New dates have been obtained for artifacts from southwestern Germany’s Geißenklösterle Cave, using an improved technique that removes contamination from the samples. The cave is noted for its personal ornaments, figurative art, mythical imagery, and musical instruments, which mark the beginning of the Aurignacian period for what are thought to have been modern humans. The new test results place this between 42,000 and 43,000 years ago—older than Aurignacian deposits from Italy, France, and England. The dates also suggest that modern humans lived in central Europe during an extremely cold era.

In Bahrain, vandals cut the barbed wire fences surrounding the 3,500-year-old A’ali’s Royal Burial Mounds, then removed large boulders from the site and used them to block access to roads in the village of A’ali. Some of the boulders were then broken by road cleaning crews. “The boulders are being rapidly removed from the streets and returned to their original locations through efforts by our officials and workers we hired,” said Abdulla Al Sulaiti, director of the ministry of archaeology and heritage.

Between 2000 and 2004, the U.S. Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command recovered more than 200 sets of remains of soldiers killed in North Korea during the Korean War. Upon examination in the U.S., 12 of those sets of remains were identified as Asian soldiers. South Korean scientists then joined in the analysis of the remains, which were recently returned to South Korea. “It is the first time remains of our soldiers killed in North Korea during the Korean War have been repatriated since the armistice agreement was signed in 1953,” said Col. Park Shin-han of South Korea’s Recover and Identification team. Two of the fallen men have been identified. As many as 40,000 South Korean soldiers may be buried in the North.

A Native Hawaiian woman’s argument that the construction of an elevated rail project in Honolulu cannot begin until the archaeological survey of the entire 20-mile route has been completed has reached the Hawaii Supreme Court. The city is currently conducting the survey in four phases and says that native Hawaiian burials won’t be disturbed by the project. “The state law is silent on some of these points. The federal law is very clear that phasing like this is permitted, and this of course is a federally supported project,” countered City Attorney Gary Takeuchi. The first 50 columns for the rail line have been built.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Friday, May 25, 2012. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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