07 AVRIL 2011 - NEWS - Chico - Chuzhou - Nanjing - Blois - Sainte-Mère-Eglise - Perth Amboy - Rebun Island - Apamée - Deming -
- 07 AVRIL
- USA – Chico - Bones found in a backyard on Verbena Avenue Jan. 27 are confirmed to be skeletal remains of an American Indian child who died between the ages of 2 and 4. The sex of the child has not been identified. The cause of death is unknown, but police said the remains showed no signs of trauma. Based on the discovery of stone artifacts found near the burial site, officials with the anthropology department at Chico State University believe the remains could predate contact between settlers and the Maidu tribes native to the area. The bones were unearthed by two men digging a hole for an irrigation system to water a medical marijuana garden, police said.
http://www.chicoer.com/breakingnews/ci_17790994
- CHINE –Chuzhou - Construction workers in east China's Anhui Province have discovered a pair of conjoined tombs believed to be more than 1,000 years old. The tombs were found in Chuzhou City on March 27, when construction workers for a major development project unearthed a large number of ancient bricks. Cultural heritage specialists confirmed the tombs belonged to a couple who lived in the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127). They unearthed more than 20 pieces of sacrificial objects from the tombs, including a mirror, hairpins, dainty porcelain vases and kitchen ware, said the city's cultural heritage chief Zhu Zhenwen. Zhu said the tombs had been robbed before and the coffins were badly damaged.
http://www.kaogu.cn/en/detail.asp?ProductID=2757
- CHINE – Nanjing - Archaeologists in east China's Jiangsu Province said Friday that a tomb unearthed in suburban Nanjing, the provincial capital, may have belonged to a queen of the Southern Tang Kingdom (937 AD-975 AD). Based on the scale, structure and location of the newly-unearthed tomb, as well as a shinbone and women's headwear found in the tomb, archeologists believe it belonged to Dazhouhou, the queen of famed poet-king Lihouzhu and one of the last queens of the kingdom, according to an archaeologist from the Nanjing Museum. The tomb was discovered last year near the imperial tombs of the kingdom's first two kings and their queens.
http://www.kaogu.cn/en/detail.asp?ProductID=2762
- FRANCE - Blois - Lundi, les tranchées seront rebouchées. Avant d'enterrer - et de planter à l'automne prochain les marronniers - les vestiges historiques de la terrasse de l'Évêché, une découverte des fouilles était proposée hier- Un cimetière et des sépultures de la paroisse Saint-Solenne (église qui s'élevait là où a été construite la cathédrale), un habitat et des silos, le fossé d'enceinte : tels sont les éléments découverts et qui remontent au haut Moyen Age (entre le XI e et le XIII e siècles). « Avant la mise au jour des premiers éléments à l'été 2008, nous ne savions pas quelle était l'histoire de ce lieu avant le XVIII e et la construction des terrasses sur un coteau qui était en pente abrupte », explique la responsable scientifique aux visiteurs penchés sur les fossés.« Le grand fossé, qui a été comblé progressivement, pouvait atteindre 18 mètres de large. » - Débutées le 14 mars, les fouilles sont destinées à effectuer des relevés, collecter des traces de cette époque médiévale où la ville de Blois s'étendait au-delà de ses limites précédemment connues. Dès la semaine prochaine, les archéologues et paléontologues travailleront à dater les vestiges et à reconstituer les plans du site au fil des siècles.
http://www.lanouvellerepublique.fr/loir-et-cher/ACTUALITE/Infos-Departementales/Le-haut-Moyen-Age-sous-la-terrasse
- FRANCE – 
Sainte-Mère-Eglise - Découverte peu banale, dimanche, dans un champ du canton de Sainte-Mère-Eglise (Manche). « Je nettoyais mon champ. Il y avait un bout de ferraille qui dépassait, j’ai tiré dessus et j’ai mis à jour un pot en terre cuite », raconte le découvreur, qui souhaite garder l’anonymat. Une fois dégagé, le pot révèle son secret : des pièces romaines datant du datant du IVe siècle. L’homme contacte une amie étudiante en archéologie qui fera le relais avec la Drac et l’université de Caen. Ce mercredi après-midi, les experts sont venus prendre possession du trésor. Destination, le laboratoire du Centre de recherche archéologique et d’histoire des monnaies et antiquités de l’université de Caen.
- USA – 
Perth Amboy - Perth Amboy was a politically, commercially, and socially important community in Early America. Today, it retains a surprising number of early Colonial structures with exceptional archaeological potential. Richard will discuss the archaeological excavation and the artifacts found at the Clarke-Watson site in Perth Amboy that has given great incite to life in Early America New Jersey. The Clarke-Watson site, excavated by architect Bill Pavlovsky and a team of volunteer archaeologists in the early 1970s, yielded one of the richest archaeological collections yet recovered in New Jersey. The site was, at different times, the home of Benjamin Clarke, William and Margaret Loveridge, and John Watson. Benjamin Clarke was a Scottish stationer and bookseller, who became an East Jersey Proprietor and moved to New Jersey in 1683. Loveridge was a tavern keeper, brewer, and vintner, while John Watson (1685-1768), was a noted Early American artist. The artifact collection unearthed reveals new information about their lives and provides an unparalleled window into life in Perth Amboy during a period when the city aspired to be a great American port.
- JAPON – 
Rebun Island - The Baikal-Hokkaido Archaeology Project is an international effort aimed to understand the prehistoric hunter-gatherer cultures. The team members hope to obtain information on ancient societies and the way they lived to compare with findings from a previous project on Lake Baikal, Siberia. The comparison of the Japanese and Siberian sites will allow researchers to better understand the data they have already obtained.
- SYRIE – 
Apamee - The Apamea Department of Archaeology uncovered a tomb containing six layered graves dating back to the Roman era north of Apamea Castle. The tomb consists of two layers, each one containing three graves built using stone and painted with a thin layer of lime-based mortar, separated by plaster blocks measuring 200 by 60 cm. The tomb, which was ransacked a long time ago by grave robbers, was found while digging to build foundations for a house.
- USA – Deming - No, they did not find a Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth. But, the ongoing dig off of Highway 180 has revealed another find for the archaeology team from the Museum of New Mexico. Contrary to the ever-present rumor mill in Deming, the team did not find part of the "tyrant lizard," which was one of the largest carnivores to walk the Earth. The team has uncovered a number of tools and a structure believed to have been used by an ancient nomadic hunter/gatherer society. "For thousands of years, our ancestors, the ancestors of this area, subsisted this way," Steve Lentz, project director, said as he crouched next to a section of earth a few feet deep that had been painstakingly excavated, first by machine and then by hand. He described the ancient people while pointing to the corner of an earthen building with corners protruding less than a foot out of the freshly-dug soil. "These were like base camps, very rudimentary sort of camps where they built fires." He described the site, which sits north of Deming on just more than three acres, as "very ephemeral, very subtle" and hard to locate. The unidentified groups roamed this area of the country well before the Mimbres Indians, he said, who lived in the Mimbres Valley about a thousand years ago. According to research on the ancient people, they would travel in small groups of 11 to 25 people. Dr. Robert Dello-Russo, deputy director of the Office of Archaeological- Studies for the museum, said larger groups might have been unstable or difficult to sustain. "They might have had some limited agriculture, but they were basically processing all plants, like mesquite pods and agave and prickly pear fruit and various other seeds and grasses," Lentz added. Typically, the groups would make camp, look for food, start fires and cook whatever provisions they might have had or found during their treks. A common method of cooking, he said, would be to heat rocks and use the hot stones to boil water. Evidence of that cooking method was found throughout the area in shards of rock that had broken apart from high heat.
http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_17790482