A Thracian temple has been found during excavations at the site of Heraion-Teikhos in western Turkey. “According to the data we have, we thought that the temple burned down in a fire. We have so far removed statues of gods including Kybele, Eros and Aphrodite as well as bronze coins, amphora and similar pieces from the temple,” said Nese Atik from Ahi Evran University.

A Roman settlement has been spotted in aerial photographs taken from a police surveillance plane flying over eastern Italy.  

What defines modern humanity? Alix Spiegel writes about the power of symbols for NPR’s series on human evolution.  

A 10,500-year-old circular structure in at the Star Carr site in North Yorkshire is being called Britain’s oldest house. “We used to think they moved around a lot and left little evidence. Now we know they built large structures and were very attached to particular places in the landscape,” said Chantal Conneller from the University of Manchester.  

Vandals have damaged Bronllys Castle in Wales by loosening stones from the structure and throwing them off the top of it. “Closing a monument is always the last resort, but if vandals are determined to continue to damage the castle we have no other choice,” said Wayne Evans, the visitor services manager.  

A circle of stones, originally unearthed in the Yorkshire Dales in 1896, has been uncovered again. Archaeologists think the stones may have formed part of a communal bread oven.  

The monks of Ireland’s Skellig Michael may have moved into a “pre-existing citadel” around the eighth century, according to independent archaeologist Michael Gibbons. He has also found previously unidentified sets of steps carved into the island’s rocks. “The different staircases may indicate a far more complex pattern of settlement than previously documented, or they may also indicate a far more daring pilgrimage circuit was created on the island, at a time when it was a pilgrimage site,” he explained.  

American and Irish students will work together to excavate a Lowell, Massachusetts, settlement site inhabited by Irish workers in the early nineteenth century. Early nineteenth-century homes in Northern Ireland, where many immigrants lived before coming to the U.S., have also been investigated. “We are hoping to find artifacts from their everyday life as clues to their lifestyle. That’s the story to be told: How did they live?” said Frank Talty of the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.  

Last week, the National Park Service refused to reverse the decision to remove the site of West Virginia’s Battle of Blair Mountain from the National Register of Historic Places. In 1921, 10,000 striking coal miners fought police and guards on the mountain for a week, when federal troops arrived and imposed martial law. Blair Mountain could now be destroyed by strip mining.  

A trading post and harbor dating to the twelfth century are being excavated in northern Iceland.  

An English team has built a robot to send into a shaft in the Great Pyramid at Giza. “We are trying to gain evidence for other people to draw conclusions,” said Robert Richardson of the Leeds University School of Mechanical Engineering.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, August 10, 2010. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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