The American Association of Physical Anthropologists meeting became a battlefield in the Hobbit Wars. Dean Falk and Angela Schauber of Florida State University both presented papers refuting claims that Homo floresiensis was a pygmy Homo sapiens who suffered from a growth disorder.

Subway construction in Cologne, Germany, has uncovered a first-century Roman gate and part of the city wall. Nero’s mother was born in the city, and it is thought that the emperor paid for its fortification.  

Seventeen boxes of artifacts recovered in Syria were returned to the Iraq National Museum, where they were displayed during a ceremony for officials over the weekend. The museum remains closed because of the poor condition of the building and violence.  

The Natural Bridge Battlefield, listed as one of this year’s ten most endangered Civil War battlefields, could be purchased by the state of Florida.  

Scientists from Turkey and Australia agree that the submarine HMAS AE2, which was scuttled in the Sea of Marmara during the Gallipoli campaign, should be preserved in place.  

Eight pots dating between 300 B.C. and 100 A.D. were found in India’s southeastern state of Tamil Nadu. Three of the pots contained human bones.  

Seventeen individuals of Canada’s Champagne and Aishihik First Nations have been shown to be direct descendants of Kwaday Dan Ts’inchi, or Long Ago Person Found, whose frozen body was discovered at the foot of a melting glacier in northern British Columbia nine years ago. The man is thought to have died sometime between 1670 and 1850.  

Visit New England’s petroglyphs with writer Steve Grant of the Hartford Courant.  

Residents of McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, have formed a historical society to protect a 2,300-year-old burial mound that they say has suffered from “decades of disrespect.” The local government wants to remove trees and debris from the base of the mound and erect a fence, but society members say the construction would damage the mound.   

The search for the Amber Room and other valuables looted from Russia by the Nazis is in the news again.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Monday, April 28, 2008. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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