News Items by Kammer

Welsh storms expose Stone Age landscape

Winter storms which battered the coast of Wales have exposed previously hidden traces of the area's Stone Age landscape.

A four mile stretch of coastline near Tywyn on the west coast of Wales was so altered by the sea that it was pushed back 50 feet (15 metres).

The new coastline has revealed the existence of ancients forests, with the remains of trees dating back 6000 years.

Gower cave reindeer carving is Britain's oldest rock art

A reindeer engraved on the wall of a cave in south Wales has been confirmed as the oldest known rock art in Britain.

The image in Cathole Cave on Gower, south Wales was created at least 14,000 years ago, said Bristol University.

Archaeologist Dr George Nash found the engraving while exploring a rear section of the cave in September 2010.

He said uranium dating showed it was the oldest rock art in the British Isles, if not north-western Europe.

Students Help Repair Cairns

Army Preparation Course students have helped to repair a Scheduled Ancient Monument in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. The group of 14 from Pembrokeshire College joined the National Park Authority's Archaeologist and Rangers to help reinstate damaged Bronze Age burial cairns on the Preseli Hills

On the summit there are three cairns, probably for Bronze Age burials.The site is nationally important and is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument. As such, it is a criminal offence to alter it without permission. However, visitors have been moving stones to make shelters within the cairns.

The students have been helping to restore them to their original formations.

Stonehenge Centre Gets Go-ahead

A £25m plan to revitalise the world-renowned Stonehenge in Wiltshire, including diverting a nearby road, has been announced by the government.

Also included in the plan from the Stonehenge Programme Board are proposals for a new visitor centre at nearby Airman's Corner.

Rare Amber Necklace Found

A rare amber necklace believed to be about 4,000 years old has been uncovered in Greater Manchester.

Archaeologists made the find while excavating a cist - a type of stone-lined grave - in Mellor, Stockport.

It is the first time a necklace of this kind from the early Bronze Age has been found in north-west England.

Experts from the University of Manchester Archaeological Unit said a amber necklace was one of the ultimate status symbols of the period.

The necklace consists of dozens of pierced amber beads of various sizes, linked together on a length of fibre.

It was discovered in the cist by experts from the university and local Mellor Archaeological Trust, who said the mystery was now how the material got to the north west.

Iron Age Man Leaves Museum

The remains of an Iron Age man found in a peat bog are leaving the British Museum for the first time in 17 years.

Lindow Man was found in a Cheshire marsh in 1984, nearly 2,000 years after his horrific death.

Chemicals in the bog preserved the body and researchers found his throat was slit and he was garrotted, possibly as a sacrificial victim.

Lindow Man is being moved from London to the Manchester Museum, on long-term loan, and will be displayed from April.

Ancient Skeleton Goes on Display

A 29,000-year-old skeleton is being displayed in Wales for the first time since it was discovered in a Gower cave in the 1820s.

The Red Lady of Paviland, actually the remains of a young male, is the earliest formal human burial to have been found in western Europe.

It is going on show on Saturday at the National Museum in Cardiff.

Artefacts also include a 13th Century figure of Christ, Bronze Age jewellery, a Viking sword guard and a Roman cup.

All were found at various locations throughout Wales and are brought together for the first time for the exhibition Origins: In Search of Early Wales.

Reed Boat Sets off on Ocean Trip

A team of explorers has set sail from the US for Spain in a 12-metre-long (40ft) reed boat, hoping to spend about two months sailing across the Atlantic.

They are trying to prove that Stone Age people crossed the ocean thousands of years before Christopher Columbus in the 15th Century.

Aymara Indians in Bolivia, who still use reed boats, built the new vessel.

Early Man 'Couldn't Stomach Milk'

A drink of milk was off the menu for Europeans until only a few thousand years ago, say researchers from London.

Analysis of Neolithic remains, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests no European adults could digest the drink at that time.

Hobbit Cave Digs Set to Restart

Archaeologists who found the remains of human "Hobbits" have permission to restart excavations at the cave where the specimens were found.

Indonesian officials have blocked access to the cave since 2005, following a dispute over the bones.

But Professor Richard Roberts, a member of the team that found the specimens, told BBC News the political hurdles had now been overcome.

Clues found for Early Europeans

A genetic breakthrough could help clear up some long-standing mysteries surrounding our closest evolutionary relatives: the Neanderthals.

Scientists have reconstructed a chunk of DNA from the genome of a Neanderthal man who lived 38,000 years ago.

The genetic information they extracted from a thigh bone has allowed them to identify more than a million building blocks of Neanderthal DNA so far.

Neanderthal DNA secrets unlocked

A genetic breakthrough could help clear up some long-standing mysteries surrounding our closest evolutionary relatives: the Neanderthals.

Scientists have reconstructed a chunk of DNA from the genome of a Neanderthal man who lived 38,000 years ago.

The genetic information they extracted from a thigh bone has allowed them to identify more than a million building blocks of Neanderthal DNA so far.

How modern were European Neandertals?

Neandertals were much more like modern humans than had been previously thought, according to a re-examination of finds from one of the most famous palaeolithic sites in Europe by Bristol University archaeologist, Professor Joao Zilhao, and his French colleagues.

Professor Zilhao has been able to show that sophisticated artefacts such as decorated bone points and personal ornaments found in the Châtelperronian culture of France and Spain were genuinely associated with Neandertals around 44,000 years ago, rather than acquired from modern humans who might have been living nearby.

The Mystery of China's Celtic Mummies

The discovery of European corpses thousands of miles away suggests a hitherto unknown connection between East and West in the Bronze Age.

Solid as a warrior of the Caledonii tribe, the man's hair is reddish brown flecked with grey, framing high cheekbones, a long nose, full lips and a ginger beard. When he lived three thousand years ago, he stood six feet tall, and was buried wearing a red twill tunic and tartan leggings. He looks like a Bronze Age European. In fact, he's every inch a Celt. Even his DNA says so.

But this is no early Celt from central Scotland. This is the mummified corpse of Cherchen Man, unearthed from the scorched sands of the Taklamakan Desert in the far-flung region of Xinjiang in western China, and now housed in a new museum in the provincial capital of Urumqi.

Bronze Age Canoe Stops Pipeline

Archaeologists working on a gas pipeline near Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire have unearthed what they believe to be a 3,400-year-old canoe.

Work has stopped on a section of the pipeline near St Botolphs to allow the Bronze Age oak relic to be recovered.

It is the first such discovery in Wales and only 150 exist across Europe.

Hot Weather Shows Wales' History

Hot weather has produced parched landscapes which have allowed experts to detect the outlines of some of Wales' earliest buildings...

Iron Age Site Dig Open to Public

Archaeologists excavating an Iron Age farmstead in west Wales say the site may have been home to "several families" as early as 200 BC.

After two weeks' digging at the 2,000-year-old plot, the team have uncovered the remains of a circular house together with pits and postholes.

Other buildings found last year appear to have been surrounded by two large protective ditches and banks.

The site, near Tremain, Ceredigion, is open to the public on Sunday 6 August.

Ceredigion Archaeology Day School

Rampart Work Closes Iron Age Fort

Parts of an Iron Age hillfort are to be closed to the public while essential repair work is carried out.

About £40,000 is to be spent repairing badly eroded ramparts at Danebury Hillfort near Stockbridge, Hampshire.

Parts of the fort, which sees between 70,000 to 100,000 visitors a year, will be temporarily closed as the four months of work is carried out.

The overall site will still remain open and the repairs are expected to be completed by mid-March.

Skeleton Under Ship is Iron Age

The remains of a skeleton found underneath a medieval ship discovered buried in the banks of the River Usk in Newport are that of an Iron age man.

Tests carried out on the bones which were found in December 2002, have shown that they date back to 170BC.

It makes the skeleton about 1,500 years older than the 15th century ship.