Mass. construction workers find ancient skeleton with gun under woman’s shed; ‘Wow,’ she says

October 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - An international team of scientists has confirmed the discovery of the oldest hominid skeleton on Earth, which at 4.4 million years of age, would revolutionize our understanding of the earliest phase of human evolution.he female skeleton, nicknamed 'Ardi', is 4.4 million years old, 1.2 million years older than the skeleton of Lucy, or Australopithecus afarensis, the most famous and, until now, the earliest hominid skeleton ever found. The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy.

October 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new research into the life of the recently confirmed world's oldest hominid 'Ardi' has suggested that the creature started walking on two legs for food and sex. A hand-bone discovered in 1994 in Ethiopia by project scientist Yohannes Haile-Selassie, a paleontologist and curator at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, eventually led a team of scientists to the partial skeleton known as Ardi, which they excavated during three subsequent field seasons.

October 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - Anthropologists took the wraps off the oldest known human ancestor Thursday - a 4.4-million-year-old Ethiopian skeleton named Ardi, which challenges many long-held assumptions about how humans and apes evolved. "It's not a chimp.

September 19th, 2009 KOSTOLAC - Wading through the swamps that hundreds of thousands of years later would become eastern Serbia, Vika became stuck, never managing to pull herself free, and eventually died. Now Vika, a mammoth whose skeleton was found perfectly preserved in a crouched position, has been hailed as a "sensational" find despite disputes over her age, species and even sex.

September 16th, 2009 LONDON - A skeleton found at one of the most important but least understood Roman sites in Britain is puzzling experts. University of Nottingham archaeologist Will Bowden who is leading excavations at the buried town of Venta Icenorum at Caistor St Edmund in Norfolk described the burial as highly unusual.

August 3rd, 2009 ANKARA - A team of archaeologists has discovered an 8,000-year-old human skeleton in tomb during excavations in one of the oldest residential areas in southern Turkey. The skeleton was discovered inside a Neolithic-age tomb unearthed in Yumuktepe Hoyuk of the southern Mersin province by archeologists from the Italian Lecce University and Turkish Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, according to the semi-official Anatolia news agency.

August 2nd, 2009 ANKARA - An 8,000-year-old human skeleton was found during excavations in one of the oldest residential areas in southern Turkey, a media report said. The skeleton was discovered inside a Neolithic-age tomb unearthed in Yumuktepe Hoyuk of the southern Mersin province by archeologists from the Italian Lecce University and Turkish Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.

July 31st, 2009 Ancient warrior's skeleton found near RomeROME — Archaeologists have found the skeleton of a warrior from up to 5,000 years ago floating in a tomb filled with sea water on a beach near Rome, Italy's art squad said Friday. The bones — believed to date from the 3rd millennium B.C.

July 27th, 2009 SOFIA - A team of archaeologists has found a sanctuary in Central Bulgaria where the nymph cult used to be celebrated in ancient times. According to a report in the Balkan Travellers, the sanctuary was found by archaeologists in the vicinity of the Nicopolis ad Istrum ancient site, located near the town of Veliko Tarnovo in central Bulgaria.

July 11th, 2009 JAKARTA - The recent discovery of an ancient boat in Indonesia has shed light on how Java's seafarers in the 6th and 7th centuries built their boats. According to a report in The Jakarta Post, the ancient boat, measuring 15.6 meters long and 4 meters wide, was found in Punjulharjo village, Rembang district, in Rembang regency.

July 6th, 2009 Israeli archaeologists discover ancient quarryJERUSALEM — Israeli archaeologists have uncovered an ancient quarry where they believe King Herod extracted stones for the construction of the Jewish Temple 2,000 years ago, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Monday. The archaeologists believe the 1,000-square-foot (100-square-meter) quarry was part of a much larger network of quarries used by Herod in the city.

June 24th, 2009 Ancient well, and body, found in CyprusNICOSIA, Cyprus — Archaeologists have discovered a water well in Cyprus that was built as long as 10,500 years ago, and the skeleton of a young woman at the bottom of it, an official said Wednesday. Pavlos Flourentzos, the nation's top antiquities official, said the 16-foot (5-meter) deep cylindrical shaft was found last month at a construction site in Kissonerga, a village near the Mediterranean island nation's southwestern coast.

June 11th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Archaeologists have unearthed more than two tonnes of ancient coins dating back to as early as the Tang Dynasty (618-907) on a playground of a primary school in Shaanxi Province, northwest China. According to Zhao Aiguo, director of the cultural relics protection and tourism bureau in Liquan County, Shaanxi, the coins were found when workers were excavating the grounds for construction of another building.

June 4th, 2009 Mammoth skeleton unearthed in SerbiaBELGRADE, Serbia — A well-preserved skeleton of a mammoth that is believed to be about 1 million years old has been unearthed in eastern Serbia, archaeologists said Thursday. The discovery was made during excavation two days ago at an open-pit coal mine near Kostolac power plant, said Miomir Korac, from Serbia's Archaeology Institute.

June 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - Construction workers have unearthed by accident, a skeleton of a woman thousands of years old, under the parking lot near Cannery Row in Monterey, California. According to a report in the Monterey County Herald, the human remains were found as a ditch was being dug behind the 'Sardine Factory', a restaurant.