The bones of five individuals that could represent a previously unknown human species have been discovered in southern China. The bones have been dated to between 11,500 and 14,500 years old. “We’re trying to be very careful at this stage about definitely classifying them,” said Darren Curnoe of the University of New South Wales in Australia. Scientists are attempting to extract DNA from the bones for analysis.

Thousands of the estimated 1.3 million Iraqis displaced by war have set up homes on archaeological sites in southern Iraq. Some claim family land rights dating back to the Ottoman period. “When they took the land they didn’t know there was archaeological heritage under them. They think they have the right to use their own land. But they are breaking the laws,” explained Ali al-Jabouri of Mosul University.

The budget of Greece’s archaeological service was cut by 35 percent last year, and will be cut further this year, along with funding for museum security despite recent thefts.  The Association of Greek Archaeologists is protesting the cuts with an Internet campaign. “We don’t want markets to rule over our cultural heritage, our history, and our democracy,” said Despina Koutsoumba, head of the association.

Canada and Norway have both laid claim to The Maud, which was sailed by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen in the early twentieth century, and then sold to the Hudson’s Bay Company. The Maud sank in northern Canada in 1930.

Antiquities collector Oded Golan has been found not guilty of forging an artifact by a Jerusalem court. Scholars have not been able to agree on the authenticity of the so-called “James Ossuary,” which Golan claims to have purchased from Arab traders in East Jerusalem.

A rare wooden statue of a pharaoh discovered last summer in Abydos may represent Hatshepsut. Few depictions of the female pharaoh remain because her successor destroyed or defaced so many of them.

An eighteenth-century stone wall has been uncovered by utility workers digging in Lower Manhattan. Last year, thousands of nineteenth-century artifacts turned up in the same location. “It’s rare to see so many structures in one area of Lower Manhattan,” said archaeologist Alyssa Loorya.

In England, five Roman burial urns found in what was once the Roman town of Verulamium have been examined with CT scanners before an osteoarchaeologist removes their contents. “Two of the urns contained bones which could be human,” said conservator Kelly Abbott.

Volunteer excavators helped archaeologist Ken Robinson dig test holes at the site of a Confederate prison in Salisbury, North Carolina. He wants to know if anything remains of the 1861 prison.

Timothy Fenstermacher began studying Egyptology and communicating with scholars while incarcerated at California’s Tehachapi State Prison. “The extent of this guy’s self-taught scholarship is mind-boggling,” said Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review.