The partial skeleton of a 3.6-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis male has been discovered in Ethiopia’s Afar region. Dubbed “Kadanuumuu,” which means “big man,” he would have been about two feet taller than 3.2-million-year-old Lucy, and he had a nearly humanlike gait. “Whatever we’ve been saying about afarensis based on Lucy was mostly wrong. The skeletal framework to enable efficient two-legged walking was established by the time her species had evolved,” said Yahannes Haile-Selassie of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

There’s more information on the soldiers’ barracks uncovered at the Phoenician fortress of Idalion in Cyprus. “The discoveries further reinforce Idalion’s role as the island’s largest center of administration in ancient times,” said Maria Hadjicosti, director of the Cypriot Antiquities Department.  

The illegal trade in antiquities continues to drive the looting of Afghanistan. “It is related to all the illegal activities which are going on in Afghanistan,” explained French archaeologist Philippe Marquis. He and his team, in addition to protecting archaeological sites, are also racing to excavate the Buddhist settlement at Mes Aynak before a Chinese company comes in to mine copper.  

New laser technology has been used in the catacombs of St. Tecla to reveal the oldest-known paintings of Christian apostles. “This is a very important discovery in the history of the early Christian communities of Rome,” said Fabrizio Bisconti, head of archaeology for Rome’s catacombs, which are owned by the Vatican.  

Learn more about the life of the infamous Count Guglielmo Libri Carucci dalla Sommaja in this article from The Guardian. Libri stole a letter written by the seventeenth-century philosopher Rene Descartes, which was recently returned to France by Haverford College.  

The discovery of Roman pottery and glass in Cornwall challenges the belief that the Romans had not settled there. “For Roman Britain it’s an important and quite crucial discovery because it tells us a lot about Roman occupation in Britain that was hitherto completely unexpected,” said John Smith of Cornwall Historic Environment Service.  

A ten-year study of chimpanzees living in Uganda’s Kibale National Park shows that neighboring groups wage war against each other in order to expand their territories. “The lethal intergroup aggression that we have witnessed is cooperative in nature, insofar as it involves coalitions of males attacking others. In the process, our chimpanzees have acquired more land and resources that are then redistributed to others in the group,” said anthropologist Sylvia Amsler.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, June 22, 2010. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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