Archaeology News: October 28, 2011

A deadly 7.2 magnitude earthquake has drawn renewed global attention to Turkey. For archaeologists and early church scholars, the country was already a renewed focal point. A surge of archaeology projects in Turkey have uncovered more of the Christian legacy of Paul and other early evangelists. But archaeologists from the U.S. and other countries face growing barriers put up by Turkish authorities.

Archaeologists pen a comprehensive tome of science, historical records and myths of the Donner party tragedy in the Sierra Nevada in the winter of 1846-1847. "Our work has focused on the analysis of both historical and archaeological sources to understand how the emigrants survived in the mountains for four months," said co-editor Julie M. Schablitsky, senior research archaeologist at the University of Oregon's Museum of Natural and Cultural History, who led the project. "We have concluded that before resorting to cannibalism, they consumed their animals and supplemented their diet with wild game."

A ship belonging to one of Kublai Khan’s missing fleets may have been discovered just off of the coast of Japan, marine archaeologists revealed on Wednesday.

Archaeological excavations have commenced in Jaffna. A tablet monument has been found in diggings carried out near the historic Kandurugoda temple in Jaffna recently. The monument has been placed at the Jaffna museum for public inspection. It has been identified that the monument was presented to the temple by King Kashyapa the fourth. Coins belonging to the periods of 11th and 13th centuries were also unearthed in the excavations.

A former teacher at the University of California at Berkeley, Platt is the author of 10 historical books, including "Grave Matters," which examines the legacy of archaeology in California and the politics of reparations, which often finds universities and museums "nervous about facing the past."

Andy Cloud will lecture on “Removing the Shroud of Mystery: Archaeology in the Big Bend” at 6 p.m. Oct. 27 at The Grace Museum. He discusses recent archaeological discoveries that illuminate the incredibly diverse nature of the early inhabitants of West Texas. For more than 30 years he has been with the Center for Big Bend Studies at Sul Ross State University.

A prehistoric ceremonial site containing curious artifacts has been unearthed at a stone ring in north Belfast, Ireland. “We have a piece of sandstone and someone has gone to the trouble of inscribing an oval shape on it with segments, very like if you took a cross section of an orange,” said Harry Welsh of Queen’s University.

The cultural heritage wing of Italy’s main labour union UIL has urged better surveillance of the ancient city of Pompeii after an ancient wall collapsed on Saturday following flash floods.

German archaeologists have unearthed "sensational" evidence of a lost Roman camp that formed a vital part of the frontier protecting Rome's empire against the Germanic hordes.