News Desk

A local high school teacher, age 55, has been arrested for the theft of several 5.7 million year old fossil footprints from the island of Crete. Security cameras had recorded the theft. A part of the stolen human-like footprints were found inside his home in Kissamos, with the remainder recovered from a farmer’s property in a different city, after allegedly being transported by airplane.  Charges for violating the law on the protection of antiquities and cultural heritage have been raised against the teacher. The owner of the farm has been also allegedly arrested for possession of stolen goods.

When Blackwater Draw was first inhabited about 12,000 years ago, a small spring-fed lake marsh near what is now Portales, New Mexico was populated with now-extinct forms of elephant, wolf, bison, and horse, and the people who hunted them. Many generations of many of the earliest occupants of the New World lived at Blackwater Draw, creating a layer cake of human settlement debris including Clovis, Folsom, Portales, and Archaic period occupations.

Attila Akat and his wife Alexandria were on their own spiritual journeys, and together they shed their corporate identities to establish a healing retreat in Portugal called The Sanctuary, where they hold sacred ayahuasca plant medicine ceremonies in their tipi and yurt — a dream they envisioned for years that they are now finally living.

The history of shoes—that is to say, archaeological and paleoanthropological evidence for the earliest use of protective coverings for the human foot—appears to start during the Middle Paleolithic period of approximately 40,000 years ago.

Tenochtitlán, located in the heart of what is now Mexico City, was the largest city and capital of the Aztec empire.   The story of how the Aztecs selected the location of their capital in such a miserable place is part legend and part history.

Coca and tobacco found in ancient Egyptian mummies: Is this the ultimate evidence of transoceanic voyages 5,000 years ago?  What if the ancient Egyptian civilization was much more advanced than we’ve ever imagined? After all, they are the rightful owners of some of the most impressive ancient structures on the surface of the planet.

Qaitbay Citadel was built in 1477 to guard against Ottoman invasions. Exactly 15 meters away lie sunken monuments, 2,500 archeological pieces dating back to the Ptolemaic dynasty. Climate change is putting these heritage sites in danger. Rising sea levels due to climate change have caused partial collapse of Qaitbay, and this has prompted the government to start considering solutions to protect against the inundation or collapse of the citadel.

A flutist from New Mexico is recording a soundtrack for Canyons of the Ancients National Monument as part of an artist-in-residence program. Bonnie Schmader is an accomplished flute and harp player, and a certified music therapist and educator.  This summer, she’s been to Sand Canyon, Painted Hand Pueblo, and Lowry Pueblo ruins. She carries several flutes in a backpack, including traditional Native American flutes. A performance of her recordings is planned at Anasazi Cultural Center.

According to Israeli researchers, Neanderthals in the Levant constituted a resilient population that survived successfully in caves and open landscapes 60,000 years ago, when dispersing modern humans reached the region.

Five-year-old Alba, believed to be the only albino orangutan alive in the world, was rescued from Borneo after becoming separated from her mother. She has poor eyesight and hearing, as well as an increased likelihood of cancer. If $80,000 is raised, she could soon have her own 12-acre moat-enclosed ‘forest island’ to live out her days free from poaching.

Archaeologists digging at an island religious retreat have unearthed the remains of a porpoise that, mystifyingly, appears to have been carefully buried in its own medieval grave. The team believe the marine animal found on the island of Chapelle Dom Hue, off the west coast of Guernsey, was buried in the 14th century.

Archaeologists have announced the discovery of a possible Viking boat burial in Central Trondheim, Norway.  The poorly preserved boat remains resemble the design of an early Åfjord boat, and contained bones, sheet bronze and other metallic artifacts.  DNA analysis is being done to identify the bones as human.

An important traditional form of agriculture is the use of intercropping strategies, sometimes called mixed cropping or milpa agriculture, where different crops are planted together, rather than in big monoculture fields as farmers do today. The Three Sisters (maize, beans, and squash) is what Native American farmers called a classic form of mixed cropping.  Archaeological evidence has shown that these three American domesticates have been grown together for perhaps 5,000 years.

Until 2013, the night parrot had not been seen alive by a single human in more than 100 years.  John Young and Keith Bellchambers found a fresh feather of the elusive bird, considered to be one of the rarest in the world, in a zebra finch’s nest north of Kati Thanda, Lake Eyre, a remote lake in the state of South Australia.