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Saturday, August 28, 2004
ANU team unearths 3000-year-old bodies in Vanuatu
Headless bodies buried 3000 years ago at the oldest cemetery found in the Pacific Islands were set to reveal the secrets of the first humans to colonise Vanuatu, Fiji and Polynesia, an Australian research team said.
The Australian National University (ANU) team said today traces of the Lapita people, who are the ancestors of all Pacific Islanders beyond the Solomons, had been found in more than 100 other archaeological digs across the region.
But few human remains had been found until the latest dig in Vanuatu.
The work has been co-ordinated by ANU archaeologist Professor Matthew Spriggs and the Vanuatu National Museum. "
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Israeli Site Reveals Ancient Use of Grains
Scientists working in the flooded ruins of an ancient fishing camp in Israel have found evidence that the village's residents collected wild grain, pounded it into flour and possibly baked bread at least 10,000 years before the advent of cultivated crops.
Researchers found traces of barley and perhaps other grains in the seams of a grinding stone unearthed at Ohalo II, a settlement that stood on the southwest shore of the Sea of Galilee 22,000 years ago. The discovery is the oldest evidence yet found of humans processing cereal grains.
Chester Amphitheatre Project
Over the next 3 years the largest uncovered amphitheatre in the UK is to be the subject of a major archaeological project. In a partnership between English Heritage and Chester City Council a top team of experts will carry out exhaustive research on the historic Roman site.
Great live update site - even with a streaming video webcam.
Education
Guardian view of archaeological education in the UK.
Check out the 'stars' at the end for who are the movers and shakers in todays British archaeology.
Sunday, August 15, 2004
Court rejects Maori claims
The Environment Court has thrown out Maori evidence about an historic block of land north of Auckland and allowed a major commercial sand-mining venture to go ahead.
Auckland criminal lawyer Barry Hart has won the right to extract sand for construction over the next decade from an 8ha pastured site at Kopironui, near Woodhill on the Kaipara Harbour.
He has been fighting since 1998 to mine 30,000cu m of sand annually, and said this week he was delighted with the outcome, but that the case raised worrying issues.
Mr Hart's Serenella Holdings took the Rodney District Council to court in March, appealing against its earlier decision to stop his venture due to iwi cultural issues and the site's historic and cultural significance.
The Historic Places Trust registered the site 20 years ago.
But Environment Court presiding judge Laurie Newhook granted Mr Hart's appeal, delivering a hard-hitting judgment that attacked evidence by Maori witnesses. "
Saturday, August 14, 2004
Captain Cook's market is still going strong
Right from the pillaging days of Cook and Banks, good Maori artefacts have been in high demand - and more than two centuries on, the market is still busy.
So Dunbar Sloane's artefact sale last week, with 300 lots, attracted strong attention and prices, with almost all sold.
Top price went to an exceptional and large (52cm long) wakahuia from the early-contact period. It went for $60,000 (hammer price, with 12.5 per cent buyer's premium and GST, $68,436), believed to be a record for such a piece.
At the other end of the size scale, a 6.4cm greenstone pekapeka (pendant), also from the early contact period, fetched $22,000 ($25,093 with premium and GST). A rare early tiki from Taranaki went for $33,000 ($37,640) and a wooden long axe, with steel head, labelled as "taken from the Rebels at Matutu 1864", reached $10,000 ($11,406), also a record.
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/entertainmentstorydisplay.cfm?storyID=3583460&thesection=entertainment&thesubsection=arts&thesecondsubsection=general">Captain Cook's market is still going strong
Right from the pillaging days of Cook and Banks, good Maori artefacts have been in high demand - and more than two centuries on, the market is still busy.
So Dunbar Sloane's artefact sale last week, with 300 lots, attracted strong attention and prices, with almost all sold.
Top price went to an exceptional and large (52cm long) wakahuia from the early-contact period. It went for $60,000 (hammer price, with 12.5 per cent buyer's premium and GST, $68,436), believed to be a record for such a piece. "
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Go the extra 20cm ... and find lost bow of 'Mary Rose'
More than two decades after Henry VIII's favourite warship, the Mary Rose, was dramatically raised from the seabed, archaeologists have finally located the long-lost front section of the vessel. Substantial parts of the bow have been discovered buried in silt, just 1.5m (5ft) from where the rest of the ship lay at the bottom of the Solent near Portsmouth Harbour before it was brought to the surface in 1982. Then, the underwater archaeologists' seabed excavation zone missed the bow timbers by just 20cm."
The issue of "where to dig" is not just limited to terrestrial sites. What a difference 20cm can make.
Monday, August 09, 2004
Public Lecture
Agean search for the fleet of Darius. A search way beyond the limit of conventional underwater archaeology - 2000 feet down - initiated by fishermen recovering two bronze helmets. Darius's fleet was lost in a storm while attempting to invade Greece, 2500 years ago.
Auckland Monday 16 August, 6.30 PM, School of Engineerign Lecutre Theatre, 20 Symonds St. Hosted by Faculty of Arts.
Watch for Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin venues.
Thursday, August 05, 2004
Humanities division eyes world stage
Otago University has an archaeological research cluster.
Research clusters designed to help the University of Otago's humanities division raise its profile as a class act on the world stage have been given $300,000 in funding to attract top postdoctoral fellows.
Humanities assistant vice-chancellor Prof Alistair Fox said the six new clusters were part of the division's efforts to enhance its research output with a view to repeating its good showing in future performance-based research fund (PBRF) rounds.
The division had the ambition of establishing itself as the equivalent of a world-class university and was benchmarking itself against overseas institutions.
Each of the six was required to show it had a critical mass of researchers in its area before winning a slice of the $300,000.
They include:
Otago archaeological research cluster: investigating the prehistoric and historical archaeology of New Zealand, the Pacific and Southeast Asia.
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
The Historic Places Trust has recently published a swept-up new edition (hard copy and CD) of its Heritage Management Guidelines for Resource Management Practitioners (2004ISBN 0 908577 48 6), much of which had an earlier life in ugly ring-binders. It gives good coverage to archaeological data sources. It is a good source of practical checklists and schemes for local government where it is mainly aimed. Wise advice is tendered on subjects such as ranking; 'must be done carefully to ensure it is legally defensible, as it will undoubtedly be tested if it gives rise to variable degrees of control being imposed'. Ranking of archaeological sites is not recommended and there is nothing on monitoring. Both these topics have been the subject of intensive published reports in recent years so the HPT may have a little catching up to do. The volume has been prepared and published with the financial assistance of the Ministry for the Environment which is auspicious.
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