New Technique Pinpoints Sources of Volcanic Glass

SHEFFIELD, ENGLAND—While at the University of Sheffield from 1965 to 1972, Professor Lord Colin Renfrew created a technique to match the chemical composition of obsidian tools with the chemical composition of particular volcanoes and their lava flows. Now, Ellery Frahm of the University of Sheffield has refined that process using additional magnetic analyses so that archaeologists can trace the origins of obsidian tools to a particular volcanic quarry. “This approach provides a deeper insight into our understanding of past human behavior and will hopefully enhance research into how different groups managed natural resources linked to their economies,” he explained.

Plant Pathogen Identified in 19th-Century Potato Leaves

NORWICH, ENGLAND—An international team of scientists has examined preserved nineteenth-century plant leaves and collected DNA from the fungus-like infection that wiped out Ireland’s potato crop in 1845. They found that this particular strain of Phytophthora infestans is genetically different from strains that cause infections in potato and tomato crops today. “Perhaps this strain became extinct when the first resistant potato varieties were bred at the beginning of the 20th century,” said Kentaro Yoshida of The Sainsbury Laboratory. The failure of Ireland’s potato crop led to the deaths of an estimated one million people between 1846 and 1851.

Wetter Weather Spurred Human Innovations

PARIS, FRANCE—Periods of wet weather in South Africa led to population growth and cultural advancement in modern humans during the Middle Stone Age, according to a comparison of the archaeological record and climate history read from a sediment core. The use of symbols, the development of complex language, the manufacture and use of stone tools, and the creation of jewelry all coincided with climate change, according to Martin Ziegler of the Cardiff University School of Earth and Ocean Sciences. “At the same time, large parts of sub-Saharan Africa experienced drier conditions, so that South Africa potentially acted as a refuge for early humans,” he added.

Anglo-Saxon Church Found Beneath Lincoln Castle

LINCOLNSHIRE, ENGLAND—Traces of a Christian church thought to be at least 1,000 years old have been found underneath England’s Lincoln Castle, constructed in the late eleventh century. The church is thought to have been built by the Anglo Saxons after the Romans left Britain, but before the arrival of William the Conqueror in 1066. “The discovery was totally unexpected, but it is well known that other Roman walled towns often contained some high-status use during the Anglo-Saxon period,” said Beryl Lott, historic environment manager for Lincolnshire County Council.

Ancient Coast Miwok Site Excavated

NOVATO, CALIFORNIA—A construction project has prompted the excavation of a Mikwok Indian food-processing site near the waters of San Pablo Bay. In addition to arrowheads, parts of grinding bowls, and stone tools, archaeologists from the Sacramento State Archaeological Research Center and Caltrans have uncovered shell middens containing mussel and oyster shells. “This area probably would have been surrounded by brackish or saltwater marshes. There was also a freshwater creek nearby,” said Mark Basgall of California State University, Sacramento. He estimates that most of the artifacts at the site are about 1,000 years old, but the site was occupied as long as 3,000 years ago.

African Coins Could Rewrite Australia’s Past

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA—In 1944, while stationed on Australia’s Wessel Islands, soldier Maurie Isenberg discovered five 1,000-year-old copper coins thought to have been minted in the former Kilwa sultanate, a trading port on an island off the coast of Tanzania. Isenberg marked the spot where he found the coins on a map, and in 1979, donated them to an Australian museum. Now Ian McIntosh of Indiana University wants to know how the coins got to the northern coast of Australia. The coins may have washed ashore from a shipwreck, or there may have been maritime trading routes linking east Africa, Arabia, India, and the Spice Islands to Australia long before Europeans made the trip. McIntosh plans to excavate Isenberg’s site this summer.

Dolphins Discover Historic Armament

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA—Two bottle-nosed dolphins found a late nineteenth-century Howell torpedo in the waters off Coronado Island during training exercises with the U.S. Navy to find undersea objects. Navy specialists disregarded a positive response from the first dolphin because they had not placed any training devices, made to look like mines, in the area. When a second dolphin training in the same area alerted the crew a week later, it was asked to mark the spot of its discovery. Human divers found the Howell torpedo in two pieces and brought it to the surface for identification. “We’ve never found anything like this. Never,” said Mike Rothe, who heads the Navy’s marine mammal program. The Howell torpedo was the first that could follow a track without leaving a wake and then hit its target. Only 50 of them were made between 1870 and 1889—the only other known surviving example is on display at the Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, Washington.

Cambodia Requests Return of Artifacts Acquired After 1970

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA—Cambodian officials have requested the return of Khmer objects acquired by American museums after 1970, when many artifacts were stolen during the chaos of civil war. As many as six 1,000-year-old Hindu statues from the temple of Prasat Chen are thought to be in the United States. Two of those statues, known as the Kneeling Attendants, were held at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. They are due to be returned to Cambodia next month. “If other museums are confronted with the kind of evidence that the Met was provided, I believe the Met’s actions will serve as an appropriate example for them to follow,” said Stephen K. Urice of the University of Miami School of Law. Sotheby’s has possession of another statue, the mythic warrior known as Duryodhanna, which was withdrawn from auction in 2011 after a Cambodia objected to the sale. 

Sea Island Slave Cabin Moves to New Museum

EDISTO ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA—A slave cabin dating from the 1850s has been dismantled and transported to the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African-American History in Washington, D.C. The cabin is one of two to have survived at the Point of Pines Plantation in South Carolina, and was occupied, without electricity or heat, until the 1980s, when it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. “The sea island history is so rich and multigenerational. This history has been tucked away,” said Nancy Bercaw, curator of the new museum, which will open in 2015.

Historic Iron Forge Investigated

PIGEON FORGE, TENNESSEE—Iron Forge, the original iron forge in the city of Pigeon Forge, was built on the Little Pigeon River in 1817. A team of archaeologists spent a day investigating the site. “There’s iron ore all along the ridge up there by Middle Creek Road, and they would just bring that down here and put it in the forge,” said archaeologist and blacksmith Alan Longmire of the Tennessee Department of Transportation. The team identified the location of the forge’s furnace, water wheel, where water drained, and wooden artifacts, including the beam on which the water wheel turned. The information will be combined into a map of the site. Further excavation will require additional funding.

Are Dogs and Humans Evolutionary Partners?

BEIJING, CHINA—Geneticist Guo-dong Wang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and his team analyzed the DNA of four gray wolves, three indigenous Chinese dogs, a German shepherd, a Belgian Malinois, and a Tibetan mastiff. Their results indicate that gray wolves split from Chinese dogs some 32,000 years ago. They then compared corresponding genes in dogs and humans, and found that domestic dogs and their human partners experienced similar changes in digestion, metabolism, and brain chemistry as they evolved together. “As domestication is often associated with large increases in population density and crowded living conditions, these ‘unfavorable’ environments might be the selective pressure that drove the rewiring of both species,” the team wrote.

Direct Evidence: Projectiles are at Least 90,000 Years Old

QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA—Archaeologist Corey O’Driscoll has developed a method of determining if wounds on bones were made by spears thrown from a distance. Indirect evidence from examining stone point, suggests that humans living in Africa began hurling weapons as early as 500,000 years ago, but this evidence is often disputed. To solve this problem, O’Driscoll and a colleague knapped flint spear and arrow points modeled after Middle Stone Age technology from Africa. They then threw the replica spears and fired the replica arrows at lamb and cow carcasses, defleshed the bones, and compared the marks on the bones with a reference collection of butchered animal bones. O’Driscoll found that the butchering marks and the projectile impact marks have clear differences when viewed with a microscope, including traces of stone left in the projectile point wounds. He and Jessica Thompson of the University of Queensland then examined three animal bones from Pinnacle Point Cave in South Africa. Using the new diagnostic criteria, they identified projectile impact marks on all three bones, two of which are between 91,000 and 98,000 years old—the oldest direct evidence for the use of projectile weapons.