In New Mexico, police raided a chop shop dealing in stolen auto parts and drugs, only to find a 1,000-year-old pot. “I was thankful I didn’t trip with it because I carried it around like it was just a regular pot at the time. I had no idea,” said Detective Timothy Fassler.

Green beads may have been used as amulets to protect Neolithic farmers in the Near East. Such beads were found in Israel, and had been made from minerals imported from northern Syria, Cyprus, and Saudi Arabia. “We propose that the green color mimics the green of young leaf blades, which signify germination and embody the wish for successful crops and for success in fertility,” Daniella Bar-Yosef Mayer of the University of Haifa, and Naomi Porat of the Geological Survey of Israel, wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  

This article from Shipwreck World has more images of the HMS Ontario, found sitting on the bottom of Lake Ontario. The British warship was built in 1780, but never faced an American ship before it went down in a storm.   But could the ship belong to Canada, and not the British Admiralty?  

Wyoming’s county coroners are supporting a new bill that would clarify how human bones discovered in unmarked burial grounds during construction projects should be handled. “Right now there’s no real protection for prehistoric American burials in the state unless they are on federal land. It’s up to the individual whims of the county coroners and county sheriffs,” said Deputy State Archaeologist Danny Walker.  

In the eighteenth century, Acadian farmers living at what is now Prince Edward Island National Park of Canada traded for goods from around the world. “They have surpluses that they’re trading with Louisbourg, with New England, and they’re bringing commodities in from Europe. Everything from English ceramics to Chinese porcelain is showing up on these sites,” said Parks Canada archaeologist Rob Ferguson.  

An administrative building and silos dating between 1665 and 1569 B.C. and a columned hall that may have been part of a governor’s palace between 1786 and 1665 B.C. were uncovered in the southern Egyptian town of Edfu by archaeologists from the University of Chicago.  

High humidity created by the waters of the Sivand Dam has caused cracks in the mausoleum of Cyrus the Great, according to Amir-Teimur Khosravi, the mayor of Pasargadae, Iran. More than 130 pre-Islamic archaeological sites were submerged.  

Conservation problems continue at Iran’s Shush Castle, as well. The late-nineteenth-century building stores some 90,000 archaeological artifacts. “The storerooms are not only humid but are inhabited by snakes, scorpions, and insects like termites,” an anonymous source told a Persian news service.  

National Geographic News weighs in on Jordan’s “oldest church,” which has been making headlines around the world. Ghazi Bisheh, former director general of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, calls the claim “ridiculous,” and says that archaeologist Abdel-Qader al-Housan, who found the cave, “has a tendency to sensationalize discoveries.”  

Scotland’s “Stone of Destiny” is surrounded by controversy. Is it the coronation stone housed in Westminster Abbey for 700 years? Is it a copy? “It’s like the Loch Ness monster, it’s certainly a puzzle and a mystery which is best not definitively answered,” said First Minister Alex Salmond.

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

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