An equestrian bit dating to between 1750 and 1650 B.C. has been found among the skeletal remains of a donkey at the site of Tel-Haror in Israel. “Until the excavation at Tel Haror, archaeologists had only indirect evidence for the use of bits,” said archaeologist Joel Klenck.

Spy-satellite imagery and modern digital maps have been combined to give archaeologists a new tool for studying the ancient landscape. “You could do this with the naked eye using Google Earth to look for sites, but this method takes the subjectivity out of it by defining spectral characteristics that bounce off of archaeological sites,” said Jason Ur of Harvard University.

The reburial of 53 sets of human remains that were unearthed during dam construction near Kanab, Utah, has been scheduled for this spring. The 1,000-year-old burials were removed, along with 30 pit houses and storage structures.

Pakistan’s request to list Mehergarh, Rehman Dheri, and Harappa on the World Heritage List has been rejected by UNESCO, due to a lack of research, conservation, and public facilities at the sites.

Research has shown that the cargo aboard a shipwreck discovered in the Aegean Sea in 1993 had been intended for the Apollon Temple, which was located in the ancient city of Claros. The artwork and building supplies sank with the ship during a storm.

Federal officials claim that some of the artifacts seized from the Custer Battlefield Museum in Garryowen, Montana, were stolen from members of the Crow Tribe and therefore cannot be returned to the museum’s owner. The case against him for artifact fraud was dropped in 2009, but the government has held on to 22 artifacts.

A new, controversial genetic study of the remains of three Neanderthal females found in Croatia suggests that two of them had dark hair and tawny skin. It has long been thought that northern-dwelling Neanderthals were fair skinned, in order to process enough vitamin D. “There was a large population of Neanderthals in Europe. It’s impossible that an entire population has red hair or blue eyes,” said Tábita Hünemeier of Brazil’s Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul.

Common house mice traveled to Iceland and Greenland with the Vikings, leaving genetic traces in modern mouse populations. “We found no evidence of house mice from the Viking period in Newfoundland. If mice did arrive in Newfoundland, then like the Vikings, their presence was fleeting and we found no genetic evidence of it,” said Jeremy Searle of Cornell University.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, March 20, 2012. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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