Ireland’s Lia Fail Standing Stone, also known as the “Stone of Destiny,”  has been vandalized. The 5,500-year-old monument, which sits on the Hill of Tara, was hit with a hammer, causing damage in a total of 11 places on all four granite faces. None of the fragments were found. Tradition holds that the High Kings of Ireland were crowned at the stone.

Pamela Jane Smith of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at England’s Cambridge University has brought pioneering archaeologist Dorothy Garrod into the spotlight. Garrod became the first female at the university in 1939, when she was unanimously elected the Disney Professor of Archaeology. At the time, women were not admitted to the university, so she was referred to as a man in all correspondence. “Her work was groundbreaking from the beginning,” said Smith.

Excavations at the prehistoric mound known as Rach Nui in southern Vietnam have uncovered a 3,500-year-old pit latrine containing human and dog feces. Remnants of betel nut and foxtail millet have been found, indicating that the people grew crops, in addition to fish and animal bones. “A detailed analysis of these will provide a wealth of information on both the diet of humans and dogs at Rach Nui but also the types of parasites each had to contend with,” said Marc Oxenham of Australian National University.

Researchers are attempting to keep  a bronze rostrum with a wooden core  from disintegrating. The ram, discovered in the Mediterranean Sea in 2008, once sat on the prow of an ancient warship. Chemical analysis of the wood has shown it is pine waterproofed with pine tar, and that sulfur in the wood could become extremely corrosive sulfuric acid. “The sulfur diffused into the wood and actually preserved it against degradation during burial in the seabed. However, the same sulfur causes the sulfuric acid threat after the wooden object is removed from the sea and kept in a museum, in air,” explained Patrick Rank of Stanford University. The rostrum is stored under water.

A longhouse whose foundations were made from entire tree trunks has been discovered in Monmouth, Wales. The structure, which had been placed on top of stones that had been heated and doused with water, perhaps as a type of sauna, sat next to a lake that silted up long ago. “We think it could be from the Bronze Age (about 4,000 years ago), but some of the experts we’ve brought in to see it think it could be early Neolithic,” said archaeologist Steve Clarke. Radio-carbon dates on the foundations are expected later this month.

Fragments of a gargoyle’s head and foliage fashioned from stucco tumbled from Rome’s historic Trevi Fountain over the weekend. City officials blame uncharacteristically heavy snows this past winter. Critics of the current government blame budget cuts and a lack of daily maintenance for the country’s monuments. “Rome is not Glasgow, and buildings were built accordingly,” explained Umberto Broccoli, Rome’s cultural heritage superintendent.

The Association of Greek Archaeologists has undertaken a campaign to publicize the impact that budget cuts have had on the country’s ancient monuments, claiming that museums are understaffed, archaeological sites are under-protected, and government archaeologists have been forced into early retirement. Erosion and development are therefore gaining an upper hand. “There’s so much out there, and so much work to be done,” said Pavlos Geroulanos, Greece’s recently ousted culture and tourism minister.

The Luxor Criminal Court  has sentenced in absentia six people to life in prison and five people to ten years in prison for the armed robbery of an antiquities storage area in Luxor on March 19, 2011. The group is accused of wounding three guards, smashing the doors of the German-owned storage facility, and stealing two ancient statues.