Archaeology News Online

In the image of Volterra, Italy’s original Etruscan arch, every detail of the facade was clear — the stone arch and three heads chiseled into the rock that watched from overhead. Footage of 3-D models of the historic site, created from drone photography in Autodesk ReCap  [Credit: Autodesk, Inc. and Volterra-Detroit Foundation] But this wasn’t a photo of Porta all'Arco, the highlight of the medieval walled city’s gateway. It was an expertly produced 3D model of the Tuscan town’s architectural darling from the 4th century B.C., known as one of the last standing Etruscan arches in the world. The photo and the model look strikingly alike, which is exactly the purpose of the expedition. Technology and historical preservation collided as part of the International Reality Capture Workshop — a collaboration between Carnegie-based software company Case Technologies , the Volterra-Detroit Foundation, East Liberty-based Autodesk and the municipality of Volterra itself to document the town’...

A majority of the oldest artefacts in the permanent collection of the Mexican Museum in San Francisco are either forgeries or not up to national museum standards, a new report has determined. A tripod bowl from Costa Rica, 900 C.E.-1200 C.E., is an example of a museum quality artefact pictured at  The Mexican Museum [Credit: Leah Millis, The Chronicle] Only 83 of the 2,000 artefacts in the museum's pre-Hispanic, or pre-Columbian, era collection could be authenticated, the report said. The other 1,917 are considered decorative and will probably be donated to schools or smaller museums. The museum board told the San Francisco Chronicle it was shocked by the results of the $80,000 study conducted as a Smithsonian Institution requirement. The Mexican Museum was founded in 1975 and operated as a community museum until it was accepted as a Smithsonian affiliate in 2012, which raised the bar on the quality of artefacts that can be displayed. A turtle vessel from southern Mexico, A.D. 350...

Metin Eren wasn't satisfied just digging up ancient arrowheads to learn about the past. He wanted to use them for their intended purpose. In this June 1, 2017, photo, Metin Eren, an archaeologist at Kent State University, looks at a newly chipped flake of  obsidian in Kent, Ohio. Eren runs a newly-opened laboratory which makes replicas of ancient arrows, knives,  and pottery to be shot, crushed, and smashed. It's allowing researchers to learn about engineering techniques  of the first native Americans without destroying priceless genuine relics in the process  [Credit: AP/Dake Kang] But shooting and shattering priceless millennia-old tips is out of the question, so instead, the archaeologist chips replicas of the stone-age weapons by hand. "We can break 'em and throw 'em," he says. "Our imagination is the limit." The 34-year-old Kent State University professor specializes in experimental archaeology — re-creating ancient pots, knives and arrows. By t...

Bruce Museum Curator Dr. Daniel Ksepka has published a research paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science announcing the discovery of a new species of fossil bird in New Mexico. Artist’s rendering of Tsidiiyazhi abini [Credit: Sean Murtha] The fossil is important because it is the oldest tree-dwelling species among modern bird groups. It lived just a few million years after the dinosaurs went extinct. Because of its place in the arboreal crown, the new species shows that birds radiated explosively in the aftermath of the Cretaceous mass extinction, rapidly splitting into different forms to pursue a variety of diets and lifestyles. The bones were found by 11-year-old twins Ryan and Taylor Williamson, the sons of paleontologist Tom Williamson, one of the co-authors of the research. Surprisingly, the fossil belongs to a mousebird, a type of bird which today lives only in Africa. The team named the new species Tsidiiyazhi abini. Fossil bones of Tsidiiyazhi abini, a 62.5 ...

Arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby has agreed to forfeit thousands of illegally smuggled ancient Middle Eastern artifacts obtained from antiquities dealers, the company and U.S. officials said on Wednesday. Cuneiform tablet, one of several artifacts smuggled from Iraq by owners of Hobby Lobby, according to a civil complaint  filed on Wednesday by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn. Under an agreement with the federal government,  the company consented to return some of the items and improve the way its collects antiquities  [Credit: U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York] The forfeiture will include some 5,500 artifacts purchased by Hobby Lobby Inc that originated from the region of modern-day Iraq and were shipped under false labels, as well as an additional $3 million to settle the civil charges, the Department of Justice said in a statement. "The protection of cultural heritage is a mission that (Homeland Security Investigations) and its partner U.S...

Many attempts to explain how past people experienced their wider world have focused on sight at the expense of sound, but researchers from the University at Albany and the University at Buffalo have developed a tool that puts sound back into the ancient landscape. UB's David Witt used GIS technology to explore the possible relationships between features of Chaco Canyon's built  environment and the canyon to learn whether sound played a role in where certain sites were located [Credit: University at Buffalo] UAlbany's Kristy Primeau and UB's David Witt use GIS technology to advance a largely theoretical discussion into a modeled sensory experience to explore how people may have heard their surroundings throughout an entire archaeological landscape, or soundscape. The results, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports , have more fully animated the ancient world and opened a discussion about how people at various locations, at sites ranging from sacred t...

Last year, a team of forensic dentists got authorization to perform a 3-D scan of the prized Tyrannosaurus rex skull at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, in an effort to try to explain some strange holes in the jawbone. Researchers demonstrate their scanning technique, with a user holding a monopod-mounted Kinect  at close range from a T. Rex skull [Credit: Anshuman J. Das et al.] Upon discovering that their high-resolution dental scanners couldn't handle a jaw as big as a tyrannosaur's, they contacted the Camera Culture group at MIT's Media Lab, which had recently made headlines with a prototype system for producing high-resolution 3-D scans. The prototype wasn't ready for a job that big, however, so Camera Culture researchers used $150 in hardware and some free software to rig up a system that has since produced a 3-D scan of the entire five-foot-long T. rex skull, which a team of researchers -- including dentists, anthropologists, veterinarians, and pal...

In the image of Volterra, Italy’s original Etruscan arch, every detail of the facade was clear — the stone arch and three heads chiseled into the rock that watched from overhead. Footage of 3-D models of the historic site, created from drone photography in Autodesk ReCap  [Credit: Autodesk, Inc. and Volterra-Detroit Foundation] But this wasn’t a photo of Porta all'Arco, the highlight of the medieval walled city’s gateway. It was an expertly produced 3D model of the Tuscan town’s architectural darling from the 4th century B.C., known as one of the last standing Etruscan arches in the world. The photo and the model look strikingly alike, which is exactly the purpose of the expedition. Technology and historical preservation collided as part of the International Reality Capture Workshop — a collaboration between Carnegie-based software company Case Technologies , the Volterra-Detroit Foundation, East Liberty-based Autodesk and the municipality of Volterra itself to document the town’...

A majority of the oldest artefacts in the permanent collection of the Mexican Museum in San Francisco are either forgeries or not up to national museum standards, a new report has determined. A tripod bowl from Costa Rica, 900 C.E.-1200 C.E., is an example of a museum quality artefact pictured at  The Mexican Museum [Credit: Leah Millis, The Chronicle] Only 83 of the 2,000 artefacts in the museum's pre-Hispanic, or pre-Columbian, era collection could be authenticated, the report said. The other 1,917 are considered decorative and will probably be donated to schools or smaller museums. The museum board told the San Francisco Chronicle it was shocked by the results of the $80,000 study conducted as a Smithsonian Institution requirement. The Mexican Museum was founded in 1975 and operated as a community museum until it was accepted as a Smithsonian affiliate in 2012, which raised the bar on the quality of artefacts that can be displayed. A turtle vessel from southern Mexico, A.D. 350...

Metin Eren wasn't satisfied just digging up ancient arrowheads to learn about the past. He wanted to use them for their intended purpose. In this June 1, 2017, photo, Metin Eren, an archaeologist at Kent State University, looks at a newly chipped flake of  obsidian in Kent, Ohio. Eren runs a newly-opened laboratory which makes replicas of ancient arrows, knives,  and pottery to be shot, crushed, and smashed. It's allowing researchers to learn about engineering techniques  of the first native Americans without destroying priceless genuine relics in the process  [Credit: AP/Dake Kang] But shooting and shattering priceless millennia-old tips is out of the question, so instead, the archaeologist chips replicas of the stone-age weapons by hand. "We can break 'em and throw 'em," he says. "Our imagination is the limit." The 34-year-old Kent State University professor specializes in experimental archaeology — re-creating ancient pots, knives and arrows. By t...