The world’s oldest wheat comes from Çatalhöyük, according to DNA anaylsis of 8,500-year-old grains from the Neolithic settlement in southern Anatolia.

At a conference of Egyptologists, Rodolfo Fattovich of the Oriental Studies University of Naples, and Kathryn Bard of Boston University, presented their preliminary findings on the rigging ropes they discovered in a cave three years ago. “No ropes on this scale and this old have been so well preserved in their original context – in Egypt or elsewhere,” said Bard. Don’t miss the slideshow to the right of the article.  

A grand jury in Kentucky has indicted an Ohio man for removing an object of antiquity because he and others took a boulder from the Ohio River. The boulder is carved with a “crude face,” and the names of families who paddled out to the rock in the early 1900s. The rock is listed on Kentucky’s antiquities register.    The New York Times also has a story on “The Case of the Pilfered Rock.”   

A Bodhisattva Maitreya statue crafted in the second century A.D. was uncovered at the Badal Pur Buddhist monastery in Pakistan’s Taxila Valley.  

Bones, pottery, and the foundations of buildings were uncovered during the renovation of Front Street in Natchitoches, Louisiana. The city was founded in 1714.  

Primary school students will help test a summer solstice theory about Stonehenge this weekend. “For years scholars have claimed that the prehistoric people who built Stonehenge possessed advanced knowledge of mathematics, geometry, and astronomy, but with the help of primary school pupils we will lay out the monument’s design using only the most basic of techniques,” said John Hill of the University of Liverpool.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Friday, June 20, 2008. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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