A Roman temple dedicated to the goddess Diana has been unearthed in Italy’s Tuscany region.

In Egypt, a road leading to Luxor’s temple of Mut has been uncovered adjoining the road that connects the temples of Luxor and Karnak. Both roads were once lined with sphinxes. “The discovery marks the first time that archaeology has revealed this route, which is mentioned in many ancient texts,” read a statement made by culture minister Faruq Husni.  National Geographic Daily News has posted more photographs of the site.  

Evolutionary biologist Tanya Smith of Harvard University has conducted a new study of fossilized teeth from Neanderthals and early modern humans, in order to see how long it took for them to reach maturity. She used synchrotron x-ray imaging to create 3D views of the inner structures of the teeth.  

When did human ancestors begin using tools? Manuel Dominguez-Rodrigo of Complutense University says that grooves on 3.4 million-year-old animal bones unearthed in Ethiopia were not made by meat-eating Australopithecus afarensis, as suggested by paleoanthropologist Zeray Alemseged of the California Academy of Sciences, but by trampling herds of animals. Alemseged defends his findings: “They made these conclusions overlooking the many obvious marks that matched hominin activity. We made sure that the marks on the Dikika bones were well out of the range of variation for trampling or other agents,” he countered.  

Art historian Jenny Alexander thinks that ancient mason’s marks could be put to good use today. “If companies that make flat-pack furniture used a system similar to masons’ assembly marks to show which pieces went together, it could remove the need for the complex and often impenetrable instruction booklets they currently issue,” she said.  

A 5,000-year-old skeleton, including an almost intact skull, has been found within a Neolithic tomb in Orkney, Scotland.  

An entire Roman village will be excavated before a new hotel is built in west London. “This is a chunk of Roman life. It has given us a valuable, rare insight into the daily life of an agricultural village on the outskirts of Londinium that would have supplied the Roman city and provided shelter for travelers passing through,” said senior archaeologist Jo Lyon.  

Here’s more on the field of acoustic archaeology, courtesy of Discovery News.  

Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe was exhumed yesterday.  This article has more background information on his life.  And this one has additional photographs of the project.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, November 16, 2010. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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