A student from Harvard University has unearthed an incense vessel in the shape of a bull’s head on an island off the coast of Bulgaria. The vessel, which is the only one of its kind to have been found in Bulgaria, dates to the sixth century B.C. “This really is the crown of our work on St. Kirik even just for this season,” said Kristina Panayotova, head of the excavation.

Volunteers digging at England’s Polesworth Abbey have uncovered Anglo-Saxon artifacts, including rare, decorated medieval floor tiles, a pin, a window frame, a lead cloth seal, coins, clay pipes, glass fragments, roof tiles, and pottery.

Hundreds of bones from extinct megafauna, including mastodons, mammoths, camels, horses, deer, and glyptodons, have been found at a construction site north of Mexico City. The bones could be between 10,000 and 12,000 years old. A tooth that may be human has also been recovered. “It is not strange because we know that man already lived in the central Mexico region during that period,” said archaeologist Alicia Bonfil Olivera of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History.

A 2,000-year-old unfinished jaguar sculpture weighing nearly a ton has been discovered in Mexico’s Izapa archaeological zone. The stone “is only engraved on one of its sides with the form of a jaguar, with the front and back paws flexed as if it were lying down,” said Emiliano Gallaga of the National Anthropology and History Institute.

Recent heavy rains and flooding in Senegal have uncovered shell jewelry, pottery, and iron and stone tools at a construction site in Dakar. The artifacts could be between 4,000 and 9,000 years old. “The exact date will only be known after tests are carried out,” said Moustapha Sall of Cheikh Anta Diop University.

Scientists have mapped the complete genome of the Denisovans, an extinct relative of modern humans, from the tiny finger bone of a young girl. The first Denisovan fossils, which include only the finger bone and two teeth, were discovered in a Russian cave in 2008. “No one thought we would have an archaic human genome of such quality,” said Matthias Meyer of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

The Hawaii Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion, said that the city of Honolulu did not comply with state historic preservation and burial protection laws by failing to complete an archaeological inventory along the entire route of an elevated rail project before starting construction. “It is undisputed that the rail project has a ‘high’ likelihood of having a potential effect on archaeological resources,” it reads. Archaeologist Kehaunani Abad says that one possible route travels through Kakaako, which she calls “burial central.” The project has been halted.

Recreational divers discovered a gilded bronze lion head off the coast of Calabria. They also brought bronze and copper armor to the surface. Italian law requires that historic finds be reported within 24 hours, but it may have taken a week for the divers to contact the authorities. “There are a number of elements that must be…clarified,” said Simonetta Bonomi, superintendent for the archaeological and cultural heritage of Calabria.

Archaeologists are excavating a mass grave near the Powazki Military Cemetery in Warsaw. The grave contains the remains of hundreds of Polish resistance fighters killed by the communist regime in the aftermath of World War II. Among others, the researchers hope to identify the remains of Witold Pilecki, who infiltrated Auschwitz in order to witness Nazi atrocities and then escaped, only to be executed after the war. “He was unique in the world,” said his daughter.

Students from the University of Oklahoma assisted with the excavation of a 10,000-year-old bison kill site, where they uncovered bison bones, Folsom points, and butchering tools. They also butchered a bison using stone tools in order to learn about butchering marks. The bison was donated to the students by members of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, who helped the students with the butchering.

On December 6, Berlin’s Egyptian Museum will celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the discovery of the 3,400-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti by German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt. He excavated the site of Amarna, an ancient city founded by Nefertiti’s husband, Pharaoh Akhenaton. Of the 7,000 artifacts recovered by the expedition, about 5,500 of them are in Germany. Egypt has requested the return of famed sculpture.

Hikers discovered the wreckage of a plane carrying Indian diplomatic mail and newspapers from 1966 in the Alpine glacial ice near Mont Blanc. The diplomatic pouch was intact, and the Indian Embassy in Paris confirmed the discovery.