Excavations in St. Anthony’s Garden, a fenced area behind St. Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter of New Orleans, uncovered the foundations of a hut that may have been built in the early 1700s. A silver crucifix, pottery, clay pipes, and children’s toys were also found.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has urged the immediate withdrawal of Thai troops from the Preah Vihear temple. There are now some 400 Thai and 800 Cambodian soldiers at the 900-year-old temple, named a UNESCO World Heritage site two weeks ago.

At an international conference on the Bayeux tapestry at the British Museum, archaeologist Michael Lewis has named nineteenth-century artist Charles Stothard as the one who snipped a piece of fabric from the famous depiction of the Battle of Hastings. His wife, Anna Eliza, has long been accused of the crime.

Two German men living in the same village learned they shared a common ancestor who lived 3,000 years ago. An anthropologist from the University of Goettingen calls the DNA investigation the longest proven family tree.

A team of volunteers found some 40 Civil War-era artifacts, including lead shot, a minie ball, and a canister shot, at the Harding House site, near the Stones River Battlefield in Tennessee.

Here’s a photograph of the cannon brought up from the USS Torrent, which sank in Coal Bay, Alaska, in 1868, while transporting federal troops. All of the troops made it to shore safely. More of the recovered artifacts are shown in this second article on the Torrent.

A Colorado man who had kept human remains in his home for 20 years has turned them over to the police. A forensic anthropologist says that the bones belonged to an American Indian.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Thursday, July 17, 2008. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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