Terry Herbert was out on a friend’s farmland in South Staffordshire, England, with his metal detector when he discovered the largest Anglo-Saxon treasure ever found-1,500 gold and silver weapon fittings. “This is going to alter our perceptions of Anglo-Saxon England as radically, if not more so, as the Sutton Hoo discoveries. [It is] absolutely the equivalent of finding a new Lindisfarne Gospels or Book of Kells,” said Leslie Webster, formerly of the British Museum.   More photographs of some of the items are available.   And, Michael Lewis, head of the British Museum’s Portable Antiquities Scheme, explains how The Staffordshire Hoard fits into the Anglo-Saxon world of the seventh century.

A team of researchers led by Emma Nelson of the University of Liverpool examined intact index and ring finger fossils from two Neandertals and one Australopithecus afarensis. The scientists speculate that long ring fingers, thought to be a marker for high levels of male hormones, could indicate males who were more sexually competitive and less likely to be pair bonded.  

A new DNA analysis indicates that India’s many distinct peoples sprang from two ancient populations, and that gene flow has been limited by the current caste system.  

Rangers from New Mexico’s El Morro National Monument and scientists from the University of Pennsylvania are working together to try to preserve the historic inscriptions carved on a huge sandstone outcrop at the park. Some of the carvings were made by Spanish explorers, others by people traveling west on wagon trains.  

Just east of the Minnesota River’s “Little Rapids” sits the Dakota Indian “Village of the Rapids,” which was occupied between 500 and 1851 A.D. “The rapids you see today there might look different from the rapids there in history, in times before people have tried to get rid of them,” said Minnesota state archaeologist Scott Anfinson.   

New Hampshire has banned the sale of skeletal remains and grave goods. An auction house in the state had wanted to sell the remains of a Civil War soldier who had been illegally disinterred in Virginia, but the Sons of Union Veterans stepped in and contacted a state archaeologist.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Thursday, September 24, 2009. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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