Two Neolithic tombs have been discovered using aerial photography near Cranborne Chase, about 15 miles away from Stonehenge. “It’s one of the most famous prehistoric landscapes, a Mecca for prehistorians, and you would have thought the archaeological world would have gone over it with a fine tooth comb,” said Helen Wickstead of Kingston University.

The wreck of a Soviet submarine that sank during World War II has been found near the Aland Islands, between Sweden and Finland.

Researchers from the University of Manchester and the University of Edinburgh have developed a new technique for dating ancient pottery, called rehydroxlation dating.   

There may be evidence of human activity 9,000 years ago at the bottom of Lake Huron, on a 100-mile-long land bridge that was visible when water levels were much lower. “Scientifically, it’s important because the entire ancient landscape has been preserved and has not been modified by farming, or modern development,” said John O’Shea of the University of Michigan.  

Desperately poor squatters have been living in some of Delhi’s ancient monuments for hundreds of years. “Yes, we hang our laundry there, and yes, our children play cricket in the tomb, and yes, we have built a kitchen [around the area where the sarcophagus is housed],” one young woman told the Archaeological Service of India.  

The Virtual Museum of Iraq is open, and can be viewed in Arabic, English, and Italian.  

The FBI will return to Italy some 1,600 stolen artifacts found in the home of a Berwyn, Illinois, man after his death.  

Here’s more on the 400-year-old slate tablet unearthed in Jamestown. The inscribed tablet was found in a pit that may have been the first well dug in the colony.  There’s another photograph of the tablet at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, June 9, 2009. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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