Newsbriefs, January/February 1998 - Archaeology Magazine Archive


Index of Newsbriefs	Volume 51 Number 1, January/February 1998

(Click on the title of a newsbrief to see the full text.)

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Greek Gold Seized	An undercover operation by Athens police has yielded one of the most important prehistoric hoards ever found in Greece.
Einkorn's Debut	The wild progenitor of einkorn wheat, one of the first crops to be domesticated (ca. 9000 B.C.), has been identified genetically in southeastern Turkey.
New Wood Henge	Remains of the largest timber henge ever found have been discovered at Stanton Drew, near Bristol, a site already famous for its three circles of standing stones.
Searching for Lewis and Clark	The journals of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark indicate that their 33-member expedition camped at more than 600 sites on its 28-month trek from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean, none of which has ever been found.
Antiquities Watchdog	The Illicit Antiquities Research Centre (IARC) has begun monitoring the international trade in antiquities stolen or clandestinely excavated and illegally exported.
*Biggest A. boisei* Cranium**	A nearly complete 1.4 million-year-old skull of Australopithecus boisei has been found at Konso in southern Ethiopia.
New Pompeii Law	The Italian parliament has approved a law granting Pompeii administrative, scholarly, and fiscal autonomy from the Ministry of Culture.
Civil War Site Threatened	The site of the Battle of Buffington Island is threatened by a planned sand and gravel mine along the banks of the Ohio River.
Sinking Viking Ship	Subsurface radar and coring may have located a Viking ship buried in a mound in southern Norway's Ringerike district.
Earliest Mound Site	Watson Brake, in the floodplain of the Ouachita River near Monroe in northern Louisiana, may be the oldest large-scale mound site in the Americas.
Saving Shiloh	Shiloh National Military Park has received $2 million for erosion control along the banks of the Tennessee River.
Sacred Stone	A rock venerated by early Christians as the place where the Virgin Mary rested on her way to Bethlehem has been found, according to Rina Avner of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Looters Jailed	John N. Walker and Jeffrey S. Blevins pleaded guilty in federal district court in Richmond, Virginia, to one felony count each of conspiracy to violate the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA).
Rock Art Date Contested	In late 1996, Australian archaeologist Richard L.K. Fullagar and his colleagues announced startlingly early dates for a rock shelter at Jinmium in Australia's Northern Territory.