Historic shipwrecks and other underwater and coastal archaeological sites within 20 miles of the Gulf oil spill are in danger, and not just from contamination. “We learned from Exxon Valdez that there were incidents of looting by cleanup workers, equipment being brought in, destroying the ground,” said marine archaeologist John Rawls.

A shipwreck has been found buried in the sand off the coast of St. Augustine, Florida. Two cast-iron cooking vessels, glass that could date to the eighteenth century, and wooden planks have been recovered.  

Eleven 4,000-year-old tombs were unearthed in Ha Noi, Vietnam. The front teeth had been removed from the skulls, which is typical of the aristocracy of the Phung Nguyen culture.  

Human remains were uncovered at a construction site in New Milford, Connecticut. The bones are thought to have belonged to members of the Weantinogue Indian tribe. They were turned over to the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation for reburial.  

Part One of National Public Radio’s series on human evolution features the Tiktaalik fish. “We have a big brain, and portions of that big brain are not seen in Taktaalik. But the template, all the way down to the DNA that builds it, is already present in creatures like this,” said evolutionary biologist Neil Shubin.  

Christopher Doughty of the Carnegie Institution for Science says that humans started to affect global climate much earlier than previously thought. Overhunting of megafauna may have caused changes in vegetation that could have warmed Siberia and Beringia.  

Linguist Edward Vajda of Western Washington University says there is a connection between the ancient languages of Asia and North America.  

A flood-damaged house in the way of road improvements in Rhode Island is actually the last surviving train depot of the Hartford, Providence & Fishkill Railroad. The nineteenth-century building will be photographed, measured, and charted.  

Scientists have used imaging technology to decipher a letter scrawled by missionary-explorer David Livingstone to his friend Horace Waller in 1871. This article from the Associated Press has background information on Livingstone and his quest to find the source of the Nile River.  

And, imaging technology has also revealed a “spine-tingling” correction made by Thomas Jefferson to the Declaration of Independence. It appears that Jefferson used his hand to wipe out the word “subjects” and replaced it with “citizens” in an early draft. “It shows the progress of his mind. This was a decisive moment. We recovered a magic moment that was otherwise lost to history,” said James Billington, librarian of Congress.  

Edmund Bacon acted as Thomas Jefferson’s overseer at Monticello for 16 years. Artifacts from his home site support the documentary evidence indicating he was very frugal. (Bacon had even loaned money to Jefferson and James Monroe before he moved to Kentucky and became a well-known horse breeder.) “In comparison with his contemporaries, Bacon was investing very little in domestic consumables and focusing all his assets on production,” said Alison Bell of Washington and Lee University.  

A long, narrow discoloration in the soil behind George Washington’s headquarters at Valley Forge could represent the log cabin he used as a dining hall for himself and his advisers. “This discoloration actually represents the trench that was dug to lay in the first log, the sill log, of the log cabin that was here,” said Joe Blondino, director of the public archaeology project.  

Archaeologists are excavating the home, restaurant, and boarding house run by former slave Millie Ringold, a “rugged individualist” who migrated to Montana during a mining boom. “She was the heart of Yogo City for many years. She was just a believer—Yogo had gold, and she was going to find it. She never lost faith in that,” said historian Ken Robison.  

Could the writings of the Greek philosopher Plato contain a hidden musical code?

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, July 6, 2010. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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