Paleolithic paintings.  

In Bulgaria, four statues were uncovered at a temple dedicated to the Phrygian goddess Cybele. Two of the figurines represent Cybele; the others are thought to represent Aphrodite and Dionysus. The temple was discovered last year.