Scientists say that a partial cranium and its associated mandible discovered in Spain in 2004 represent a previously unknown hominoid primate genus, dubbed Anoiapithecus brevirostris. The 12 million-year-old creature “bears a strikingly ‘modern’ facial appearance with a flat face, rather than a protruding one.”

Roasted mammoth was served in 29,000 B.C. in what is today the Czech Republic. Project leader Jiri Svoboda of the University of Brno also found the bones of Arctic fox, wolverine, bear, hare, horse, and reindeer that were roasted or boiled in pits. Other artifacts from the site include decorated shells, stone tools, and fired clay figures.  

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have recovered a Corinthian column krater from Christie’s auction house that was listed as stolen by the Italian police. Experts think the krater was taken from the Lazio region of Italy, and “illegally handled” by antiquities dealer Giacomo Medici and a third party in the 1980s. Medici was arrested in Italy in 1997.  

Palaeoethnobotanist David Lentz of the University of Cincinnati says that inferior wood in the later Maya temples at Tikal indicates the civilization collapsed because the Maya ran out of resources.  

A prescribed burn at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park will remove invasive species of grass and reveal the cultural landscape left by Native Hawaiians. “It will open up the area so that we can see the sites better and thus be able to record and preserve them, as well as open up the area for interpretive purposes,” said park archaeologist Jadelyn Moniz-Nakamura.  

A pair of wood carvings painted with the Taegeuk pattern has been found to be 1,400 years old, making them the oldest in Korea. The Taegeuk pattern represents the theories of yin and yang and the five elements of the earth of Taoism.  

A man found a coin in his Massachusetts backyard that is older than his town. “It’s one of the earliest coins I’ve ever seen on Cape Cod, and it’s right where the town was founded,” said Truro Historical Society historian Dan Sanders.    

The skeletal remains of a Union soldier unearthed during a construction project in Franklin, Tennessee, will be disinterred and reburied in another location. “It all depends on how quickly they can get a court order and get it processed. The sooner the better,” said Alderman Mike Skinner.  

Here’s more information on the plant-based potion responsible for producing a “sardonic grin” on those condemned to death in eighth-century B.C. Sardinia.  

A teenager in Northern Ireland discovered a silver medieval ring while putting up a fence post. “You know I thought it was a ring pull, off a Coca Cola can,” he said.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Wednesday, June 3, 2009. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

Comments posted here do not represent the views or policies of the Archaeological Institute of America.