Archaeologists found stone tools beneath a layer of volcanic sediment, indicating that the Indonesian island of Flores was inhabited one million years ago, or much earlier than previously thought. “We don’t know which hominins made the million-year-old tools because, regrettably, no human fossils were found with the tools,” said Adam Brumm of the University of Woollongong. He thinks the tools may have been produced by ancestors of Homo floresiensis, the Hobbits.   There’s a photograph of the tools, and criticism of the claim that they are one million years old, at National Geographic Daily News.

Human bones unearthed in an English garden have been dated to the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries. A medieval settlement is known to have occupied that area of Northumberland.   

Here’s more information on the recent study that found that modern domesticated dogs probably descended from wolves in the Middle East. “Our results show that Middle Eastern wolves were a critical source of genome diversity, although interbreeding with local wolf populations clearly occurred elsewhere in the early history of specific lineages,” according to the article, which appears in Nature.  In addition, Australia’s wild dingo and the New Guinea singing dog are genetically closest to wolves, out of the 85 dog breeds tested in a study conducted by Alan Wilton of the University of New South Wales.  

There’s also more information on the re-identification of a 1,300-year-old building in Israel as the Umayyad palace, al-Sinnabra.  

A 400-year-old shipwreck has been uncovered by winter storms on the coast of North Carolina’s Outer Banks. “It’s going to go to pieces. I would love to see them save it,” said beachcomber Ray Midgett, who discovered the wreck.  

Archaeologists and police officers in Norfolk, England, have teamed up to crack down on illegal metal detecting. “Norfolk has a national reputation as a place to come and filch and steal archaeological material,” explained archaeologist Andrew Rogerson.  

Korean history professor Li Jine-mieung thinks he has identified several more Korean cultural items in the National Library of France that were removed from the Joseon Dynasty royal library in the nineteenth century.  

Once-and-future king Ruben Mita, age 11, pulled a sword out of the ground in his New Zealand backyard. His mom called the Auckland War Memorial Museum, and they put her in touch with the Royal Armories Museum in England in order to try to identify the unusual artifact.

 The tombs of four ancient kings were destroyed by fire in Kampala, Uganda, sparking riots among the Buganda people and clashes with police. At least three people are dead. The Kasubi tombs were a UNESCO World Heritage Site.   BBC News offers photographs of the destruction. 

Segments of the sandstone gorge at the entrance to Jordan’s Nabataean city of Petra are at risk of collapsing. A rock has already fallen from the walls, and a crack has spurred the creation of an emergency committee to find a way to prevent another rock from falling. “The site is over 2,000 years old, it is very fragile,” said Fawwaz Khraysheh, committee head and director of Jordan’s Department of Antiquities.  

Leslie Cecil of Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas suggests that the minerals used to make “Maya Blue” pigment were widely mined, in addition to being traded, in an article for the Journal of Archaeological Science.  

Hadrian’s Wall was lit up by volunteers wielding torches this past weekend. “It’s magnificent,” commented tourist Matthias Fabian of the Netherlands.  

National Geographic has more information on the 51 headless Vikings unearthed in Weymouth, England.  

Excavation of a metro line in Sofia, Bulgaria, uncovered a twelfth-century church, other early medieval buildings, and graves.  

A polished and carved walrus tusk has been stolen from Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, the historic home of Theodore Roosevelt.