Human remains have been unearthed in central England, at the site of a monastery thought to be the burial place of Richard III. The skeleton is in good condition, although the skull shows signs of trauma. In addition, the spine is abnormal. It shows signs of severe scoliosis, which would have made the person’s right shoulder higher than his left one. “Our focus is shifting from archaeological excavation to laboratory analysis. This skeleton certainly has characteristics that warrant extensive further detailed examination,” said Richard Taylor, a spokesperson for the University of Leicester. DNA from the bones will be compared to DNA obtained from a direct descendant of Richard III’s sister. The archaeologists talk about discovering the skeleton in this article at BBC News.

Reports from Syria indicate that looted artifacts are being sold to raise money to continue the fighting and are even traded for weapons. Some of the artifacts are taken from archaeological sites, but poorly guarded regional museums have also been plundered. “The Iraq war awakened a hunger for Middle East artifacts. Now private collectors follow conflict closely. With the collapse of the economy the easiest thing is to tell people to go dig,” said Lebanese archaeologist and journalist Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly. All six of the World Heritage Sties in Syria have been damaged by the fighting.

A medieval shipwreck has been found in Hungary, partially buried in mud and gravel in the Danube River. Archaeologists think its cargo may be intact. “River navigation was dangerous. Downstream cargo ships floated using large rudder-oars, which made maneuvering very hard. Accidents happened very often,” explained Attila J. Tóth of the National Office of Cultural Heritage.

Andrew Leaper, a Scottish fisherman, recovered a message in a bottle in his nets last spring. The bottle had been tossed into the ocean 97 years and 309 days earlier by Captain CH Brown of the Glasgow School of Navigation. It contained a postcard which asked the finder to record the date and location and return it to the school. The information was used to map patterns of water circulation. “With many bottles still unreturned there is always a chance in the coming years that a Scottish drift bottle will once again break the record,” said Richard Lochhead, the Scottish environment secretary.

An Egyptian scarab amulet bearing the cartouche of Amenhotep III has been discovered in the ancient city of Jaffa, which is located in Tel Aviv. The site’s mud brick architecture and pottery are also evidence of Egyptian influence, according to researchers from Johannes Gutenberg University and the University of California, Los Angeles.

An Italian teen novel inspired thousands of young lovers to write their initials on padlocks, fasten them onto a lamp post on the ancient Roman Milvian Bridge, swear eternal love to each other, and toss the keys into the Tiber River. At first, Roman officials erected special posts to accommodate the flood of padlocks, but now they’ve all been removed with bolt cutters because the weight of the love tokens endangered the bridge, which dates to 206 B.C.

Recent storm activity in the Gulf of Mexico uncovered the remains of the iron-hulled USS Hatteras, sunk off the coast of Texas by the Confederates in 1863. Divers will use high-resolution sonar to create a 3D map of the wreckage. “This will create a detailed visual representation of a long-buried wreck in murky waters that we can share with the public, while also using it to plan for USS Hatteras’long-term protection as an archaeological site and war grave,” said James Delgado of The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration.

Five stone hoes estimated to be 4,000 years old were discovered in northeastern Viet Nam. The Neolithic tools had been made of local stone, polished, and probably had wooden handles. “The finding marks the use of stone hoes in agriculture at the time, which was suitable to farming conditions in the local [Dong Van] karst plateau,” said Trinh Nang Chung of the Viet Nam Archaeology Institute.

A team from the United States Joint Prisoners of War/Missing in Action Accounting Command (JPAC) will attempt to recover the remains of 1^st Lt. Ewart T. Sconiers, who was captured by the Nazis and imprisoned at Stalag Luft III in German-occupied Poland, where he died in 1944. His remains are thought to have been buried in a municipal cemetery, which is now a park in the city of Lubin.

Volunteers are assisting the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH) with the search for remains of people killed during the Spanish Civil War and during the following dictatorship. As many as 100,000 people are missing. “We are always proud that young people from other countries are interested in the subject and want to use their free time to help us. They transmit this support to the family members of the missing,” said Marco Antonio Gonzalez of ARMH. The association has recovered 1,324 sets of human remains from more than 150 mass graves so far.

A Roman cemetery in southern Spain has yielded intact graves, funerary monuments, and cremations. The cemetery served the well-preserved ancient coastal town of Baelo Claudia.