Scientists at Austria’s Innsbruck University think Oetzi the Iceman may have died from a fall while mountain climbing. “His death could have been a mountaineering accident rather than him being shot by an arrow as previously thought. The arrow injury could have been an old injury,” said team leader Wolfgang Recheis.

The London Court of appeals ruled last week that the Barakat Gallery must return a collection of 5,000-year-old artifacts smuggled from Jiroft to Iran.

Scholars want to be able to study the little-known Garamantes culture in Libya. Through satellite images, they have learned that it covered a wider area than had been thought. “The important thing to realize is that this was an urban and sedentary agricultural culture that existed in the middle of the Sahara,” said David Mattingly of the University of Leicester.

Two prehistoric American Indian sites were discovered near a historic bridge in Missouri during a survey prior to road work. One of the sites is between 1,200 and 1,500 years old, and the other is 3,000 to 5,000 years old.

In West Virginia, a man who pleaded guilty to an unauthorized excavation in New River Gorge National River Park received two years probation. “When he was stopped, the defendant had Native American artifacts in his possession. Other Native American artifacts were recovered from piles of dirt that defendant created,” read his plea agreement.

Here are some tips for traveling to Carnac, France, where tourists can visit seven fields covered with Neolithic alignments of standing stones.

As the drought in Texas continues, shipwrecks and cemeteries have been exposed in rivers and lakes. “It’s kind of both an opportunity and a misfortune. It does give us an opportunity to view these resources, but we don’t have the (financial) resources to deal with them,” said Pat Mercado-Allinger of the Texas Historical Commission.

Megadroughts also took place in the southwestern U.S. during the mid-twelfth century and in the second century A.D., according to a new study of tree rings conducted by researchers from the University of Arizona. “These megadroughts lasted for decades, much longer than our current drought. And the climatic events behind these previous dry periods are really similar to what we’re experiencing today,” explained geoscientist Cody Routson.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Monday, November 7, 2011. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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