First Americans may have been Alaska beachcombers

[Alaska Dispatch]  The massive glaciers of the last ice age retreated from an island off the Alaska Peninsula much earlier than once thought, suggesting that people could have been migrating along Alaska’s ice-free southern coast for millennia before any corridor opened over land. The findings — based partly on analysis of ancient pollen in lake sediments on Sanak Island — offers dramatic indirect support for a controversial theory that North America was settled by sea and not by land.

Stonehenge built as monument to unify the peoples of Britain?

[University of Sheffield]  Its stones are thought to have symbolized the ancestors of different groups of earliest farming communities in Britain, with some stones coming from southern England and others from west Wales, according to research just concluded.

Welsh people could be most ancient in UK

[BBC]  Research suggests the Welsh are genetically distinct from the rest of mainland Britain.
Professor Peter Donnelly, of Oxford University, said the Welsh carry DNA which could be traced back to the last Ice Age, 10,000 years ago.

Bones found under a church floor in Bulgaria may be of John the Baptist

[Science News] In a separate study, another Oxford researcher Dr Georges Kazan has used historical documents to show that in the latter part of the fourth century, monks had taken relics of John the Baptist out of Jerusalem and these included portions of skull. These relics were soon summoned to Constantinople by the Roman Emperor who built a church to house them there.

Ancient Rome Mystery Solved

[PhysOrg]  In ancient Roman times A.D., Palmyra was the most important point along the trade route linking the east and west, reaching a population of 100 000 inhabitants. But its history has always been shrouded in mystery: What was a city that size doing in the middle of the desert? How could so many people live in such an inhospitable place nearly 2 000 years ago? Where did their food come from? And why would such an important trade route pass directly through the desert?

Neanderthals May Have Been First Cave Painters

[Si-News] The practice of cave art in Europe began up to 10,000 years earlier than previously thought, a new uranium-series dating study has revealed. The study has also suggested that Iberian cave paintings were created either by the first anatomically modern humans in Europe or, perhaps, by Neanderthals.

42,000 year old flute found

[NY Times]  Earlier tests had yielded dates of 35,000 years ago for artifacts at several caves where flutes and also ivory statuettes of voluptuous women have been found near Ulm, Germany, and the Danube’s headwaters.

Did Ancient Germans Steal the Pharaoh's Chair Design?

[Spiegel]  Similarity in the chairs' design presupposes that there was contact between sunny Egypt and the swampy North some 3,400 years ago.

Italian Merchants Funded England's Discovery of North America

[Science Daily]  Evidence that a Florentine merchant house financed the earliest English voyages to North America, has been published on-line in the academic journal Historical Research.

28,000-year-old Aboriginal rock art found in cave is oldest in Australia

[Washington Post]  “It’s the oldest unequivocally dated rock art in Australia” and among the oldest in the world, Barker said.

Archaeologists Investigate 17th Century Settlement in South Berwick, Maine

[Popular Archaeology]  It was the year 1693 and the two men were haying the fields near a garrison in colonial Maine when they were ambushed by a Wabanaki war party. One was killed. The other was scalped.Just two years before, Wabanaki forces had attacked the garrison, but were successfully repulsed. King William's War (1689-97) typically saw scenes like this.

Cleopatra and Antony's Children Rediscovered

[Discovery News]  Cleopatra's twin babies now have a face. An Italian Egyptologist has rediscovered a sculpture of Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, the offspring of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII, at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Swedish Stonehenge?

[Live Science]  Ancient Scandinavians dragged 59 boulders to a seaside cliff near what is now the Swedish fishing village of Kåseberga. They carefully arranged the massive stones — each weighing up to 4,000 pounds — in the outline of a 220-foot-long ship overlooking the Baltic Sea.

Neolithic farmers brought deer to Ireland

[Past Horizons] By comparing DNA from ancient bone specimens to DNA obtained from modern animals, the researchers discovered that the Kerry red deer are the direct descendants of deer present in Ireland 5000 years ago. Further analysis using DNA from European deer proves that Neolithic people from Britain first brought the species to Ireland.

Europe's earliest farming site found

[Examiner]  The discovery of one of the oldest farming communities in Europe that used domesticated animals was reported by Susan Allen, a professor in the University of Cincinnati (UC) Department of Anthropology and Ilirjan Gjipali of the Albanian Institute of Archaeology. Vashtëmi, located in southeastern Albania, is one of the earliest known Early Neolithic farming sites ever discovered in Europe and dates to 6500 B.C.

Hidden from the Revolution: Russian treasure unearthed

[Antiques Trade Gazette]  Workers restoring an 18th century house in St Petersburg have unearthed an extraordinary cache of Tsarist-era artefacts once owned by one of Russia’s most prominent noble families.

American Chestnut Returns to New York City

[ScienceDaily]  The once-mighty American chestnut tree, which was virtually wiped out by a pathogenic fungus that arrived in New York City more than 100 years ago, will return April 18 to the area where it was first discovered in the Bronx.

1.5 million pages of ancient texts to be made accessible online

[Ars Technica] This week the University of Oxford and the Vatican announced a plan to collaborate in digitizing 1.5 million pages of rare and ancient texts, most dating from the 16th century or earlier....The digitized pages will include early printed books—called incunabula—from Rome and the surrounding area; Greek manuscripts including early church texts and works by Homer, Sophocles, Plato, Hippocrates; and Hebrew manuscripts from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Spitfires buried in Myanmar could be uncovered

[Radio New Zealand]   British and Myanmar authorities could work together to find 20 Spitfire fighter planes buried in Myanmar at the end of the World War II, officials say.

Denver-area's Lamb Spring archaeological dig could rewrite human history

[Denver Post]  Further excavation of Lamb Spring could show human activity between 13,000 and even 25,000 years ago, in which case "there would be a lot of rewriting of the peopling of North America."