Three University of California professors have filed a lawsuit to block the transfer of two human skeletons to a Kumeyaay tribe for burial. The 10,000-year-old skeletons were discovered in 1976 on the property of the University of California, San Diego. The researchers say that tests have shown that the two people ate primarily seafood, unlike the ancient Kumeyaay, and that their burial practices were also different. DNA tests have not been conducted. Twelve bands of Kumeyaay have also filed a lawsuit, asking for the remains to be handed over. “What we’re saying is that these are Native American remains. But even if someone says they are not, they were found on aboriginal lands. They go to the Kumeyaay,” said Dorothy Alther, an attorney for the Kumeyaay Cultural Repatriation Committee.

A skeleton known as Young Hol Chan II is missing from a cenote in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. The skeleton is estimated to be at least 10,000 years old and laid to rest when water levels were much lower and the cenote was dry. Officials from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History are searching the nearby area of Tulum for the remains, and asking residents to be on the lookout. The bones of elephants and giant sloths have also been found in the cenote.

Earlier this month, federal agents filed a lawsuit against Sotheby’s New York for the return of a 1,000-year-old sculpture of a Hindu warrior known as the Duryodhana to Cambodia, where its feet remain at the temple of Prasat Chen. A judge has ruled that the statue should remain at Sotheby’s where it is safely housed. Another warrior figure, the Bhima, is now at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California. The Bhima once stood opposite the Duryodhana at the temple, where its feet were also left behind. The two statues may have been plundered during Cambodia’s years of civil war.

Beachcombers have descended upon Fort Lauderdale’s South Beach Park, where musket balls, gun flints, and uniform buttons dating to the nineteenth century have been found at the site of the original Fort Lauderdale, which was built during the Second Seminole War. Florida’s officials are trying to figure out how to protect the artifacts. “A sign would just remind people that these cultural resources are public property, and taking them could be a felony,” said archaeologist Bob Carr.

Residents of the Isles of Scilly, located off the coast of southwest England, are being asked to help record coastal archaeological sites before they erode into the sea. On St. Mary’s Island, objects from the Bronze Age can be seen jutting out of a cliff, and Neolithic pottery has been found at a quay on St. Martin’s Island. Cornwall Council archaeologist Charlie Johns wants to get the volunteers trained and out to work, because artifacts are lost from the islands’ cliffs every stormy winter.

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

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