Newsdesk Archive

A post mortem examination on a dog believed to have been killed by a panther-like animal in west Wales has confirmed that it was killed by a large predator...The dog was seen being attacked by a large cat, and was then joined by what was thought to have been its cub.

A mysterious flash on the Moon caught on camera 50 years ago is still provoking disagreements about its origin. Astronomer Bonnie Buratti says her new results show that the flash was caused by a 20-metre asteroid hitting the Moon.

Every time...anomalies are discovered...there are always those scientists who insist these formations are natural. The Bimini Wall or Road was claimed to be natural. The unexpected, underwater, Japanese Pyramid was also supposed to be inartificial. Here, too, in Costa Rica, rational-thinkers abound with ideas on how the [spherical stones] were formed. One concept is 'ejecta,' from when the Talamancas were an active volcanic range, cooled as it fell to Earth. Another idea is moving, glacial, ice sheets crushed and pushed all that was underneath much the way we would work a ball of clay with our hands.

The remains of seven individuals have been found at Dmanisi - the most recent this summer - but what made this discovery so special was that it did not look like the skull of any human ever found outside Africa before.

The newly discovered fossilized ediacarans were unearthed iendiatcarn Newfoundland, Canada, and grew to around two meters (six feet) long. They lived just after Snowball Earth, an ice age that may have engulfed the entire planet

Chariots of the Gods - The Series is based on the books of Erich von Däniken who more than twenty years ago first presented his theory of extraterrestrial contact with the ancient world - a theory so incredible yet so logical that it has become part of a wide ranging debate that continues stronger today. His examination of ancient ruins, forgotten texts, and other archeological anomalies points to evidence of extraterrestrial intervention in human history.

Is it a mere coincidence that pyramids are found across our globe? Did cultures ranging across vast spaces in geography and time, such as the ancient Egyptians; early Buddhists; the Maya, Inca, Toltec, and Aztec civilizations of the Americas; the Celts of the British Isles; and even the Mississippi Indians of pre-Columbian Illinois, simply dream the same dreams and envision the same structures?

In his new book, "1421: The Year China Discovered America" (William Morrow), Gavin Menzies claims that a massive Chinese fleet of huge junks and support ships made a two-year circumnavigation of the globe, with extensive exploration of the Americas, nearly a century before Magellan and Columbus.

Now scientists have discovered that bacteria talk to one another constantly, often cooperating in the construction of intricate communities, known as biofilms, that allow them to thrive in ways they never could as single-celled individuals.

So paranoid was Emperor Qin Shihuang of the first dynasty of China that he sought immortality to survive his own death, forecast by seers to be delivered by the hands of a murderer...Qin, who had come to the pre-unification throne at the age of 13, under the name King Zheng, was attracted to the strange superstitions swirling through the misty mountains of the Shandong peninsula, on the coast of the Yellow Sea, where there was rumoured to be an island containing the elixir of everlasting life.

They have called it Excalibur, though it was plucked from a pit of bones rather than the stone of Arthurian legend. To the ordinary eye it is a hand-sized, triangular chunk of ochre and purple rock, its surface slightly scratched. But to the palaeontologists who found this axe-head buried in a deep cavern on a Spanish hilltop, it is proof of a terrible and defining moment in the evolutionary history of the human mind.

Hunting skills may not after all have triggered the tremendous burst of human evolution at the beginning of the ice ages nearly two million years ago. Instead of man the hunter, the driving force behind this evolutionary surge may have been woman the gatherer, with both mother and grandmother playing a vital role.

The finds are the most significant discovery in the province since a 4,000-year-old grave was discovered during an excavation in the ruins of Newtownstewart Castle in County Tyrone in 1999.

It has been revealed that a series of important archaeological finds have been made as work continues in the construction of the Toome Bypass. The Roads Service has reported that a wealth of important artefacts have been unearthed providing important evidence that the site had been in use as a settlement for thousands of years. Ronnie Faloon, Roads Service, said: "As part of this important scheme we employed a team of archaeologists to carry out a full examination of the site, and construction work is continuing on schedule.

The smallest of the three Great Pyramids of Giza is to re-open to visitors at the start of January after being closed for a year for restoration, Egypt's antiquities office said Tuesday.

A Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) mission under Nadia Ashor, director of Beni Sweif antiquities department, unearthed. The remains of a funerary temple belonging to King Ramses II the village of Qai, 20 kilometers north of the Beni Sweif archaeological city of Ihnasia.

A 4,000 year-old cemetery south of Cairo has been discovered by a team of Spanish and Egyptian archaeologists, the Supreme Council of Antiquities announced here Sunday.

The ancient Nabataeans are chiefly remembered for their breathtaking rock-carved capital of Petra in southern Jordan. Jane Taylor traces their fascinating story, from absurd theory to identification and decipherment of their inscriptions in Sinai

A funeral of a high-ranking Thracian aristocrat, devotee of the Orpheus cult, was discovered by Bulgarian archaeologists during excavations in what they call "Thracia's sacred valley." The rich Thracian was buried in a mound near the largest yet found Thracian temple in the vicinity of the village of Starosel, 100 miles east of Bulgaria's capital Sofia. In the 5th century BC, the body of the dead aristocrat was dismembered in three pieces and buried at the foot of an apparently sacred rock.

Archaeologists have found five more chambers in the sprawling tomb complex of China's legendary first emperor, rooms even bigger than the pits that hold his famed terra-cotta army, a member of the excavation team said Thursday.

Climate change is inevitable, unpredictable, and has been responsible for bringing down some of the world's greatest civilisations. Soon it may do the same to ours. That is the conclusion of researchers who have found that the Mayans - whose empire reached its peak around 700AD - were destroyed because central America was afflicted by a 200-year drought.

An academic in Leeds is helping to piece together fragments of writings on ancient eggshells found in Egypt. The reconstruction of the ostrich eggs will allow experts to decipher the Arabic texts containing eulogies mourning the loss of loved ones.

It being conceded that no hypothesis is more probable than that the earliest civilizers of Greece were foreign, and might be Egyptian, I do not recognise sufficient authority for rejecting the Attic traditions claiming Egyptian civilizers for the Attic soil, in arguments, whether grounded upon the fact that such traditions, unreferred to by the more ancient, were collected by the more modern, of Grecian writers--or upon plausible surmises as to the habits of the Egyptians in that early age. It being conceded that no hypothesis is more probable than that the earliest civilizers of Greece were foreign, and might be Egyptian, I do not recognise sufficient authority for rejecting the Attic traditions claiming Egyptian civilizers for the Attic soil...

In the early years of the 15th century, Chinese Admiral Zheng He and his commanders unfurled their sails and embarked in great teak junks, boats so enormous that each could "swallow 50 fishing ships." These flagships were the centerpiece of armadas manned by thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of sailors on scores of vessels.

Jesus Christ and his apostles may have used a cannabis-based anointing oil to help cure people with crippling diseases, it has been claimed.

On a dry day 2,000 years ago, a worker charged with mummifying a body among the tombs of Egypt preserved what would become one of the largest ancient literary finds in history. Experts, including Cincinnati professor Kathryn Gutzwiller, said the worker cut and molded a piece of papyrus -- what to him was a scrap of paper -- into a chest cover that resembled papier-mache.

While many associate the bagpipes with Scotland or Ireland, the instrument actually has its roots in the Middle East, Close said. "Certainly, the ancient Romans had it."

Saudi Arabia is lending 150 million dollar toward a 1.6 billion-dollar Nile dam project in electricity-hungry Sudan, officials from both countries announced Tuesday. The dam is planned in Merowe, 350 kilometers (210 miles) north of Khartoum, near the Nile's fourth cataract.

Wash. - After enduring decades of ridicule, Bigfoot researchers are enjoying support from some of the world's most respected scientists in their efforts to prove the hulking creatures of legend are no myth. The persistence of reported sightings of Bigfoot-type creatures in North America and elsewhere has convinced leading researchers on primates - including Jane Goodall, made famous by her studies of chimpanzees in Tanzania - to call for something never seriously considered before: a legitimate scientific study to determine whether the greatest apes that ever lived persist in the world's moist mountainous regions.

Six Pharaohs of the Fifth Dynasty built massive sun temples at Abu Sir in addition to their pyramids, but only two have so far been found.Jill Kamil talks to the head of the Czech archaeological mission

A 100-tonne statue of a wife of pharaoh Ramses II, was discovered near Cairo, Egypt's Culture Minister Faruq Hosni told reporters Thursday.

Professors from Johnson Bible College in Knox County and Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City have been shuttling to Jordan on a regular basis since 1995 as part of an effort to unearth a fort that dates back to the period immediately following the death of ancient Israel's King Solomon.

The return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece has been simulated in a virtual reality exhibition, showing how the Parthenon treasures would look if they went back to Athens.

In this article, I will focus on historical issues, including how the Pentateuch was written, to what extent the story it tells is based on real historical events, and how the historical circumstances at the time of its composition shaped its message. It should be remembered, though, that no one approach is adequate in itself. Historical study is a necessary approach to the Bible, but it is not a complete approach. A thorough interpretation must be informed by literary and theological concerns as well.

[Graham Hancock writes:]"While I appreciate the positive spirit behind the coverage in the Hindustan Times I did not attend 'The Mythic Society' conference in Bangalore, I am not a marine archaeologist, and I have never excavated at Poompuhar -- though I have of course made two diving expeditions (2001 and 2002) to the anomalous site of the U-shaped structure 5 kms from shore and at a depth of 23 metres. The quotes they have given from me regarding Poompuhar are a bit inaccurate. According to Glenn Milne's data the site of the U-shaped structure was submerged slightly more than 11,000 years ago, as I report in Underworld, and not "any time between 17,000 and 7000 years ago". "Had I in fact attended the Mythic Society conference I would also have taken the opportunity to make detailed reference to the interesting subject of Mahabalipuram. But since I did not attend the conference I did not have the opportunity to do so. The underwater srtuctures we found at Mahabalipuram are certainly younger than the U-shaped structure at Poompuhar, having been submerged according to Glenn Milne's estimates around 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. The actual date of submergence of the site -- whether 1300-1500 years ago as archaeologists suppose -- or 5000-6000 years old as Glenn Milne's model suggests -- should hopefully be established this March by the forthcoming expedition of the NIO and the SES. I have not been invited to participate in that expedition, despite the fact that it is a direct sequel to a previous expedition (March/April 2002) that took place at my initiative, and because of my research, and with my full participation. This year's follow-up expedition will include the presence of Dr Nic Flemming an extreme critic of my position in Underworld, who refused to participate in the Underworld TV series (filmed in 2000 and 2001) which first exposed the possibility of underwater ruins at Mahabalipuram."

A lot has been said about the enigmatic cart tracks of Malta Island and a lot had been speculated on their depths, widths and origin. So far no one seems to have been able to look at the problem of the track dimensions and shape diversity from the point of view of geomorphology of the development of karst surfaces on limestone bedrock.

OK, so I'm an orthodox scientist, but don't let that bother you - I'm really an OK guy! As I have already explained on the Mysteries message board, I don't intend this to be an exhaustive essay, but as I have been asked for more detail, I will gladly provide it. Neither do I wish to pretend I am the first to hypothesise a Southeast Asian location for Atlantis.

I suspect, whether Hancock is right or not, there are many surprises and some shocks awaiting discovery by marine archaeologists. If your arm is strong enough and if you have a goodly number of free evenings ahead, Underworld will reward you with some fine stories, some fascinating information and bragging rights when the new discoveries are announced.

A scientific journal is tipping 12 breakthroughs this year, including a teleporter similar to the one used in Star Trek. Kirsty Needham and Sue Lowe report. The first baby clone born to a human mother; physicists hone a teleportation machine; and robots making roving trips to Mars

There is new evidence parts of the Antarctic ice sheet have been naturally melting for thousands of years. The research suggests the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been contributing water to the ocean for the last 10,000 years.

Because the reverend saw the project as a mission from God, he turned to the Bible for design inspiration: The name of the aircraft came from the Bible, as did the machine's appearance. The ancient scripture tells of a man named Ezekiel who writes that he saw four creatures descend from the sky in machines that appeared to be wheels within wheels.

People who, like Bouker, have actually seen the bird have said it is like an eagle but enormous, with a wingspan of up to 14 feet. Even people who say the bird is more modestly sized still say it is huge. Scientists were somewhat skeptical.

The complex behaviour of orangutans suggests human culture started to develop 14 million years ago, much earlier than thought. At this time the ancestors of chimps and orangutans diverged.

A bonobo who has grown up among humans may have developed the ability to talk, claims a research team from the US. The findings, reported in New Scientist magazine, may come under fire from other scientists.

In 2700 BC, Egyptians accurately laid out and aligned the perfectly square base of Giza's Great Pyramid. Last winter, a Russian team returned to the birthplace of precision surveying and unearthed startling evidence of a heretofore unknown complex, by feeding elevation data from a kinematic GPS survey into a mapping graphics software program.

On November 4, 2002, President George W. Bush attended a Republican campaign rally at Northwest Regional Airport in Arkansas. Charles Huffer reports, "I had a chance to shake his hand. I reminded him that over two years ago he had promised me that he would finally tell us the truth about UFOs, if elected. I then asked President Bush if he intended to keep that UFO campaign promise. He looked me in the eyes and answered: 'Yes.' I forgot to ask when!"

The theory that we are all descended from early humans who left Africa about 100,000 years ago has again been called into question. US researchers sifting through data from the human genome project say they have uncovered evidence in support of a rival theory.

Qumran itself went largely unexplored for the longest time. Even the results of the few initial excavations in the 1950s have remained mostly unpublished and unavailable for independent study. The situation, some scholars say, is not unlike the handling of the scrolls themselves, which were tightly held by select biblical scholars whose control over their publication was finally broken after a rancorous struggle a decade ago.

Kenneth Bailey built the Nativity scene in his living room from first-century mosaic stones he collected while teaching biblical and Middle Eastern studies in Jerusalem. But its real distinction is that the baby Jesus lies in a manger hewn into the floor of a living room in a house, not in a dirty, drafty stable.

In the mountains of Peru, entire cities have been lost since they were abandoned by the last Incas five centuries ago. Hugh Thomson - young, British, and with no idea what he wanted to do with his life - found the idea of discovering one irresistible.

Thanks to Hollywood's "Raiders of the Lost Ark," the Ark of the Covenant is one of the most famous objects in the Bible. It's also one of the most mysterious, since the Bible doesn't say what happened to it. Ethiopian Christians, however, believe the ark still exists in their country.

"When you consider that the world thinks that Columbus discovered America in 1492, people now know that merchants from the Severn area were fishing off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland as early as 1480."

The human brain, even at its ancient, primitive core, is less an organ of impulse than a machine of reason. We are built to make sense of things. Our brains restlessly scan the world for patterns in chaos and causes in coincidence. ...For many people, the answer to the most ineffable question of all -- "Why do we exist?" -- is God.

The ice cap covering the North Pole will vanish in less than 80 years as climate change melts it away, say British meteorological researchers. The area covered by ice has shrunk by 20 per cent since the 1950s and its average winter thickness has reduced by 40 per cent since 1970.

Even today, one can fairly argue that the haunting assembly of 30 earthen pyramids near the banks of the Black Warrior River is still awaits its rightful due. Moundville is one of the largest prehistoric settlements discovered north of Mexico. Recent scholarship hypothesizes that the site later evolved into a sanctuary so sacred that Indians considered it a transit point to the afterlife.

"The Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert," proclaims my archaeologist friend Ze'ev Herzog of Tel Aviv University ("It ain't necessarily so," Oct. 29). He thus aligns himself with a small group of scholars widely known as the "Biblical Minimalists," although one of their number, Philip Davies of the University of Sheffield in England, has called this "a sneering epithet."

It seems almost traditional at this time of year for stargazers to ponder the age-old question of the possible origin of the Star of Bethlehem. Was the so-called Christmas Star an unusual, eye-catching gathering of naked-eye planets, or was that fabled "sign in the sky" a meteor, comet, nova, or indeed something supernatural?

Be certain to check out the latest EXCLUSIVE essay added to our Forum section, by January's Authors of the Month. If you haven't done so already, consider picking up a copy of "The Jesus Mysteries" and participating in next month's debate in the Mysteries forum.

Physical characteristics associated with race - such as skin or hair colour - do not necessarily reflect a person's genetic ancestry, a new study suggests.

Using radiocarbon dating, the scientists analysed sediments found in the ice cores and dated them back 2,800 years. When the sediments were thawed, the scientists discovered micro-organisms which they successfully revived.

Many cells in the average brain may be missing huge chunks of genome, scientists revealed at a San Francisco meeting yesterday. The puzzling omissions might decide our risk of disease.

A controversial finding last year of microbes high in Earth's atmosphere and thought to have come from space gained another scientist's support this week. The organisms, collected by a balloon mission to the stratosphere in January 2001, were first studied by Chandra Wickramasinghe of Cardiff University, co-proponent with the late Sir Fred Hoyle of the modern theory of panspermia.

As a historian of science, Alex Boese is well schooled in the art of deception -- which is not as self-contradictory as it may seem, given that his academic specialty is the relationship between science and popular culture, a pairing that has begotten its fair share of

The surveys have also turned up more mysterious structures, including a series of submerged walls more than 900 feet long that scientists say are clearly of human construction. They say the walls are probably at least 3,000 years old, because that was the last time the river's water levels were low enough to have allowed construction on dry land.

Scientists mapping the bottom of the Hudson River with sonar say they have found nearly every single ship that ever foundered in the river over the past 400 years or more. Not just some of them, or most of them, but -- astonishingly -- all of them, except for a few that may have been disturbed by dredging.

The Roman 'conquest' of AD 43 was not all that it seemed to be...Britain's southern rulers - if not those in the north - were Romanised before the invasion, welcomed the invasion, and profited from it afterwards. It was not a case of 'barbarity beforehand'. Some archaeologists are now beginning to see that it was not 'barbarity afterwards' either. The Roman cultural legacy survived far more profoundly, more extensively and for much longer in Britain than is usually realised.

Armchair archaeologists can witness a dig at an ancient Egyptian temple from the comfort of their home computers. Throughout January, a Johns Hopkins team will chronicle its excavation with daily progress reports and photographs posted on the World Wide Web. The team's Web site, "Hopkins in Egypt Today," is expected to have daily updates starting about Jan. 2. The URL is http://www.jhu.edu/~neareast/egypttoday.html

The annual conference of the Society of Biblical Literature held in Toronto over the weekend of 22 November 2002 provided the impetus for two scholarly sessions on the James ossuary and its inscription. The first was hosted by the Royal Ontario Museum, and in it, several scholars actually shed some light on the questions surrounding the ossuary. The second event was sponsored by the SBL itself and, although better organized, actually shed more heat than light.

Martin Palmer, an English Sinologist, was searching western China in 1998 for a pagoda, which was all that was left of the monastery of Da Qin. He believed the pagoda was a remnant of the Christians who for several hundred years flourished along the ancient Silk Road.

ONE of the most striking excavations undertaken in Bulgaria will become the grandest tourist attraction in the coming tourist season, according to Bozhidar Dimitrov, director of the National History Museum. He made the claim shortly after his new book Bulgarians: The First Europeans was published on Wednesday.

A marine archaeologist is working his way up the Maine coast looking for evidence of the estimated 10,000 shipwrecks and derelict vessels in the Gulf of Maine.

ARCHEOLOGISTS have discovered the remains of a 9000-year-old community that shows Scotland's earliest settlers may have been of Nordic origins....Dr John Atkinson...believes the discovery shows settlers were living on the mountain range some 10,000 years ago after the glaciers receded....the head of Glasgow University's archeological research division believes historians will be forced to reconsider what was previously taken for granted.

A cunning statistical study has exposed scientists as sloppy reporters. When they write up their work and cite other people's papers, most do not bother to read the original....many scientists take short cuts, simply copying a reference from someone else's paper rather than reading the original source.

Alexander, whose research focuses on sex differences in behavior and the biological factors that influence them, examined the monkeys as they interacted with toys. She and her collaborator, Melissa Hines of the University of London, found that the monkeys' toy preferences were consistent along gender lines with those of human children. The study was published earlier this year in "Evolution and Human Behavior."

Scientists have discovered hydrocarbon globules within a meteorite that fell to Earth almost three years ago. With the discovery of these tiny, hollow bubbles in an ancient space rock, researchers believe they have found an important clue to the mystery of how early life survived on our planet.

On August 29, Richard Hoagland of The Enterpise Mission released a paper describing the results of their month-long analysis of an infra-red (IR) image received by the Mars Odyssey space probe of the Cydonia region of Mars and released to the public by Arizona State University (ASU) on July 24. Simultaneously, Hoagland made an appearance on the Coast to Coast AM program with Art Bell to publicize his findings.

The mummy's curse seemed to be coming true when Lord Carnarvon died suddenly in April 1923, two months after the tomb of Tutankhamun was opened. But new research has found a flaw in the theory that anyone who disturbed the ancient Egyptian king's resting place would die horribly: most of those who should have been afflicted lived to a ripe old age.

Christian Arab businessman Elias Shama...is convinced not only that the edifice is classical Roman, but that Jesus himself may have relaxed in its steam. ``I believe that Jesus was here,'' he said. ``I feel it.''

Contact between the East and West probably began more than 5,000 years ago - 3,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to Chinese archaeologists. New research on relics unearthed along the famous silk road, an ancient commercial route linking China and Central Asia, has lead to the conclusion, Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.

Archaeologists estimate that at a time when the Normans were consolidating their hold on a newly conquered England, central Cahokia covered five square miles, held more than 100 earthen mounds ranging from the mundane to the monumental, and was home to as many as 20,000 people.

On a field once toiled by slaves and inhabited by Indians, archaeologists from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History searched for debris that might tell stories of civilizations over 12,000 years old.

The federal government has given historic landmark status to the Black Creek site where Native Americans lived for thousands of years, saving it from potential development into a municipal sports complex.

Chinese archaeologists have discovered a set of ancient tombs in central China's Henan province which offer substantial proof of references in historical works to "six horses for a king's carriage."

Archaeologists sifting through the muck of a small fishing harbor on a tiny island have now reclaimed a principal historical thread by anchoring Khan's devastating military defeat of 1281 to a monumental find: a shipwreck from the doomed Mongol fleet.

Salty water driven by hot magma from Mars' deep interior may be forming some of the mysterious dark slope streaks visible near the Red Planet's equator, according to University of Arizona scientists.

The family of a man missing for more than a year believe they have found his remains in remote central Australian mountains after they followed a clairvoyant's directions, it was reported today.

This suggests that there were at least two separate emigrations of modern humans from Africa, Dr. Underhill said. Both probably left northeast Africa by boat 40,000 or 50,000 years ago and pushed slowly along the coastlines of the Arabian Peninsula and India. No archaeological record of these epic journeys has been found, perhaps because the world's oceans were 120 meters lower during the last ice age and the evidence of early human passage is under water.

For Nachman Ben-Yehuda, a sociologist who is dean of the faculty of social sciences at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Masada stands as a symbol of national mythology and academic deception -- a case study of how archaeologists can hijack the scientific method for ideological purposes.

Dr Gonzalez told BBC News Online: "We believe that the older race may have come from what is now Japan, via the Pacific islands and perhaps the California coast. "Mexico appears to have been a crossroads for people spreading across the Americas.

Clap your hands in front of the 1,100-year-old Temple of Kukulcan, in the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza, and, to some researchers' ears, the pyramid answers in the voice of the sacred quetzal bird.

A mummy with buck teeth and a right royal hairstyle may have settled one of the enduring mysteries of the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. KV39, a tomb now being explored only for the second time since its discovery 100 years ago, may be the bronze age burial site of Amenhotep I, boy king and founder of the Valley of Kings necropolis.

I never thought we would find anything behind the door discovered 64 metres inside the south shaft of the Great Pyramid in 1993 by Rudolf Gantenbrink. I said nothing would be discovered behind this door: I believed it was only a block with nothing behind it. -- Zahi Hawass

The tomb of emperor Qin Shihuang, credited with unifying the first Chinese empire in 220 B.C., is believed to lie somewhere near the famed terra-cotta army site outside the city of Xi'an in western China's Shaanxi province.

The Mayan Calendar, a sophisticated instrument of time and space more than two thousand years old, prophesizes that Humanity will come to an abrupt end on a date equating to the winter solstice of 2012...exactly ten years from this December 21st. Should we be worried?

Some of the world's leading museums have joined forces to declare that they will not hand back ancient artefacts to their countries of origin. Directors of 18 institutions, from St Petersburg to New York, signed a declaration saying their collections act as "universal museums" for the good of the world.

A new Canadian Museum of Civilization exhibit featuring mummified corpses is "disrespectful of the dead", says the head of a national arts lobby group. "The Mysterious Bog People" opened last week.... The exhibit includes...several corpses preserved in peat bogs of northwestern Europe...over the last 10,000 years.... According to ethics guidelines from the Canadian Museums Association, exhibits should not feature human remains if the culture from which the corpses come finds it offensive.

By analyzing DNA from people in all regions of the world, geneticist Spencer Wells has concluded that all humans alive today are descended from a single man who lived in Africa around 60,000 years ago.

From now on I will be posting regularly on this [Giza News] Bulletin Board to keep you all updated on news and activities related to Giza and other relevant topics. So please check here to keep yourself abreast of the latest. -- Robert G. Bauval

Disgraced archeologist Shinichi Fujimura, who admitted to planting bogus artifacts at 42 digs across the nation, faked discoveries at two more excavation sites in Miyagi Prefecture, local researchers announced Tuesday.

Using...non-intrusive instruments, an Army Corps of Engineers team has...mapped "subsurface architecture and cultural features" [in Illinois]....The maps document the precise arrangement of...concentric semicircular ridges and trenches. Ridges range from 65 to 115 feet apart, with the outermost being three-quarters of a mile in diameter -- all "indicative of a carefully designed and well-executed plan"....