Stonehenge Altered in Roman Era?

The results are way too preliminary from ongoing excavations at Stonehenge, but there does seem to be some evidence that someone in Roman times modified the monument. Quoting Current Archaeology:

However the most surprising discoveries so far have been Roman. In a small pit
containing a small bluestone in the corner of the trench, itself cut into the
main socket of one of the uprights, they found a Roman coin. Even more alarming,
was the excavation of the large pit in the centre of the excavation, where right
near the bottom they found a very small piece of what was indubitably Roman
pottery. Was there a major reordering of the site in the Roman period? As
Geoffrey Wainwright said, their small trench looked like an urban excavation,
there were so many intercutting pits.

This could be some form of turbation or other taphonomic process. But it is certainly interesting.

Maya hieroglyphic decipherment on NOVA, April 8

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/mayacode/

The show appears to be a history of the decipherment. But regardless of that, there are a few neat aspects on the website, such as a translation of Piedras Negras Stela 3, with audio for the entire text. This is of course similar to the audio elements of the dictionaries at FAMSI, which are well worth checking out.

Aztec Measurements Deduced

Using a mix of history, mathematics, and survey, two researchers have uncovered smaller units of measure employed in Aztec surveys, that are not part of a vigesimal (20-base) scaling but are instead unique prime numbers.

SAA Session on the Meteor Hypothesis and New Evidence for Humans in North America Before Clovis

Coprolites from Oregon date to 14,000 BP, have human DNA in them, and were found alongside artifacts. This is getting a lot of press. Archaeology Magazine sent an editor to talk to the researchers.

On a related note, I attended part of the session at the Society for American Archaeology meetings, on the asteroid hypothesis, that eastern North America was devastated in 12,900 BP by an impact that also created the Younger Dryas. It was jampacked with people, standing room only with many being turned away, the likes of which I've never seen at a conference before. Many of those people were younger undergraduate or graduate students. There is obvious interest I couldn't stay that long, I had people to see and the packed room was tiring (a good 15 degrees warmer than the hallway outside, due to body heat). But from what I saw, it once again seemed like the same fight, and many of the same fighters, from the pre-Clovis debate and related battles over Meadocroft, Monte Verde, and Cactus Hill (one of the papers was on Cactus Hill). I don't do paleo, so I can't comment further.

Silver of the Iceni

Interesting piece on hybrid uses of material culture, the complexity of culture contact, and the always popular Boudica

http://www.archaeology.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1579&Itemid=26

Pagan Archaeological Treasure Trove in Cornwall

I've blogged before about ritual magic deposits. But if the interpretation is right, this one takes the cake.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3517036.ece

Dissertation Now Available

My doctoral dissertation on the ceramics of early colonial San Salvador is now available if you have access to the UMI/Proquest dissertation database. I went the extra mile and gave them a pdf of my creation, so it is text searchable and has color imagery.

The citation is

Card, Jeb J.
2007 The Ceramics of Colonial Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador: Culture Contact and Social Change in Mesoamerica. Ph.D. dissertation, Tulane University. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.

Divination "Game" and First Druid Grave?

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/02/11/druid-grave.html

The preservation on this thing sounds fairly incredible.

I would note the inherent notion that a proper Druid wouldn't be messing around with anything Roman. Many assumptions there about lack of contact across Europe in the centuries before the actual Roman conquest of Britain, about technology transfer and medicine, about concepts of purity and identity.

UPDATE: Images of the burial and artifacts

The Lewis Chessmen

Nifty essay on the famous ivory Viking chessmen. A good read.

http://www.sundayherald.com/life/people/display.var.2014774.0.0.php

On Lost Cities: Lost Inka City of Patiti Found ... Again

The legend of El Dorado, or this case the variant of the Inka city of Patiti, crops up about every six months when a new impressive stone ruin is found in the jungles of South America. Here's the current candidate.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080116-lost-city.html

I can't blame them, of course. I remember the false alarms around finding Copan royal founder Yax K'uk' Mo', before his tomb was finally identified for certain. El Mirador was overlooked for decades before it was rediscovered as the greatest of all Maya cities, transforming the picture of early Maya civilization, and Tikal has the Mundo Perdido or "Lost World" pyramid which has a similar history. And closer to Patiti, there is always the tantalizing memory of the lost city of Macchu Picchu, discovered right at the peak of popular interest in explorers and lost cities and other colonial-era fantasticalness.

Back in college, I remember being amazed by the discovery of Ubar using space shuttle imagery and remote sensing to find camel and foot paths. The Moskitia of Honduras has the enduring legend of the White City, Ciudad Blanca. It too is looked for (here's an example) and sometimes found time and again. Initially supposed to be a city of gleaming white stone buildings, in the 20th century viewed from the air in addition to the old tales, it has also taken on the meaning over time of being a lost city of White people. This of course brings to mind the older medieval stories of Prester John and later colonial myths and fiction of lost Roman legions that brought civilization to Africa, reflected in the treatment of Great Zimbabwe. The British Empire had a lost city of its own, Camelot, which has been identified several times, including at Tintagel in Cornwall.

EDIT: Looks like Patiti is still lost