The Romans who built the fort of Vindolanda in northern England fortified the swampy ground with unneeded household objects, including scraps of cloth. “The fabrics were very soft and comfortable,” said archaeologist Annette Schieck. The article goes on to explain Roman fashions.

A backyard in Tennessee where artifacts and mastodon bones have been found has been added to the National Register of Historic Places. The site “has the potential to provide important new information on initial human migration into North America, the tools these earliest Americans used, the food they ate and how they adapted to the changing environment at the end of the last ice age,” said state prehistoric archaeologist Aaron Deter-Wolf.

A 7,000-year-old village in Des Moines, Iowa, has yielded more than 6,000 artifacts and the remains of two people. “This site is important because it was intensively occupied and very quickly river floods sealed the deposits and very quickly preserved items that otherwise could have been lost,” said state archaeologist John Doershuk.

The remains of 12 children and 20 llamas have been unearthed on Peru’s northern coast, near the UNESCO World Heritage site of Chan Chan. Head excavator Gabriel Prieto says they were probably sacrificed some 800 years ago.

There’s more information on recent research into dog domestication at National Geographic Daily News.

A toxic substance has been indentified in a lotion flask belonging to Egypt’s Queen Hatshepsut. Researchers at the University of Bonn said other ingredients in the flask may have treated a skin disease.

Paleoanthropologist Sandi Copeland talked to Live Science about her career and the nuts and bolts of research.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Friday, August 19, 2011. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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