The charred remains of bees have been found within a honeycomb from the hives at Tel Rehov, Israel. Scientists say the bees had been imported from Turkey. “Local bees are notoriously difficult to handle,” states this article from Wired.

More than 100 intact religious objects were uncovered in a rock hollow in northern Israel. The artifacts are 3,500 years old, and some of them resemble vessels produced in Cyprus and Mycenae. “It is quite possible that these artifacts were used in the cultic area and in the temple and they accumulated, and when they ran out of space or they became old, a pit was made to bury them,” explained Yossi Garfinkel of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who was not involved in the excavation.

A man in New Mexico dug up an ancient human skull in his yard. 

FBI Director Robert Mueller visited Utah and told reporters that law enforcement acted appropriately during last year’s American Indian artifacts-trafficking sting operation. 

A teacher in Massachusetts discovered a document dated April 1792 in her fourth-grade classroom. No one knows how the yellowed paper ended up there.  

Seven or eight archaeological sites have been identified on land bought by Thomas Jefferson on behalf of “his adopted son,” William Short. Jefferson instructed Short in a letter to get slaves to work the land, but Short, who was an abolitionist, suggested white tenant farmers. “We know much more about the extremes of the populations, the most impoverished and the most privileged, and we know very little about the middle. By looking at tenants and overseers and small farmers, not only are we going to fill the gap in knowledge but we will put the two ends of the spectrum in better perspective,” said Alison Bell of Washington & Lee University.  

There’s more on the Roman gladiator cemetery indentified in York at National Public Radio.  

And here’s more information on the Nottingham Caves Survey, which is mapping the tunnels and caves beneath the city of Nottingham, England, with a 3D laser scanner. The sandstone caves were used as tanneries, breweries, and prisons.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, June 8, 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.