A new analysis of Early American skeletons concludes that the large anatomical difference seen between ancient and recent Native Americans is best explained by two colonisation events of the New World. The study suggest that the latest common ancestor between Early and Late Native American groups must have been located outside the continent: an other group of individuals arrived in the New World before the primary ancestors of today’s Native Americans. The team studied a series of skeletons from South and Central America between 7,500 and 11,5000 years old, comparing them with those of more than 300 Amerindians, dating to…
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Time Team star Tony Robinson has backed a campaign by VisitScotland, Scotlands national tourism board, promoting archaeological tourism in the country of such world-renowned UNESCO Heritage Sites as St Kilda and Skara Brae, and remarkable heritage treasures including The Lewis Chessmen and the Orkney Venus. The message to visitors: forget all those dull clichs about tartan, haggis and caber tossing, and instead get around the country and discover a rich well of history which runs many thousands of years deeper than William Wallace and the narrow vision of Scotlands past popularised by Braveheart. Scotlands history runs through the Viking and…
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The world’s most photogenic stone circle, Stonehenge, is the subject of a film called “Remnants” by Grant Wakefield which explores the Neolithic civilisation, looking at how we know so little about a culture which spanned over 3 millennia. With the Summer Solstice 2010 this weekend, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the beauty of this sacred ancient site. Heritage Key also has explored Stonehenge during the Spring Equinox (Watch the Video), and talked to Druid Frank Somers about how the stones came to be (Watch the Video). The Neolithic people vanished without leaving anything but their remnants, and it is these…
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In a matter of weeks, or even days, the Royal Ontario Museum, in Toronto Canada,will be announcing who their next CEO is going to be. I dont have any knowledge as to who it is, but, can certainly say that the new leader has an almost impossible act to follow. William Thorsell, the museums current leader, will be retiring in August. His ten year termat the museum was one of unprecedented growth. Under his leadership the ROM built an expansion that saw its Bloor Street frontage turned quite literally into a giant crystal. Collections that had been in storage from…
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I’ve had something of a crash-course on the subject of the Lewis Chessmen since it was announced back in October last year that pieces from the London and Edinburgh collections would be reunited for a major touring exhibition of Scotland running throughout 2010 and 2011. I researched the story of the Lewis Chessmen for this article, blogged on the findings of new research on their origins and usage, pitted them against King Tut’s ivory senet board in a face-off, and reported on the premiere last month of the exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland (NMS). I was beginning to…
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Key Dates 4504 BC The Detmold Child has been radiocarbon dated to between 4504 and 4457 BC. It arrived at the Lippisches Land Museum in Detmold in 1987. The Detmold Child is an embalmed Peruvian baby of 8-10 months, discovered at an unknown location in Peru and currently held by the Lippisches Land Museum in Detmold, Germany. It is one of the oldest mummies ever discovered, and predates King Tut by more than 3,000 years, and Ötzi the Iceman by 1,000 years. It cane to the Lippisches Land Museum from a small ethnographic museum in Hessian Witzenhausen. Until then it…
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A 5,500-year-old leather shoe has been found in a cave in Armenia. The shoe 1,000 years older than Giza’s Great Pyramid and 400 years older than Stonehenge is perfectly preserved and was found complete with shoelaces. It is believed to be the oldest example of enclosed leather footwear, out-dating the shoes worn by Otzi the Iceman by a few hundred years. The shoe is sole-less, made out of a single piece of cow hide and was shaped to the wearer’s right foot. It contained grass, which might have served to either keep the foot warm or to maintain the shape…
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A massive haul of ancient cultic vessels dating back over 3,500 years has been discovered in Israel. The find, made ahead of gas pipe works at the base of Tell Qashish, near Tishbi Junction, has been described as a ‘bottomless pit’ of artefacts, and contains over a hundred intact objects – almost unheard of in archaeological circles. The find includes incense-burning vessels, a sculpted woman’s face – seen in the picture below – and various items of tableware. Experts from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) who made the find believe the artefacts were part of an ancient pagan cult which…
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Nearly 4,600 years ago a third dynasty pharaoh named Snefru launched one of the greatest construction projects in human history. He decided, for reasons that are unknown to us, to build four pyramids scattered at different places across Egypt. He constructed two of them at Dashur (the Red and Bent pyramids), one at Meidum and another at a place called Seila. Together they used up more material than Khufus pyramid at Giza. Casing stones were used to give them a smooth appearance in other words make them into true pyramids.” This was the first time in Egyptian history that this…
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Tickets went on sale at the weekend for the premiere of Mummies of the World the largest single collection of mummies ever brought together in one exhibition, and the very first exhibition of its kind to be staged in the United States. Opening on July 1, itll take place at the California Science Centre in Los Angeles, and run for a limited time, before moving on to tour an as yet undisclosed string of museums around the US for up to three years. Organised by American Exhibitions Inc. (AEI), in association with Reiss-Engelhorn Museums (REM) of Mannheim Germany, the exhibition…