A team of archaeologists, working with the Kitchenuhmaykoosik Inninuwug First Nation, has discovered a 4,600-year-old burial at the mouth of the Bug River, on the south side of Big Trout Lake in Canada. Big Trout Lake is located in the far northwest of the province of Ontario. Even today its difficult to access. The provinces road system stops nearly 400 kilometres south of the area, making planes the most practical way to get in and out. The lake is located on the same latitude as Manchester, but the climate is far colder. In the winter the temperature can go down…
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For the archaeologist and anthropologist, excarnation refers to a specific burial practice. It is the removal of the flesh off the skeleton, leaving only the bones to be buried, which could be allowed to occur naturally (by leaving the body out in the open, for example) or the process could be done physically, which can leave signs of scraping on the bones. So why is there the need to de-flesh bones and then dislocate them from the body in many prehistoric cultures? And which cultures in particular does this occur in? Mind the Fingers and Toes! Let’s pull up a…
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All done and dusted! The first live lecture is now over (Watch it again here). The pain and the shakiness has subsided and I can relax! Thank you all for logging in: The chat in brief looked at four areas. First we looked at the Renaissance era and the overriding dependancy society had on God and religion as a framework for life. It was considered that other cultures, communities and societies of times gone by had been rudimentary and basic compared with that of pre-1680 Christian Europe. For years people had been fascinated by unusual objects and nature, but until…
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Stonehenge summer solstice 2010 is to be marked by the debut of a 25ft-high steel statue. ‘The Ancestor’, created by local sculptors Andrew Rowlings and Michelle Topps with help from Druids and the local community, will sit 70m from the stone circle and provide an alternative focus of revelry and worship at sunrise, easing congestion within Stonehenge itself. The Ancestor is as tall as a double-decker bus, and weights a huge seven tons. It has been shrouded in secrecy until today to prevent a further swell of people visiting the already overcrowded event in Wiltshire, which tonight is thought to…
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Attribution: Dirk Michael Boche Key Dates September 21, 937 – First church constructed 1207 – Destruction of the cathedral by fire 1209 – Start of the construction of the current cathedral Magedeburg Germany Key People Otto I, who ordered the construction Queen Eadgyth (‘Edith of England’) who was buried in the Cathedral The ‘Magdeburger Dom’ as it is known in German (full: ‘Dom zu Magdeburg St Mauritus und Katharina’) is located in the city of Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is home to the grave of Emperor Otto I the Great, Holy Roman Emperor, and the remains of his wife Queen Aedgyth (‘Edith of…
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Evidence of an imperial Roman villa has been discovered in Gloucestershire, England – just hours before archaeologists were due to fill its trench back up. The remains, a large quantity of Roman wall plaster, were found last Friday (June 11) as a Bristol University team led by TV archaeologists Dr Stuart Prior and Prof Mark Horton were winding up work at the site, which has already offered proof of Saxon settlement. The remains, in the grounds of Berkeley’s Edward Jenner Museum, also include Roman coins and roof tiles. The villa is likely to date from the 3rd or 4th century…
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While the golden kings exhibition has left Canada for southern climes, those in Vancouver will have an opportunity to learn more about him and more specifically how his artefacts reinforced his position as pharaoh. Professor Katja Goebs research looks at Egyptian pharaohs and the artefacts that cement their hold on power. Her most recent book Crowns in early Egyptian Funerary Literature: Royalty, Rebirth, and Destruction, examines the white and red crowns ofUpper and Lower Egypt. They possess a wide-ranging symbolism that transcends the terrestrial sphere to encompass the divine and the cosmos, death and rebirth, she wrote in the book…
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Fossils found at the ancient city of Palenque, Chiapas shows Maya people conceived their beliefs of the underworld from them, associating the beliefs with water. To the Palenque, these fossils were convincing proof that the land was covered by the sea a long time ago, and from this they created their ideas on the origin of the world. A three-year study by archaeologist Martha Cuevas and geologist Jesus Alvarado, was aimed at connecting the symbolism made by ancient Mayans to remains from Prehistoric times. The interdisciplinary investigation, by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and the National Autonomous…
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The three phases of Stonehenge? Wrong. In fact you can throw your three phases out the window – it just doesn’t work any more. “We were wrong about Stonehenge,” says anthropologist Mary-Ann Craig during today’s HKTV live lecture. “(Three phases) doesn’t explain it properly: we need phase 3.1; 3.2 and then 3.2b, it doesn’t seem to work.” Mary-Ann’s lecture on the history of Stonehenge and the mystery of stone circles was an instant hit with the HK office, and our many viewers online. Personally I was fascinated by the idea that Bluestonehenge, a stone circle discovered just last year, may…
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There may be many alternatives to Stonehenge this summer solstice, but one British man is proud his stone circle is complete rubbish. Bryan Raines, of Awbridge, Hampshire, has been creating his ‘Millennium Circle’ since 2000 entirely from waste fly-tipped on his land. Bryan’s 24-stone circle surrounds a soil barrow, and he even believes it is located on a ley line – a mystical line linking ancient monuments. Yet the power of the ley line hasn’t saved Bryan’s landmark from some altogether less mystical interlopers. “Some of the stones are between five and six feet high, but unfortunately cows keep knocking…