The Lamb Spring site in Colorado is well known for yielding mammoth, camel, horse, sloth, llama, and wolf bones. But the site could also hold evidence of human habitation some 16,000 years ago, based upon the discovery of a large rock that may have been used to butcher megafauna. Purchased by The Archaeological Conservancy in 1995, Lamb Spring is known to have been used as a bison kill site 9,000 years ago. “I think Lamb Spring could yield what would be a jackpot – a campsite or village,” said Jim Walker of The Archaeological Conservancy.  Colorado’s officials could decide to make Lamb Spring a “living museum,” where visitors could watch archaeologists and paleontologists at work.

A new study of Paleo-Indians at the Crowfield site in southwestern Ontario tells of the burned fragments of more than 180 flint tools that were found in a shallow pit. Could this represent a cremation burial? Archaeologists Brian Deller and Christopher Ellis suggest that the tools were in working order when they were destroyed in the pit, and could represent a toolkit belonging to one person. No traces of human remains were found, however.

Five urns holding cremated remains have been found near the entrance to the Iron Age city of Verlamion in St Albans, England, and there may be more burials at the site. “They probably date back to the conquest period – the Roman conquest of A.D. 43. I would describe it as of national importance, and a significant find,” said archaeologist Andy Hood. Further research could determine if the urns hold the remains of Romans or members of the British Catuvellauni tribe. The entrance area to Verlamion will be preserved when 150 homes are built in the area.

Additional photographs of the wreckage of the RMS Titanic have been released as part of the campaign to have the site protected as a graveyard for the 1,160 missing dead. Some argue that victims wearing life jackets would have been swept away by wind and waves. Others say that many were trapped inside the ship, and that undisturbed compartments may still hold bodies. “I would not be surprised if highly preserved bodies were found in the engine room. That was deep inside the ship,” commented Robert D. Ballard, who discovered the wreck site in 1985. “I know that lots landed on the bottom, because there are so many shoes,” he added.

Scientists are working together to try to determine if a small clay sculpture that arrived at Utah State University in an anonymous box is the missing Pilling Figurine. The original figurine, which disappeared while on a tour of museums in 1960, was one of 11 in a group made by Fremont Indians 1,000 years ago. Although many high-tech tests were conducted, corn starch proved to be very useful in the investigation. Jim Adovasio of Mercyhurst University in Pennsylvania laid the clay figurines in mounds of corn starch, and saw that they all left impressions of Fremont basketry while drying. “If someone faked this they would have to have found a basket dead identical to the one used on the original and put it on in precisely the same way,” he said.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Monday, April 16, 2012. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

Comments posted here do not represent the views or policies of the Archaeological Institute of America.