A male skeleton has been unearthed beneath the Temple of Murals at Bonampak, known for its wall paintings depicting the torture of captive warriors. The man is thought to have been an elite Maya, but archaeologists are awaiting test results to help them determine if he lived at Bonampak, or if he was a warrior from another Maya community.  

At the site of San Claudio, Maya workers manufactured flint weapons and tools that were sold in other towns.  

Archaeologists think they have found traces of a 300-year-old French fort on the Vermont shore of Lake Champlain. The fort was used between 1731 and 1759.  

Scientists have identified intact neurons and cerebral cells in a thirteenth-century child’s mummified brain, which was discovered in France in 1998. “It is a unique case of naturally occurring preservation of human brain tissue in the absence of other soft tissues,” explained anatomist and palaeopathologist Frank Ruhli of the University of Zurich.  

National Public Radio is offering more photographs and a You Tube video (narrated in Swedish) of the well-preserved shipwrecks discovered in the Baltic Sea. “I’m still so fascinated. I’ve seen many shipwrecks, but each time you see footage of a wreck with all these details from the past, you know, it’s really a time capsule that’s lying there beneath,” said Andreas Olsson of the Swedish National Maritime Museum.  

Re-routing sewage lines in St. John’s, the capital of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, has revealed information about the city’s eighteenth-century harbor.  The same project pinpointed the location of a cemetery where Shawnadithit, a woman said to be the last Beothuk Indian of Newfoundland, was buried in 1829. She died of tuberculosis.  

The New York Times examines the controversial destruction of an Indian mound in Oxford, Alabama, to make way for a shopping center. “I’m not against development, but some things should just be saved,” said archaeologist Harry O. Holstein of Jacksonville State University. He listed the mound in a state archaeological registry in 2003.  

Archaeologists and architects are trying to win protected status for a temple to the goddess Cybele that was discovered in Bulgaria in 2007. “We agree to finance the conservation of the temple as long as the Ministry of Culture gives us the legal right to claim it. If we are delayed a bit more, next year there might be no temple to conserve,” said local mayor Nikolay Angelov.  

Here’s a wrap-up of the genetic testing recently conducted on King Tut and his relatives.  

Eighty-six British families have given DNA samples to be tested against the skeletal remains of soldiers buried in mass graves at the World War I battlefield of Fromelles, France. The first results of those tests are expected tomorrow.  

The Russian Orthodox Church reportedly wants to build a cemetery and cathedral in Yekaterinburg, on the site where the skeletal remains of Tsar Nicholas II and his family were found. “This site will be destroyed as a place of any significance. This is the history of our country, and it will be ruined,” said archaeologist Sergei Pogorelov. 

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Monday, March 15, 2010. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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