A 6,000-year-old figurine depicting a woman, dubbed the “lady of Villers-Carbonnel,”  was discovered in the remains of a Neolithic kiln on the banks of France’s Somme River.

Scientists from Tel Aviv University claim that the disappearance of elephant bones from the archaeological record at Homo erectus sites in Israel is significant. They think that the lack of elephants as a food source drove human evolution and innovative human behavior, as seen in the archaeological evidence at Qesem Cave.

The collapse of Spain’s building boom could lead to lasting protection of some 5,000-year-old passage tombs. Archaeology and tourism might even boost the struggling economy. “It’s as if we had a gold mine under our feet; all we need is the investment muscle to reap the benefit. I don’t see this latent potential in any other industry or sector,” said archaeologist Juan Manuel Vargas.

In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, trash from nineteenth-century homes and 1,000-year-old pottery was uncovered, along with a 9,500-year-old spear point. “We found some neat stuff, both historic and prehistoric,” said archaeologist David Benn. The Army Corps of Engineers will turn the site into a new system of levees and flood walls.

Forensic anthropologist Bruno Frohlich scans all kinds of artifacts and mummies in a medical CT scanner donated to the Smithsonian Institution by the Siemens Corporation.

Here’s a photograph of the gold Moche ornament shaped like a monkey head that was recently returned to Peru. A private collector had donated the looted artifact to the New Mexico History Museum.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Monday, December 12, 2011. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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