A genetic study of a 90-year-old hair sample indicates that some Aboriginal Australians are descendents of the first modern humans to migrate out Africa more than 60,000 years ago. These first explorers met Neanderthals and Denisovans along the way to Asia. Samples from different Aboriginal Australians suggest that looking for Denisovan DNA in Asian populations could help scientists track ancient waves of migration.

Two royal burials  have been discovered at the Maya site of Nakum in Guatemala. A 1,300-year-old tomb, which had been badly damaged by rodents, had been placed on top of a 2,000-year-old tomb containing the remains of a woman ruler.

A developer has agreed not to build on an Ohlone burial site in Santa Cruz, California, after the remains of an Ohlone child were uncovered at the site last month. The land will be set aside for use by the Ohlone and the homeowners association of the new housing complex.

In Kaikoura, New Zealand, construction workers uncovered the remains of two people, along with jewelry, hand tools, and ochre. The finds will be examined by an archaeologist and the remains will be reburied.

Excavations on the Channel Islands, the Isles of Scilly, and the Outer Hebrides could tell archaeologists if Britain’s indigenous population gradually made the change to agriculture, or if colonists from Europe brought farming with them.

A man’s skeleton from the Iron Age  has been unearthed in Leicestershire, England. Jermey Taylor of the University of Leicester talks about the bones in a short video by the BBC.

Colonial-era bricks and pottery have been found at a construction site in Kempsville, Virginia. “We’ve never been able to find anything. Now we know at least some of it is still here. When you think about all the development going on here today, it’s amazing that something from the 1750s is still intact,” said archaeologist Tony Smith.

The J. Paul Getty Museum will return three marble artifacts to Greece that it acquired in the 1970s.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Friday, September 23, 2011. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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