Greek police arrested two men suspected of unearthing a sixth-century B.C. bronze helmet illegally.

Researchers from the University of Michigan are examining a piece of wood recovered from the bottom of Lake Huron. They suspect that the pole may be 8,900 years old and that it was used as either a tent pole or to hang meat.

In Japan, archaeologists have discovered luxury eating utensils and two large buildings with pillars. This site could represent the lodgings offered to foreign envoys from China and Korea during the eighth and ninth centuries.

At California’s Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, archaeologists are excavating a Depression-era summer camp. “The kids probably didn’t have much, but had laughter and song. It is what was happening here,” said archaeologist Breck Parkman.

It has long been thought that our hairy ancestors may have started walking upright in order to cool off. A new study suggests that hominins would have been at risk for heat stroke  on the African savanna whether they were upright or not.

The complex relationship between snakes and humans may indicate that the two species applied evolutionary pressures on each other.

A 6,000-year-old figurine depicting a woman, dubbed the “lady of Villers-Carbonnel,”  was discovered in the remains of a Neolithic kiln on the banks of France’s Somme River.

Scientists from Tel Aviv University claim that the disappearance of elephant bones from the archaeological record at Homo erectus sites in Israel is significant. They think that the lack of elephants as a food source drove human evolution and innovative human behavior, as seen in the archaeological evidence at Qesem Cave.

The collapse of Spain’s building boom could lead to lasting protection of some 5,000-year-old passage tombs. Archaeology and tourism might even boost the struggling economy. “It’s as if we had a gold mine under our feet; all we need is the investment muscle to reap the benefit. I don’t see this latent potential in any other industry or sector,” said archaeologist Juan Manuel Vargas.

In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, trash from nineteenth-century homes and 1,000-year-old pottery was uncovered, along with a 9,500-year-old spear point. “We found some neat stuff, both historic and prehistoric,” said archaeologist David Benn. The Army Corps of Engineers will turn the site into a new system of levees and flood walls.

Forensic anthropologist Bruno Frohlich scans all kinds of artifacts and mummies in a medical CT scanner donated to the Smithsonian Institution by the Siemens Corporation.

Here’s a photograph of the gold Moche ornament shaped like a monkey head that was recently returned to Peru. A private collector had donated the looted artifact to the New Mexico History Museum.