The submerged ruins of a second-century A.D. city have been discovered off the coast of Libya. Archaeologists think it may have been destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami known to have struck the area in 365 A.D.

The ancient Roman city of Pompeii has been added to Google Street View. “Giving people a chance to take a virtual stroll through Pompeii will give an extraordinary boost to Italian tourism,” said Mario Resca of the Italian Culture Ministry.  

Were people cannibalized at a site in southern Germany 7,000 years ago? Or were their bodies just dismembered, defleshed, and reburied? “Human sacrifice at Herxheim is a hypothesis that’s difficult to prove right now, but we have evidence that several hundred people were eaten over a brief period,” said Bruno Boulestin of the University of Bordeaux.  

More 10,000-year-old artifacts have been uncovered in Scandinavia. This time, a settlement and evidence of tool production push back human occupation of the area around Oslo, Norway, by 2,000 years.  

A skull fragment found in Wyoming could have come from a child or teenager buried along the Oregon Trail, according to the Natrona County coroner, Connie Jacobson. “Because of the weather conditions, we are just going to secure the site until summer. We are not going to go out there again,” she said.  

A Texas man and his grandson flying kites over the Thanksgiving holiday stumbled across human bones in an empty lot scheduled for development. Archaeologists were called in to investigate the area.   Here’s the follow-up story.  

Archaeologist Joan Geismar learned more about the eighteenth-century headstone unearthed in New York City’s Washington Square Park by reading the newspapers of the time.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Friday, December 4, 2009. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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