A 4,000-year-old necklace made of gold was discovered in a burial pit in Peru, near Lake Titicaca. “This is a time when social roles are changing and there are a variety of new ones as well as competition for them, so the gold reflects some of that prestige and status competition during this time of change,” Mark Aldenderfer of the University of Arizona, Tucson, said in a second article. Pictures of the individual gold beads can be seen at Kris’s Archaeology Blog.

National Geographic News has more information on the pre-Inca temple discovered at Sacsayhuaman, also in Peru. The temple had 11 rooms and is thought to have held idols and mummies.

Photographs of the colossal statue of Egypt’s Queen Tiye have been published.

The Egyptian boy king played marbles, according to an April Fool’s Day press conference held at Leiden University and reported in South Africa’s IOL. Be sure to follow the link for a picture of Tut at play.

Renowned explorer Col. Ashland Quell deigned to give ARCHAEOLOGY a holiday interview.

“The history of civilization in this region has suddenly gone back by around 20,000 years,” an unnamed archaeologist reportedly said of the discovery of small stone weapons in the Indian state of West Bengal.

In 2005, police in India confiscated a Buddha statue from smugglers that they are said to have thought was made of gold. Museum authorities, who now have the statue, say that the figure is bronze, and created in the mid-nineteenth century.  

Should Pakistan’s artisans be allowed to make replicas of Gandhara-style antiquities? Government officials and archaeologists give reasons for and against the practice.  

The Boston Globe counters director of the Art Institute of Chicago James Cuno’s argument for a larger trade in licit antiquities with comments from noted archaeologists Ricardo Elia of Boston University, David Gill of Swansea University, and Brian Rose of the University of Pennsylvania and president of the AIA.   

The first excavation within the circle of Stonehenge since 1964 is underway. Archaeologists will try to date the Double Bluestone Circle, an earlier structure at the site, and how and when the bluestones traveled to Salisbury Plain from southwest Wales. Be sure to watch the two videos.  

Mayor of Easter Island Pedro Edmunds Paoa says he wants Finnish tourist Marko Kulju’s ear. Mr. Kulju, 26, is accused of chipping an earlobe off a Moai.  

Learn about Finland’s rock art in the Helsinki Times.