Czech archaeologists say that they have found a 150,000-year-old settlement in the northern Iraqi town of Arbil, one of the oldest permanently inhabited parts of the world.

Here’s a wrap-up of the latest thinking on Homo floresiensis. “This is a new species that cannot be explained by any known pathology,” concluded William L. Jungers of Stony Brook University Medical Center, who co-edited a recent issue of the Journal of Human Evolution that was dedicated to the Hobbits.  Meanwhile, the residents of the tiny Indonesian village of Rampasasa are trying to cash in on the tourists who come to see Liang Bua cave, home of the Hobbit fossils.  

Volunteers have been assisting archaeologist Lisa Donel investigate the nineteenth-century Talbot Mineral Water Company in Gloucester, England. Its old buildings will be torn down for redevelopment of the area. “I’m very interested in industrial archaeology, so that was what made me want to get involved,” explained volunteer Frank Colls.  

In Massachussetts, a nineteenth-century whale-oil works, or candle house, will be transformed into a hotel conference center. “Right now, the concern is to document as much we can,” said Steven R. Pendery of the National Park Service. The National Park Service, the Whaling Museum, and the Marriott-Fairfield hotel will decide where some of the building’s artifacts can be preserved.  

A man and a woman will go to trial this week in Idaho for damaging structures at the Snoose Mine, which dates to about 1910. The couple is accused of selling the timber from the mine’s missing structures to a recycled timber company for $10,000.  

A silver bracelet depicting the Ten Commandments is the first material evidence of the Mormon Battalion at Alamo Mocho, in the desert of Baja California, during the Mexican-American War.   

Two privies belonging to a well-to-do family were unearthed in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  

Scientists from Barcelona’s Quiron Hospital and its Egyptian Museum have used medical technology to reconstruct the face of a 2,000-year-old Egyptian mummy, without opening its shroud.  

Egyptologist James P. Allen offers translations of some of the texts from Queen Behenu’s burial chamber.  

Tour guides are using the closure of Machu Picchu due to flood damage to beef up their knowledge of Peru’s other archaeological and historic sites. 

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Monday, March 8, 2010. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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