Fire threatens La Corona, a Maya site in the jungles of Guatemala. The fires are thought to have been lit by illegal settlers hired by drug smugglers, who clear the land and build airstrips. “At our archaeological base camp we have guards and that creates a problem for these people. That kind of permanent presence could detect what they are doing,” said Tomas Barrientos, head of the La Corona project.

Greek women may have inherited high-status and power along with men, according to research conducted by scientists from the University of Manchester. DNA tests reveal that a man and woman buried together in a male-dominated cemetery at Mycenae could be brother and sister. “The implication is that she was buried in Grave Circle B not because of a marital connection but because she held a position of authority by right of birth,” said team leader Terry Brown.  

Here’s an update on the search for the remains of 400 Australian and British soldiers who died during the Battle of Fromelles in 1916, and were buried in a mass grave behind enemy lines.  

Forensic anthropologists are excavating a mass grave in Putis, Peru, where they have found the remains of more than 100 people, many of them children. The village was abandoned after soldiers shot the villagers on December 13, 1984, during Peru’s internal war.  

Historian Paolo Greer is trying to track down the “treasures of the Incas” discovered in the nineteenth century by German businessman Augusto R. Berns. Some think that Berns reached Machu Picchu 40 years before Hiram Bingham, and that the artifacts he removed from Peru came from the mountain citadel.  

Have you seen the photograph of Amazon Indians firing arrows at a helicopter? “We did the overflight to show their houses, to show they are there, to show they exist. This is very important because there are some who doubt their existence,” said José Carlos dos Reis Meirelles Junior, who works for Brazil’s Indian affairs department.   

A Civil War-era shell was removed from Pennsylvania’s Schuylkill County Historical Society. “As soon as I picked it up, and saw it was a Hotchkiss with the date of 1862 on it, I wasn’t sure if it was an active round or what they call a canister round,” said historian J. Stuart Richards. He advised the society to call the bomb squad.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Monday, June 2, 2008. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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