Orit Shamir of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Naama Sukenik of Bar-Ilan University have studied the plain, linen textiles found in the caves at Qumran in order to try to determine who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. “They wanted to be different than the Roman world. They were very humble, they didn’t want to wear colorful textiles, they wanted to use very simple textiles,” explained Shamir.

A skull uncovered in southern China in the 1950s has been reevaluated by an international team of scientists. The skull shows signs of blunt force trauma that had completely healed before the individual eventually died some 150,000 years ago. “They hit each other, they squabbled, they had weaponry – so it became serious. But at the same time, they were helping each other out,” said Erik Trinkaus of Washington University in St. Louis.

The Global Heritage Fund is assisting Peru with the preservation of Marcahuamachuco, a fortress built in the Andes by an unknown culture. “We do know that the stone structures, with walls 10 to 15 meters (yards) high, were built between 350 and 400 A.D., but we don’t know when its inhabitants arrived or where they came from,” said Cristian Vizconde, chief archaeologist of Peru.

A home remodeling job in Warwickshire, England, led to the discovery of an Anglo-Saxon burial ground dating to between 650 and 820 A.D. “Detailed analysis of the skeletons has revealed an insight into the health of the middle Saxon population who clearly suffered periods of malnourishment and were subject to a wide range of infections indicative of lives of extreme hardship and often near-constant pain,” said archaeologist Stuart Palmer.

A fragment of a Maori sleeping mat or food bag, a piece of bird bone, and European textile fragments were found during the examination of rock shelters in New Zealand’s Roxburgh Gorge.

The shift in diet that accompanied the shift from hunting and gathering to farming may have impacted the shape of human faces and jaws, according to a study by physical anthropologist Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel of the University of Kent.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, November 22, 2011. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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