More than 800 artifacts stolen during Afghanistan’s years of civil war in the 1990s have been returned to the Kabul Museum. Many of the artifacts were seized by airport police in London. One was recovered in Japan.

British soldiers who had been injured in Afghanistan participated in a rehabilitation program known as Operation Nightingale, in which they excavated an endangered ancient cemetery on the Salisbury Plain. To their surprise, they uncovered the remains of a 1,400-year-old Anglo-Saxon warrior. He had been buried with a spear, a shield, and a wooden drinking cup decorated with bronze bands. “Knowing that as a modern-day warrior I have unearthed the remains of another fills me with an overwhelming sense of respect,” said participant Mike Kelly. The site was being damaged by burrowing badgers.

More than 600 silver coins, pieces of jewelry, and part of an ax have been recovered on the Baltic island of Gotland. A landowner first noticed the cache while moving some soil, and then called in an archaeologist. “We’ve found coins dated 1130,” said Marie Louise Hellquist of the County Administrative Board.

Archaeologists are working to stabilize a kiva at the edge of Cliff Palace, a large dwelling at Colorado’s Mesa Verde National Park. The thirteenth-century structure had been built on a sloping floor, and water is seeping in through cracks, causing the problems. Wooden braces are being used to support the kiva, but the area is closed to visitors.

How old is the jaw bone discovered in Kents Cavern, located on England’s Devon coastline, and does it belong to a modern human or a Neanderthal? Last year, scientists announced that the contaminated sample had been dated to between 41,500 and 44,000 years old, using animal bones found above and below the jawbone. Such an early date would suggest that modern humans entered Europe earlier than previously thought and spread east rapidly. A new, controversial paper questions that conclusion, stating that the exact location of where the bone was found in 1927 is unclear, and that the sediments in the cave may have been disturbed. “What is at stake is the entire [prehistory] of Neanderthals and early modern humans in Europe,” said Paul Pettitt of the University of Sheffield.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Monday, August 6, 2012. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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