Six million years ago, Orrorin tugenensis may have had human-like thumbs. “This calls into question hypotheses linking modern human thumb anatomy specifically to stone tool production,” commented Erin Marie Williams of George Washington University.

Mollusk shells unearthed from ancient burials in Peru are offering information to scientists about the oceans, the El Nino cycle, and climate. “When we are confident we know the age when someone was buried, then we measure the radiocarbon in the shell, and it tells us what the ocean upwelling was like then. It’s a very direct measure,” said Fred Andrus of the University of Alabama. 

Modern Chinese domestic pigs are direct descendants of the earliest-known Chinese domestic pigs, according to a DNA study conducted by a team of scientists from Durham University and the China Agricultural University. The first pigs in Europe were imported from the Near East, but then were replaced by pigs descended from local wild boar.  

Tony Pollard of the University of Glasgow announced that the 1745 Battle of Prestonpans, of the second Jacobite uprising, took places further east than had been recorded by eye witnesses. “We were not finding very much at the site or the materials you’d expect to discover. So, we were thinking, ‘Have we missed the stuff or has it been taken away?’ But when the metal detectors went further east, we knew we had it,” he explained.  

Donner Party scholars respond to the recent findings of Gwen Robbins of Appalachian State University in this article for the Sierra Sun. Robbins inspected 85 pieces of bone from the Alder Creek camp, but didn’t find any evidence of human bones or cannibalism. “The fact that no evidence was found at Alder Creek doesn’t have any reflection on what happened in the entire Donner Party,” said Kristin Johnson, historian for the Donner Party Archeology Project.  

Low walls built in the deserts of Israel, Jordan, and Egypt were built as funnels to herd large game animals into killing pits 2,300 years ago, says Uzi Avner of Ben-Gurion University-Eilat. 

A Bronze Age ditch spotted in the city of Hereford with aerial laser scanning equipment was probably used to mark the limits of the king’s jurisdiction. “The study concludes that Hereford has one of the best-preserved historic city centers anywhere in England,” said archaeologist Keith Ray. 

A resident of Vancouver Island is faced with a $35,000 archaeology bill, for an excavation required by British Columbia’s Heritage Conservation Act. Many landowners are unaware that their properties are designated historical areas.  

A group of citizens of Kazakhstan think the head of an executed nineteenth-century leader, Khan Kenesary Kasymov, may be at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. “A joint search [with the Russians] is under way. However, I cannot say anything concrete about the results. The process is moving slowly,” said Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesman Ilyas Omarov.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, April 20, 2010. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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