Biological anthropologist Gwen Robbins of Appalachian State University has examined bone fragments taken from the hearth at the Donner Party campsite at Alder Creek, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. She found no human bones that would support the claim made by newspapers in the late 1840s that the survivors had eaten their dead while trapped in the snowy mountains. She did indentify the bones of cattle, deer, horse, and dog, however.

The remains of a British pilot and his World War II bomber plane have been discovered in a small German village. A young man with a metal detector found the plane after hearing stories about the crash from neighbors.  

There are a few more details about the tomb of an ancient Egyptian royal scribe that was unearthed at Tell el-Maskhuta, east of Cairo. The settlement had contained a garrison that supplied and armed the Egyptian army.  

Chemical analysis of a stalagmite in West Virginia suggests that American Indians regularly cleared and burned trees 2,000 years ago, and therefore had a greater impact on the environment than previously thought. “They had achieved a pretty sophisticated level of living that I don’t think people have fully appreciated,” said Gregory Springer of Ohio University.  

The grave of the “Old Leatherman,” a “mysterious vagabond” who traveled the hills of Connecticut and New York in the late nineteenth century, may need to be moved. If it is, researchers may be able to determine his ancestry. Some think the “Old Leatherman” was of French-Canadian and American Indian descent, since he was said to have spoken with a French accent.

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

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