Researchers have found traces of nicotine inside a 1,300-year-old Maya vessel that had been labeled as a home for tobacco. “Textual evidence written on pottery is often an indicator of contents or of an intended purpose; however, actual usage of a container could be altered or falsely represented,” explained Jennifer Loughmiller-Newman of the University of Albany.

A jade-bead necklace dating to the Late Preclassic period has been discovered in a ceremonial building at Guatemala’s Maya site of Tak’alik Ab’aj.

The wreckage of the British submarine HMS Olympus has been identified in the Mediterranean Sea. The sub had been trying to get past a German and Italian blockade of Malta when it struck a mine in 1942. Only nine of the 98 men aboard the Olympussurvived.

Staff members at the Chateau of Versailles found a letter written during World War II that had been hidden in a secret drawer in a desk that belonged to King Louis XV. It had been written by a restorer who finished working on the desk just as Paris was liberated from the Nazis in 1944.

George Wingard of the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program is making a film about an enslaved man known only as Dave, who crafted stoneware at potteries in South Carolina. “These pots were made to be used—to keep meat, lard, or butter—so they were utilitarian,” he said. The documentary will be used for educational and outreach purposes.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Wednesday, January 11, 2012. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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