Newsdesk Archive

From The Copenhagen Post: The find, to be presented in the Current Biology magazine, beats the University of Copenhagen's previous record of 300,000 year-old DNA material. It could have significance for research on the planet Mars, researcher Eske Willerslev told the Ritzau news agency. 'The new DNA find is surprising because it is different from what we expected,' said Willerslev, who is a researcher attached to Copenhagen University' s Zoological Institute's Evolution Department.

White lime used by prehistoric humans 5,000 years ago to bedeck their houses and their handprints on thewalls were discovered in the Yuchi Temple prehistoric site in eastChina's Anhui province. Located in Mengcheng county, Yuchi Temple site belongs to the later period of the Dawenkou Culture (approximately 5000 B.C.- 2600 B.C.), a culture of the late New Stone Age.

President George W Bush will announce proposals next week to send Americans to Mars, and back to the Moon. Senior US officials say he will also reveal plans for the construction of a permanent lunar space station. Mr Bush intends to reinvigorate the US space programme following setbacks, including the Columbia shuttle disaster, the officials report.

When Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh dived into the Marianas Trench in 1960, their visit was brief - just long enough to watch a flatfish skim the seafloor, exclaim their surprise at seeing life thrive at such depths, and make history as the first humans to touch the deepest part of the ocean. After 20 minutes they returned to the surface. Their bathyscaphe, Trieste, had no camera when it touched bottom so there is no visual record of what the men saw there; the little flatfish was lost to posterity. Human have not returned to the Marianas Trench since. But soon a robot may. A novel underwater vehicle, the Hybrid Remotely Operated Vehicle (HROV) under development by the Deep Submergence Laboratory at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and Johns Hopkins University, will be able to reach the deepest parts of the world's oceans and perform a variety of tasks such as photography, biological sampling and topographical mapping.

In a medieval Siberian graveyard a few miles south of the Arctic Circle, Russian scientists have unearthed mummies roughly 1,000 years old, clad in copper masks, hoops and plates - burial rites that archaeologists say they have never seen before. Among 34 shallow graves were five mummies shrouded in copper and blankets of reindeer, beaver, wolverine or bear fur. Unlike the remains of Egyptian pharaohs, the scientists say, the Siberian bodies were mummified by accident. The cold, dry permafrost preserved the remains, and the copper may have helped prevent oxidation.

Italian archaeologists have discovered a Roman ship and hundreds of amphorae dating to the second century during excavation works for a new subway in the southern city of Naples. The discoveries, which were detailed on Thursday, will help shed light on ancient life in the Mediterranean port city, the archaeologists said. "They will help us understand the circulation of goods in Naples and the city's everyday life," said Daniela Giampaola, an archaeologist in charge of the excavations

CURLING, fossilised tusks protrude from a stretch of cracked central Texas dirt, an archeological treasure that has local leaders pondering the value of ancient bones. The city of Waco and Baylor University want to preserve the resting ground of a herd of prehistoric mammoths believed to have died in a mudslide some 28,000 years ago. "There's a pretty significant community interest to use that site for more than it is being used now, which is research," said Larry Groth, Waco's city manager. "But there are reservations on how much it costs."

Noah and his ark have entered the choppy waters of a debate about the age and geological history of the Grand Canyon, one of the world's greatest tourist attractions. Geologists estimate that the 217-mile-long canyon in Arizona was fashioned by the Colorado river between 5m and 6m years ago and contains some of the oldest exposed rocks on Earth. But now a book sold in the Grand Canyon park official bookshop suggests that it was created by the flood reported in Genesis.

The ideas behind Star Wars, The X-Files and an assortment of other psychic films and shows may not be so far-fetched after all. According to a new study on visual perception, the "force" is possibly inherent in all of us, although we can't see it. For the many who sometimes walk into a room and feel that something is not quite right, the answer may lie in a sub-system of our visual experience, says Ronald Rensink, University of B.C. associate professor in psychology and computer science.

We are pleased to announce that three new message boards have opened on this website, giving our visitors and regulars more choice and opportunity to discuss and question. If you haven't already done so, log-in as a member (it's free of charge!) and not only will you find much that is interesting and educational, but you'll also make some friends along the way!

Experts have uncovered evidence of Iron Age houses and pottery dating from around 100 BC at a major Tyneside development. Residents at the Newcastle Great Park (NGP) development are learning about their Iron Age counterparts after the latest archaeological work on the site uncovered evidence of an ancient settlement.

The British-built Mars probe Beagle 2 has failed to call Earth, dashing hopes that its mothership Mars Express would establish contact with the robot. Wednesday's bid to reach Beagle with its mothership was considered the best hope of locating the missing lander.

Although archaeology is usually associated with dry digging and dinosaur bones, it also has another, sometimes darker aspect - one that has used evidence from the ground for political ends. It is 10 years since Greece began toughening economic sanctions against neighbouring Macedonia - in objection to, amongst other things, Macedonia's proposed use of the Vergina Star on its flag, an ancient 16-pointed golden symbol found on tombs and artefacts across the region.

The second-largest extinction in the Earth's history, the killing of two-thirds of all species, may have been caused by ultraviolet radiation from the sun after gamma rays destroyed the ozone layer. Astronomers are proposing that a supernova exploded within 10,000 light-years of Earth, destroying the chemistry of the atmosphere and allowing the sun's ultraviolet rays to cook fragile, unprotected life forms.

New big discoveries have been made during the recent excavation of Yuchi Temple prehistoric site in South China's Anhui Province, which began last autumn and lasted for over one year. Located in Mengcheng county, Yuchi Temple prehistoric site, which is about 5,000 years old, belongs to the later period of the Dawenkou Culture (4000 B.C.- 2600 B.C.), a culture of the late Neolithic Age.

Johns Hopkins University archaeologists, a photographer and an information technology specialist will once again work together to bring the university's 10th annual Egyptian dig to the World Wide Web with "Hopkins in Egypt Today," located online at http://www.jhu.edu/~neareast/egypttoday.html. The daily progress reports and photographs chronicling the excavation at the Precinct of the Goddess Mut in Luxor, Egypt, are expected to be posted online beginning this week, and will continue for the rest of the month. A short video about creating the site is available online at http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/audio-video/egypt.html.

Archaeologists have admitted to having been made to look "very silly" after mistaking a 1940s sunken patio for a 9th century Viking village. Fife County Archaeologist Douglas Spiers says his team concluded the slabs found in the back garden of a Buckhaven home had originally been hauled by Norse settlers from a nearby beach. Even the discovery of a Second World War gas mask on the plot failed to deter them from their theory that this was the first evidence ever seen of Viking homes built on mainland Scotland, reports the Daily Mail.

Artefacts found in the remains of a 17th-century well in historic Jamestown, including farm tools and a pewter flagon, provide glimpses into the early life of the pioneering settlement and its struggles for survival, archaeologists said Monday. The well, built as early as 1617, is likely the oldest of two dozen wells discovered at the first permanent English settlement in North America. Since it was found in the summer of 2002 it has yielded a treasure trove of artefacts ranging from drinking vessels likely dropped by accident to armour, the archaeologists said.

The European Space Agency (Esa) is to make a last-ditch attempt on Wednesday to locate the missing Beagle 2 probe. Mission scientists are pinning their hopes on Beagle's mothership, Mars Express, which flew over the presumed landing site at 1213 GMT.

A group of Italian archaeologists will head for Iran next week to study ways of rebuilding Bam and its ancient Citadel, Arg-e Bam almost destroyed by a recent strong earthquake, a senior Italian official announced Tuesday, IRNA reported from Rome.

Archaeologists have unearthed an ancient tomb in the north-western China province of Shaanxi that is believed to have belonged to a military officer about 1,700 years ago in the Western Jin Dynasty. The tomb, with well-preserved gates and aisles leading to two chambers in the front and at the back, was found in a high school attached to Xianyang Normal College in Xianyang city, which is in proximity of the provincial capital Xi'an.

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have discovered the remains of Stone Age houses dating from 7,000 years ago on an island off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. The foundations of three dwellings were found on Marawah island, 60 miles west of the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi. The site also yielded a flint spearhead about 3in long, a flint arrowhead and a grinding stick, said Mark Beech, the senior resident archaeologist of the Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey.

More than a week has elapsed since my earlier post provoked an avalanche of response on the GH Messageboard. Though this is in fact a response to that earlier sequence of posts, I am posting it as an article in its own right since Messageboard readers might not think to access it as a buried thread. Conscientious readers may want to go back to that post and its tangle of threads to put this article in context.

The robotic probe Spirit has sent back its first colour images of Mars. The pictures of the dusty and rocky surface are the most detailed ever obtained by a lander on the planet.

Although the ancient Inca are renowned for their highly organized society and extraordinary skill in working with gold, stone and pottery, few are familiar with the khipu -- an elaborate system of colored, knotted strings that many researchers believe to be primarily mnemonic in nature, like a rosary -- that was used by the ancient conquerors to record census, tribute, genealogies and calendrical information. Because the Inca didn't employ a recognizable system of writing, researchers like Galen Brokaw, assistant professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures in the University at Buffalo's College of Arts and Sciences, have focused on the khipu as a way to further illuminate Inca history and culture. Brokaw doesn't adhere to the strict view held by some researchers that the khipu is solely mnemonic in nature, instead maintaining the possibility that these intricate specimens are historiographic in nature.

An Indian mob has destroyed 30,000 ancient manuscripts and rioted in retaliation for Oxford University Press publishing a book about a Hindu king. The incident was sparked by an allegedly objectionable observations by author and teacher James Laine in a book on the parentage of Maratha warrior king Shivaji.

Most of a Museum of London collection of 20,000 skeletons should be reburied after being properly studied, the museum director said yesterday. The skeletons' fate has prompted debate among academics. Many of whom have previously said they should be held back for research into human origins and history.

Looking to buy in southwest France? A retired farmer in the Dordogne region is selling his prehistoric cave adorned with drawings for just EUR 1 million (USD 1.3 million dollars). "I'm 76 years old and I can't show people around anymore. I can't go up and down the steps," Ernest Paluzzano, who has shown his "Grotte du Sorcier" to thousands of tourists over the years, told AFP on Monday.

Following a recent posting (see link below) on the Mysteries Message Board concerning the weathering of the Sphinx John Anthony West has written an exclusive reply to the questions raised which will be posted in the Forum of this site later this week.

Scientists at the US space agency Nasa are trying to establish a direct communications link with the Spirit probe that landed on Mars on Sunday. At present, they are only able to communicate with the robotic vehicle indirectly, via a satellite in orbit around the planet.

Chinese archaeologists have discovered two oracle bones, including one inscribed with the most number of characters ever in a single find, in northwest China's Shaanxi Province. The team of archaeologists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing University and Shaanxi Province found the two pieces of tortoise shell near a temple in Qishan County. One piece has 38 characters, six more than the previous record,and the other has 17. They are believed to date from the Zhou Dynasty (circa 1100 - 256 BC).

Ancient cultures had many herbal remedies for human afflictions, and it is becoming obvious that many of these were based on very sound science. In the latest revelation, scientists in the United States have found that a herbal tea used widely in China to treat jaundice does in fact successfully fight the illness. Researchers writing in the Journal of Clinical Investigation found that Yin Zhi Huang (YZH) stops the build-up of a type of bile that causes jaundice. On the basis of their tests, they say that the tea could form the basis of new treatments to be used by Western doctors.

Four large mounds of earth in the heart of the Red Hill Valley could present another hurdle for Hamilton in its bid to build the controversial expressway through the valley. Natives says the mounds appear to be huge burial pits that could have been built by Neutrals when they lived in what is now east Hamilton during the 1600s.

The secrets of how the ancient ancestors of modern Britons lived and died could be lost forever because the evidence is being destroyed by badgers. Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire has harboured the mysteries of civilisations for more than 5,500 years, making it one of Europe's most treasured archaeological sites. Just beneath the surface are the remains of Bronze Age burials, Iron Age enclosures, Roman villages, Saxon and Medieval settlements and the Second World War. Yet a fast growing population of badgers, attracted to easy digging conditions, is building networks of tunnels that threaten to wreck Britain's historical treasure trove.

A 1,100-year-old stone inscription of the Parantaka Chola period has been discovered at a Siva temple at Ezhuchur, near Padappai, in Sriperumbudur taluk of Kancheepuram district. The inscription, datable to 920 A.D., is in Tamil. It was found in the door jamb of the temple which is called Nal-Inakkisvarar (Deity of Good Harmony). The temple is in a highly dilapidated condition now. According to Dr. T. Satyamurthy, Superintending Archaeologist, Archaeological Survey of India (Chennai Circle), the inscription records the gift of solid gold by the local headman called Nocci Kilan Kaliya Peruman of the village named Velima Nallur of Velima Nallur-Nadu.

A Nasa space probe has sent back its first images of Mars within hours of arriving on the planet. The Spirit rover survived the perilous plunge through the Martian atmosphere after a seven-month voyage from Earth

SECRETS buried on Poole Harbour's Green Island are due to be uncovered on national TV in February. Channel 4's popular archaeology exploration programme Time Team spent three days on the privately owned island in the summer. And the findings of the dig are to be broadcast on February 8 in the programme presented by Tony Robinson and Phil Harding. Staff, students and graduates of Bournemouth University's archaeology group took part in the search for clues to shed light on what life was like on the island more than 2,000 years ago.

AN Iron Age chariot unearthed at an Edinburgh building site has been proved the oldest in Britain. Radiocarbon tests on the wheels of the chariot, which has been described as a "Ferrari of the Iron Age", have proved it dates back to 400BC - 200 years earlier than the previous oldest British find.

For a fee, tourists can take part in the search for the legendary Army of Cambyses, which some believe marched into the Great Sand Sea never to be seen again. In 523 BC, according to legend, Persian King Cambyses II dispatched an army of 50,000 men to destroy the sacred oracle in Siwa that had been bad-mouthing him since his conquest of Egypt two years earlier. The soldiers marched into the desert never to be seen again. According to an account related by the 5th century BC Greek historian Herodotus, the army left Thebes (Luxor) and after seven days reached an inhabited oasis, probably Kharga. The 50,000 soldiers continued with their guides into the Great Sand Sea towards Siwa, but met their demise in a massive sandstorm.

In 1949, the U. S. Bureau of Standards produced the world's first atomic clock which counted the rates of vibration in cesium atoms. Then in 1972, the world adopted an international time keeping system based on atomic clocks. That's when it became necessary to synchronize the resonance of the cesium atom and earth time as measured by the earth's spin. After 1972, the Bureau of Standards had to insert what are called 'leap seconds' into the atomic time keeping system because the earth's rotation slowed a little bit each year. But starting five years ago, for the first time, leap second additions have not been necessary because something unknown has increased the Earth's spin.

Scientists have known for some time that the Earth's magnetic field is fading. Like a Kryptonite-challenged Superman, its strength has steadily and mysteriously waned, leaving parts of the planet vulnerable to increased radiation from space. Some satellites already feel the effects. What is uncertain is whether the weakened field is on the way to a complete collapse and a reversal that would flip the North and South Poles. h

A laboratory experiment has given rise to tiny filaments that mimic structures found in ancient rocks identified as microfossils. The findings cast further doubt over whether the oldest known microfossils found in the 3.5-billion-year-old Warrawoona Group in Australia were indeed produced by living organisms, with implications for the search for early life on Earth and elsewhere. In experiments reported in the Nov. 14 Science, J.M. García-Ruiz of the Consejo Superior de Investigacione Cientificas and the University of Granada, Spain, and Stephen Hyde and his team at the Australian National University, Canberra, and the Geological Survey of Western Australia, set up conditions where long filaments and sheets of crystals formed in a high-pH bath, a solution of barium salt and sodium silicate, at varying temperatures. Focusing on 5- to 10-micron-sized structures that formed at room temperature, they found a complex composite of inorganic and organic material, with tiny crystals of organic barium carbonate, enveloped by silica. After dissolving away the carbonate, the team found that the remaining hollow structures looked surprisingly like the tiny ropy caterpillar-like structures imprinted in the Warrawoona rocks.

The first of two US rovers is due to land on Mars on Sunday after a six-month journey from Earth. The six-wheeled robot geologist called Spirit should touch down on the planet's surface at 0435 GMT.

The Nasa probe Stardust has had a dramatic encounter with Comet Wild-2, passing just 240 km away from the mountainous ball of ice, rock and dust. The craft sent back startling images of the object and grabbed particles streaming away from its nucleus for return to Earth in two years' time.

Researchers from Melbourne's Swinburne University of Technology have identified the part of our galaxy where Earth-like planets capable of harbouring life are likely to flourish. It is called the Galactic Habitable Zone - an area where rocky planets not only form easily, but can safely harbour life away from deadly hazards such as exploding stars.

To get to one of her favourite "ooh aah" painting sites, archaeologist Julie Dibden has to drive over body-juddering bush tracks and clamber down a steep, fire-scorched hillside in some of the wildest country on Sydney's fringe. Here, overlooking tall gums still struggling to grow leaves two years after being savagely burnt is a sandstone overhang on which Aboriginal people have painted eels in yellow ochre and black charcoal, alongside strange human-like beings. Dibden describes the site as "recent". The style of the art places it between 1600 years and 200 years of age. Perhaps, startlingly, some of it is even newer than that. Dibden believes that much of the art could have been made after colonisation, even in the late 1800s. She has come to that conclusion after three years comparing the pigment markings Aborigines made on rocks in her study area which covers half the remote, 900 square kilometre wilderness from which Sydney draws its drinking water. Her theory, evolved for a doctoral thesis she is due to submit at the Australian National University, conjures up images of a people under pressure who retreated to the barely accessible Upper Nepean bush to hunt, gather wild honey and to try to do something about the colonisers by creating art on rocks. Some was merely scratched into hidden crevices, indicating an urgent, private purpose. It is likely, Dibden has written, that it was done "for purposes of mediating the encounter with Europeans", as a way of dealing with "stress and insecurity".

The US space agency's Stardust probe is due to encounter Comet Wild-2. The probe has been racing through space for five years to get itself into a position on Friday where it will be about 300 km off the "dirty ice-ball". Stardust will photograph the object and grab particles streaming away from its nucleus for return to Earth in 2006.

Natural variations in isotope ratios show up in tooth enamel and can reveal where a person--even an ancient Maya king--spent his earliest years. At the start of the fifth century AD, Copán was a modest village set in a fertile, mountainous valley on the eastern fringe of the Maya world. Within decades, the village embarked on a remarkable rise to become, at its zenith in the eighth century, among the most accomplished Maya cities in art, architecture, and astronomy.

Polish and Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed a necropolis containing the 4,000-year-old stone tomb of a royal official, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said yesterday. Farouk Hosni, the Culture Minister, said the necropolis near the pyramids of Saqqara, about 25km (15 miles) south of Cairo, contained the tomb of Ny-Ankh-Nefetem, identified in hieroglyphic writing as the priest of the pyramids of kings Unas and Teti, who ruled successively from 2375 to 2291BC.

Russian scientists have found evidence of people living in Arctic Siberia 30,000 years ago. The site was found near America's gateway - close to the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska. Writing in Science journal, the authors said the ancient people could turn out to be ancestors of the first Americans.

A team taking part in archaeological excavations in the wilayat of Bausher has announced that artefacts dating to the third and second millennia were uncovered in pre-historical cemeteries in the wilayat. Dr Ali Al Tijani, head of the archaeological department at Sultan Qaboos University, said the discoveries made in Bausher included a saponite vessel, clay beads, shells and arrowheads. All these implements, he said, dated to the Bronze Age.

British-built Mars probe Beagle 2 is due to switch into a communications mode on Wednesday that increases the chances of contact being made with it. If Beagle is intact on the Martian surface, it will automatically begin "calling" Earth more frequently.

China and the European Union have launched a space mission to study the Earth's magnetic fields. The Double Star mission - which involves two spacecraft - is the first joint project between China and the European Space Agency. The first spacecraft blasted off early on Tuesday aboard a Chinese Long March 2C/SM rocket from a base in the town of Xichang in south-west China.

A villager in China's northwest Shaanxi Province has found what appear to be the centuries-old heads of Buddhist statues in a rubbish tip. Liu Ning was shocked to find the six heads in piles of waste in a 10-meter deep pit in Xi'an, the provincial capital. Liu, a regular rubbish-picker at the tip, was searching through construction site waste with six other villagers when he discovered the head of a Buddhist statue. He and his companions soon dug up the other five heads.

After 38 years of searching, Oak Island's most famous treasure hunter believes he's solved the mystery of the famous Mahone Bay island. Dan Blankenship said he has uncovered evidence that proves the 32-hectare island is the repository for millions in silver and gold left behind by marauding Spaniards in the mid-16th century. "I've never spoken publicly before because I didn't want to have put in this much work and end up being wrong," he said.

During excavations on a river bank in Marlborough, New Zealand, a Roman coin from the year 7BC bearing the head of Caesar Augustus has been found. So is this evidence of the maritime skills of the ancients? We may never know - for immediately the mundane explanations are being aired. Marlborough District Council's reserves supervisor, for instance, had this to say: "It could have been flicked off a bridge in 1940 or dumped in ballast in 1840 - we will never know," and even the archaeologist who discovered the coin, Reg Nichol made it clear that it was "just a curiosity item." But because the find does not fit in with our accepted view of history it will be forgotten. How many other disregarded pieces of evidence have been forgotten - pieces that viewed together might have provided proof that our ancestors were more able than we credit them for? - John Grigsby (web-editor)

The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe keeps watch 24 hours a day at a waterfront construction site here, even though the place is mostly deserted. Tribal members patrol the grounds, with dabs of red clay under their eyes and on their wrists to ward off spirits, looking for grave robbers. It's a routine that's been going on since August, when state Department of Transportation crews found themselves in the middle of an apparent Klallam burial ground and former village. After finding remains of 12 people, the agency largely stopped work on a graving yard needed to build pontoons for reconstruction of the Hood Canal Bridge.

Several artifacts have been salvaged from the Mediterranean at the site of the Heracles temple this year. The European Institute for Underwater Antiquities has reported finding fragments of jewellery and bronze utensils in Abou Kir Bay. The items were found in a sacred channel of the Nile that linked the East and West sides of the temple. The team found a stele of pure gold 15 x 20 cm on which a royal letter of five lines written in ancient Greek is engraved by hammering in the form of dots.

Archaeologists in northeast China's Liaoning Province have unearthed a jade figurine and a phoenix from an ancient grave that probably belonged to an affluent wizard who lived more than 5,000 years ago. The greenstone figurine, naked and standing 18.5 cm tall, was found on the left side of the skeleton, next to the pelvis.

Scientists have discovered the world's oldest wine - a vintage produced by Stone Age people 8,000 years ago. The find pushes back the history of wine by several hundred years. New discoveries show how Neolithic man was busy "bottling" and deliberately ageing red wine in Georgia, the former Soviet republic. Although no liquid wine from the period has survived, scientists have now found and tested wine residues discovered on the inner surfaces of 8,000-year-old ceramic storage jars.

A woman who walked the Nile during the era of Cleopatra has been reborn in London, brought to life by an artist, an anthropologist and the low light of a December sun. The face of the Sulman mummy has been sculpted in the London studio of Christian Cardell Corbet.

Beagle 2 may have fallen down a crater on Mars recently discovered near where the lander was due to touch down, scientists on the project have claimed. The crater has been discovered in Isidis Planitia, a flattish basin on Mars where Beagle was due to land.

Charles Berlitz, author of the best-selling books THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE and THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT, died on December 18th aged 90. Berlitz, who juxtaposed his best-selling 'mystery genre' books with respected tomes on linguistics, was a long-time Fort Lauderdale resident whose grandfather, Maximilian Berlitz, was renowned for his international chain of language schools. Charles Berlitz was himself considered as one of the world's best linguists and spoke a number of languages, including French, German, Italian, Greek and Portuguese.

The old part of Bam was one of the world's most spectacular and best-preserved deserted medieval cities. In architectural and archaeological terms, the ancient Middle Eastern palace city was of major international importance. Surrounded by a magnificent 16th-century city wall, and entered into through complex gateways, the old town has long been famous in Iran for its vast urban landscape of abandoned houses, shops and mosques.

By late morning, the terraces at Machu Picchu - the jewel in the crown of Peruvian tourism - are heaving. Peruvian children charge down the stairways at this majestic 15th Century Inca citadel. Exhausted backpackers take photographs of each other amid the misty ruins at the end of the gruelling four-day Inca Trail. After lunch, tours of wealthy American and British tourists, fresh from their journey on the new Orient Express train, gaze in awe at the site many have dreamt of visiting their entire lives. But the site is becoming a battle ground between the United Nations cultural agency, which wants visitor numbers more than halved, and the Peruvian authorities, which are desperate to keep precious income from tourism flowing in.

There is still no sign of life from the British-built Mars probe, Beagle 2. All attempts to contact the lander with the Mars Odyssey craft in orbit around the Red Planet and with large radio telescopes on Earth have drawn a blank. Scientists have now set up a "tiger team" to work through all the possible reasons for the lander's silence.

Iran's devastating earthquake has wiped out one of the most perfectly preserved cities of the ancient world, featuring a 2,000-year-old citadel that was one of the largest mud-built structures anywhere. The vast castle, surrounded by a three-kilometre crenellated wall, loomed over a city entirely built of mud bricks, clay, straw and the trunks of palm trees, and sealed off by a defensive perimeter with a single gate.

The minister of culture Farouk Hosny declared that the archaeological experts in the Egyptian ministry of culture are ready to present technical support to help preserving the remains of the historical citadel of Bam, considered the most important ancient historical wonders in Iran and the world. The citadel was exposed to devastating damages as a result of the earthquake that stroke the Iranian city of Bam. The victims were more than 20 thousand persons.

Last month, the European Space Agency and its counterpart the Chinese National Space Administration met in Beijing to review the readiness of the first Double Star spacecraft. Named Explorer 1, the first of two satellites will blast off on 27 December from a base in Southern China.

Archeologists say China's most primitive pottery was made to cook freshwater snails in south China, after studying relics in Zengpiyan Cave in Guilin City, capital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The cave represents Neolithic culture in south China about 12,000 to 7,000 years ago. It yielded the country's most primitive potsherds, estimated to be 12,000 years old.

The British team behind the Beagle 2 mission to Mars has failed to contact the landing craft for the fifth time. There has been no signal since the probe's planned touchdown on the Red Planet early on Christmas Day. Team leader Professor Colin Pillinger says they are now pinning their hopes on the mothership, Mars Express.

Pieces of treasure hidden by the Romans 1,650 years ago as Germanic tribes stormed their northern Swiss fort, have been reunited and put on display for the first time. Some 270 precious items including silver platters, dishes, utensils and coins, are on show amid tight security at the Museum of the Roman town of Augusta Raurica, in Basel.

Minister of Culture Farouq Hosni decided to implement an urgent project for repairing the cemetery of Amenhotep III in the Valley of Kings in Luxor before setting the cemetery for visitors for the first time since it had been discovered 204 years ago. The Minister of Culture said that the project is implemented over three stages in cooperation with a Japanese mission and under the supervision of the UNESCO.

Neanderthals were shedding their sturdy physique and evolving in the direction of modern humans just before they disappeared from the fossil record. Newly identified remains from Vindija in Croatia, which date to between 42,000 and 28,000 years ago, are more delicate than "classic" Neanderthals. One controversial explanation is that these Neanderthals were interbreeding with modern humans in the region.

The effects of soot in changing the climate are more than most scientists acknowledge, two US researchers say. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they say reducing atmospheric soot levels could help to slow global warming relatively simply.

Scientists at the Australian National University (ANU) have carried out an experiment which disobeys the Second Law of Thermodynamics, one of the foundation laws of physics. This law is more commonly known as the entropy principle - that disorder, or entropy, always increases in a closed system - basically, things fall apart and dissolve into randomness. However, it has been believed by many that when this principle is applied to small systems - such as groups of molecules - the rule would not stand. This latest experiment, using lasers and microbeads, appears to be the first proof that this is so.

The idea of Santa Claus emerged thousands of years ago before Christ in Scandinavia. The Vikings had a god named Odin who rode throughout the world in the winter on his eight-footed horse, Sleipnir, giving out gifts or punishments. In the pagan world, Odin was the forefather of Santa Claus. His son Thor, god of farming, thunder and war, made his home in the far North. His weapon was lightning, his color red. While his father went about the world, Thor fought the gods of ice and snow, and conquered the cold. During the same season, the gentle German goddess Hertha came down with her gifts of good fortune and health. As Christianity spread many of these stories and themes were forgotten but Saint Nicholas and Father Christmas keep them alive in spirit.

Patrick Harding of Sheffield University in England argues that the trappings of the traditional Christmas experience owe a great deal to what is probably the most important mushroom in history: fly agaric (Amanita muscaria), the recreational and ritualistic drug of choice in parts of northern Europe before vodka was imported from the East. Each December this mycologist dresses up as Santa and drags a sleigh behind him to deliver seasonal lectures on the toadstool. The garb helps Harding drive home his point, for Santa's robes without doubt honor the red-and-white-dot color scheme of this potent mind-altering mushroom.

A figure of a pregnant woman carved into a cliff, known as a prehistoric oriental "Venus", the Goddess of love, has been discovered by Chinese archaeologists in Zhongwei county, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. The "Venus" has a plump figure, full breasts and a bulbous belly. The woman, standing straight with her legs together, has slender fingers but no facial features.

The finding of ancient tombs which may take up a total area of 1 million square metres in southern Beijing has surprised many archaeologists. Exploration of the first group of the graves, covering an area of around 200,000 square kilometres, has already started, with that into the rest five to six groups not yet scheduled, source with the Beijing Municipal Cultural Relics Bureau was yesterday quoted by the Beijing-based Star Daily.

Never has a spacecraft been built so quickly, on so little money, and been sent on such a long journey fraught with so many dangers. Beagle 2 has been carried to the vicinity of Mars by the Mars Express mothership, and released successfully to go its own way for the final leg of the journey.

A German man who in 1991 discovered the 5,300-year-old iceman, Oetzi, in the Alps is now demanding up to $250,000 as a finder's reward. The provincial government of Bolzano in northern Italy, where Oetzi is a star tourist attraction, says it is considering its response.

French archaeologists have discovered 19 mummies as well as wood and limestone sarcophagi in an ancient Egyptian burial ground south of the capital, antiquities officials said Sunday. The secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawwas, said in a statement that a mission from the Louvre Museum in Paris found the antiquities in the Saqqara region, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Cairo. http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=588&art_id=qw1072022581786B221&set_id=1

Twenty people squeezed themselves into a tight chamber in Ireland on Sunday, the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, to marvel at a prehistoric "calendar clock" in operation. About 19,200 people applied this year for a coveted place inside the Newgrange tomb in County Meath to watch the phenomenon of the sun's rays on the midwinter solstice dramatically beaming deep into the burial mound.

Europe's first solo mission to another planet, Mars Express, is nearing the fourth planet after a six-month voyage from Earth. On 19 December, the orbiter released the British spacecraft Beagle 2. The tiny lander, less than a metre across, will glide through space like a Frisbee for six days, entering the Martian atmosphere in the opening moments of Christmas Day.

A study of coral suggests that ancient members of the animal kingdom slithered through the Precambrian mud with a hefty cache of genes in common with humans. Surprisingly, many of these genes are not shared with creatures such as flies and worms, even though these animals evolved millions of years after coral. This calls into question some studies that use these model organisms to unravel the evolution of the human genome.

Archaeologists of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have confirmed that a rare ancient canoe found in south China's Fujian province was built in the period of the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-589). The canoe was found in the Minjiang river by fishermen in Minhou county this September. Most ancient canoes were unearthed from relics or underground and it was unusual to find them from a river, which made this discovery precious, said Ou Tansheng, chiefof the Fujian Museum. The canoe will soon be on display at the museum.

THEY may have been struck at the time of Jesus Christ, but they are scarcely marked despite the hundreds of years they spent buried in a farmer's field. The tiny gold Celtic coins are the latest in a series of finds that are becoming more common since metal detectorists and archeologists started working together. And they were used by the same tribe whose chariot burials have fascinated the public in recent months.

After the twin Mars Exploration Rovers bounce onto the red planet and begin touring the Martian terrain in January, onboard spectrometers and cameras will gather data and images --- and the rovers' wheels will dig holes. Working together, a Cornell University planetary geologist and a civil engineer have found a way to use the wheels to study the Martian soil by digging the dirt with a spinning wheel. "It's nice to roll over geology, but every once in a while you have to pull out a shovel, dig a hole and find out what is really underneath your feet," says Robert Sullivan, senior research associate in space sciences and a planetary geology member of the Mars mission's science team. He devised the plan with Harry Stewart, Cornell associate professor of civil engineering, and engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena.

Campaigners fighting to save a 1,000-year-old Essex church have won their battle. The plans to expand Southend Airport would have meant the Grade 1 listed St Lawrence's Church either being demolished or moved.

Humans are afraid of the dark. For millennia, diverse societies have found a way to honour the light. From Neolithic farmers in Ireland to Pueblo peoples in the Southwest to Christians celebrating Advent to neopagans marking the annual descent of the sun in the Northern Hemisphere, all acknowledge winter solstice. Sunday marks the year's longest night, shortest day. The ancients dreaded it for fear the sun was dying. That dread led to multitudinous rituals to welcome the halt of the sun's decline and the lengthening of the days. Winter is rich in the traditions of mythology: of life, death and rebirth.

Beagle 2 has successfully separated from its "mothership" for the final leg of the journey to Mars. Mike McKay, flight operations director at the European Space Operations Centre (Esoc) at Darmstadt, Germany, confirmed the separation just after 1110 GMT.

An American geologist has rebutted an Israeli analysis that casts doubt on the authenticity of an inscription naming Jesus on an ancient burial box. The article, published in Friday's editions of the Biblical Archaeology Review, is the latest chapter in a long and heated debate about the inscription on a small, 2,000-year-old limestone chest, or ossuary, used to hold the bones of the dead.

India's first ancient shipwreck, discovered recently in the coastal town of Kadakkarapally, has archaeologists stumped. "The boat doesn't look like anything expected in the area," says Ralph Pedersen, a marine archaeologist at Texas A&M University's Institute of Nautical Archaeology, which excavated the site earlier this year in conjunction with the Institute of Archaeology, Art History, Conservation, and Museology in Kerala. The boat was discovered by labourers digging in a coconut grove a mile inland, an area that was under coastal waters a millennium ago. The only artefact found at the site is a stone shaped like an elongated pyramid, which might be part of an anchor. More than 1,000 years old, the 72-foot-long sailing barge is made from caramel-coloured anjili, a hardwood still growing nearby, but it lacks the sewn-plank construction common in India for the past 2,000 years.

Chinese archaeologists have found a group of cliff paintings in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region that they believe are more than 2,000 years old. The 100-odd paintings were found on rocks in a deep valley dubbed "ghost valley" in the Urad Middle Banner bordering Mongolia, according to North China News, a newspaper based in Hohhot, capital of the autonomous region.

For centuries it has been known as "Absalom's Tomb." People made pilgrimages to it. Jews, Christians, and Muslims would throw stones at it to punish King David's rebellious son. But now, because of an almost chance discovery, one of Jerusalem's oldest landmarks is reemerging as one of the sites of early Christianity. A recently unveiled inscription, believed to date circa AD 350, identifies the monument as the tomb of Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist. Scholars say it does not necessarily mean Zacharias was buried on the site and some completely discount that possibility. But the find is seen as adding significantly to what they know of the lore of the fourth century Christian community in Jerusalem. Some believe it could lead to further significant finds about early Christians.

A Bronze Age gold disc used as an item of adornment at a burial 4,000 years ago has been declared treasure trove by a coroner at Aberystwyth. The disc dating back 4,000 years was discovered at Cwmystwyth Mines near Aberystwyth- and is only the third known piece of gold from the Bronze Age discovered in Wales.

Modern humans living in southwestern Germany more than 30,000 years ago may have crafted some of the world's earliest artwork, according to a new study published Thursday in the journal Nature. The discovery of three small ivory figurines in a cave in southwestern Germany lends support to the notion that modern humans were producing well-rendered art soon after colonizing Europe along routes leading from the Middle East and Africa. The find also bolsters a theory that these and other figures, all carved from mammoth ivory, were used in an early religion in which a shaman was believed capable of moving between the animal and human realms.

Ancient Egyptian shabti - funerary figures that represent servants in the afterlife - are causing unease for those working at Bergen Museum. Professor Henrik von Achen says colleagues don't like working there at night, and the figures appear to be moving in their glass cases, newspaper Bergens Tidende reports. BT reporters toured the museum one dark evening and found the Egyptian exhibit disguised a few creepy tales. "They have behaved strangely since we took them up out of the cellar in 2001," said museum guard Richard Saure. He was the first to notice that small stone figurines, whose job was to work for the dead, were not like other relics. "They were neatly packed in a case when we brought them up. When we came to work the day after, they were lying all over the place, except for two - two false shabtis," Saure said.

Forget reindeer. If Father Christmas really wants to get his sleigh airborne next week, scientists say he should call on the services of a flying dinosaur. Paolo Viscardi, a flight physiologist at the University of Leeds, has calculated that flying reindeer would need wings 10 metres (33ft) long. That's three times the wingspan of the wandering albatross and more impressive even than the bird with the largest known wingspan, the extinct South American Argentavis magnificens.