Sunday Round Up: Top Archaeology and Anthropology News 1/16/2011

Archaeology and Anthropology Latest Headlines

Chemical analysis confirms discovery of oldest wine-making equipment ever found Analysis by a UCLA-led team of scientists has confirmed the discovery of the oldest complete wine production facility ever found, including grape seeds, withered grape vines, remains of pressed grapes, a rudimentary wine press, a clay vat apparently used for fermentation, wine-soaked potsherds, and even a cup and drinking bowl. The facility, which dates back to roughly 4100 B.C. — 1,000 years before the earliest comparable find — was unearthed by a team of archaeologists from Armenia, the United States and Ireland in the same mysterious Armenian cave complex where an ancient leather shoe was found, a discovery that was announced last summer. ~UCLA Newroom, From Stone Pages

2011 Excavation List For Excavation In Israel Just Published Israel's Foreign Ministry posted a preliminary list of archaeological excavations scheduled for 2011. The ministry updates the posting periodically as new digs are notified to them. For ant one who wants to dig in Israel this is a vital piece of information. This list of archaeological expeditions which accept volunteers is compiled by the Israel Foreign Ministry as a service to the public, and is not an endorsement of any of the projects listed. The excavation details below been published by the archaeologists in charge of the individual expeditions, who bear responsibility for their contents. ~ArchNews

Major Archaeological Project Examines Interactions That Changed China The Oxford Centre for Asian Archaeology, Art and Culture, based in Oxford University’s School of Archaeology, has received its first major research award since its launch in October last year. The Leverhulme Trust has awarded a grant of almost half a million pounds for the research project ‘China and Inner Asia (1,000-200 BC): Interactions that changed China’. The project, led by Dame Jessica Rawson, Professor of Chinese Art and Archaeology at the University of Oxford, will look at how the early Chinese societies made use of different foreign materials and technologies. Researchers will track how the Chinese, with their highly organised, relatively dense population, were able to react fast and on a large scale. ~Advert.co.uk

Antiochus VII, Antioch, January 17, 121 BC - Coining an eclipse of Jupiter by the moon An unusual Greek coin, minted around 120 BC, may have marked a moment in time when people in ancient Syria saw Jupiter being blocked out by the moon. On one side is a portrait of Antiochos VIII, the king who minted it. On the reverse is a depiction of Zeus, either nude or half-draped, holding a sceptre in his left hand.  Above the god’s head is the crescent of the moon, and his right arm is outreached with a star like figure (that may in fact be Jupiter) hovering just above his palm. “Nobody ever re-used this iconography again – it was a one off,” said Professor Robert Weir, of the University of Windsor in Canada, who presented his research recently at the annual meeting of the  Archaeological Institute of America.

Culture thrived on future Iowa soil About 800 years ago, an American Indian culture was concentrated in the Loess Hills near here. Little is known about the people of what archaeologists call the Glenwood culture. They dwelled in earth lodges, lived on both sides of the Missouri River, and sometime around 1300 A.D. left — possibly being absorbed by the Pawnee or other tribes. But two new grants from the Iowa Department of Transportation may help scholars and archaeologists learn more about the Glenwood culture people. ~Omaha World Herald

Primitive Peoples of Matto Grosso 1941 This awkwardly narrated black and white film from 1941 shows Anthropologist George Rawls interacting with the Bororo people of Brazil. This movie is part of the collection: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Films at http://www.archive.org