Farming Arrived in Europe with Asian Migrants, Isotopic Study Reveals

[Sci-News.com]  Strontium isotope data from the Danube Gorges in the north-central Balkan show Europe’s first farmers were immigrants.

Richard III: Greatest archaeological discovery of all?

[BBC] It has attracted global attention with its blend of detective work and dark historical deeds but where does the discovery of Richard III's grave rate among England's greatest archaeological finds?

Ice Age Art at the British Museum: 'Not even Leonardo surpassed this'

[The Guardian]    Ice Age Art is subtitled Arrival of the Modern Mind. Its thesis is that 40,000 years ago, when humans migrated from Africa into a comparatively temperate Europe, and were then caught for thousands of years amid the freezing temperatures and furry beasts of the last great freeze, something miraculous happened. Art appeared: art so sophisticated, it proves that the cognitive faculties we value so highly today were fully evolved tens of thousands of years ago (the works here were made between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago). Only a modern human mind, the argument goes, could create a masterpiece like the Zaraysk bison (it is named after the town near Moscow where it was discovered).

Scientists reconstruct ancient languages with software

[Gizmag]  Imagine the wealth of knowledge we could uncover if it was possible to travel back in time and re-construct ancient languages. While that’s impossible right now, scientists at UC Berkley and the University of British Columbia reckon they’ve managed the next-best thing, by developing new software which uncovers existing fragments of “proto-languages” from languages still in use.

Tutankhamun 90th Anniversay: Ancient Treasures To Be Shown At Carnarvon's Highclere Castle

[Huffington Post]   Saturday marks the 90th year since the discovery of Tutankhamun - a dig that sparked an enduring public fascination with the ancient boy king. The Egyptian pharaoh was virtually unknown when British archaeologist Howard Carter found the dusty sarcophagus in a tomb full of golden treasures, in a discovery that was to define his career.

Was Soma the Forbidden Fruit of Genesis?

[Yucatan Times]  The late ethno-mycologist Robert Gordon Wasson proposed that the mythological apple in Genesis was a symbolic substitution for the bright red Amanita muscaria, a hallucinogenic mushroom commonly referred to as the Fly-agaric mushroom. Wasson further proposed, and presented substantial supporting evidence, that the mystery plant Soma from the Rig Veda was the same Amanita muscaria mushroom

New study slams theory that meteorite struck ice-age Canada and killed off mammoths

[Ottawa Citizen]  A controversial theory that a massive meteorite struck Canada about 13,000 years ago — then wreaked havoc on global climate, Ice Age mega-mammals and early human occupants of North America — has taken yet another scientific hit, perhaps dooming the impact hypothesis to the same fate as the woolly mammoths whose extinction it purportedly helped explain.

Ancient temple discovered in Peru

[Fox News] Archaeologists in Peru have uncovered what they believe is a temple, estimated to be up to 5,000 years old, at the site of El Paraíso, north of Lima.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/15/ancient-temple-discovered-in-peru/#ixzz2L4ugdtJN

Online Battle Over Sacred Scrolls, Real-World Consequences

[NY Times] A father-son battle erupts over the Dead Sea Scrolls.