Plans to install girders from the ruins of New York's World Trader Center as an artwork in Potters Fields Park to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks have been put on hold amid mounting controversy.

Last month we reported on a highly charged consultation meeting where historian Simon Schama made the case for the artwork and families of Britons who died in the twin towers voiced their opposition to the public display of the wreckage in which their loved ones' remains were scattered....

The first, and perhaps only, colour photographs of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and fire that nearly flattened the city have been unearthed.

The six never-published images were snapped by photography innovator Frederick Eugene Ives several months after the April 1906 "Great Quake".

Most were taken from the roof of the hotel where Ives stayed during an October 1906 visit.

They were stowed amid other items donated by Ives' son, Herbert, and discovered in 2009 by National Museum of American History volunteer Anthony Brooks while he was cataloguing the collection.

Although hand-coloured photographs of the quake's destruction have surfaced before, Ives' work is probably the only true colour documentary evidence, Shannon Perich, associate curator of the Smithsonian's photography history collection, told the San Francisco Chronicle....

GRANTSVILLE — — Bryant Bunch, who came from Prince George's County to attend college here at the far end of the Maryland panhandle, first saw the sign on Interstate 68 while traveling with a carload of friends a few years back.

He remembers their reaction: Does that say what we think it says?

Maxine Broadwater, born and raised on a farm outside Grantsville, and the town's librarian for three decades, recalls the first time she ever gave the name a second thought. It was the early 1990s, and people passing through had stopped at her library to ask about it.

Her thought: Why would that bother anybody?

Those disparate reactions to "Negro Mountain," the name that 18th-century settlers gave to the Garrett County landmark, have found their echo in Annapolis, where a Senate panel will begin debate this week on whether it should be changed....

A doctoral student at Durham University in England has discovered the existence of the oldest known copies of books of the Ethiopic Old Testament. The books date back to the early sixth century.

Ted Erho, a postgraduate student in the Department of Theology and Religion, made the find while examining microfilms of classical Ethiopic (Ge’ez) manuscripts at the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (HMML) at Saint John’s University in Minnesota.

Working with previously-uncataloged manuscripts from HMML’s Ethiopian Manuscript Microfilm Library, Erho has identified the second oldest Ethiopic manuscript in existence (the oldest is the famous Abba Garima Gospels), which also contains the oldest known copies of books from the Old Testament. This manuscript, EMML 6977, dates prior to the Solomonic Era in Ethiopia, which began in 1270 CE and contains the books of Job and Daniel, as well as two homilies....

Archaeologists have unearthed a large 12th-13th century kiln for firing bricks in Azerbaijan's second city, Ganja.

"We have found four tiers to the kiln and there may be even more," Arif Mammadov, head of the Ganja archaeological expedition, told 1news.az.

"Archaeological digs need to continue if we are to find more. I would like to stress that this is the largest kiln found in Azerbaijani territory," Mammadov said....

Auctioneers clearing out the historic Steinway Mansion have made a grisly discovery -- a voodoo doll and voodoo masks hidden in the fabled Astoria, N.Y., landmark.

Experts made the chilling find in the Queens mansion, which was home to the Steinway piano family until the 1920s, as they cleared the attic following the death of its last owner, Michael Halberian, who lived there for 82 years and died in December.

Halberian's children brought in auctioneer Michael Capo to sell the mansion's contents, including items left behind by the Steinway family. He told us, "It is eerie. We were clearing out the far reaches of the attic when we came across what looks like a late-19th-century wooden box or trunk....

South Carolina claims Andrew Jackson as its only president. But wait — on the grounds of the North Carolina capitol, a bronze statue of Jackson sits with two others as "Presidents North Carolina Gave the Nation."

For a century, the two Carolinas have quarreled over which can claim to be the birthplace of the seventh American president.

Dueling monuments sit within miles of each other south of Charlotte, N.C. For decades, one high school in Lancaster County, S.C., and another in Union County, N.C., played a football game in which the winner got to claim Jackson for the next year. And don't look to the White House for the answer: its website lists Jackson's birthplace a "backwoods settlement in the Carolinas."...

Researchers in Wales have digitally reconstructed the face of Owain Glyndŵr, the Welsh ruler who waged a revolt against English rule in the fifteenth-century. First revealed on the Welsh TV documentary The Face of Glyndŵr, it depicts a powerful-looking man with penetrating brown eyes, dark brown hair, a dark beard with hints of grey in it, a sharply-defined nose and battle scars along with a wart under one eye.

Produced by Wild Dream Films and the Welsh channel S4C, the documentary used the latest 3D and CGI computer-generated technology and de-ageing techniques, employed by law enforcement agencies like the FBI....

RICHMOND – When you think of wars fought in Virginia, what comes to mind?

Probably the Civil War: During the war that began 150 years ago, most of the battles were waged and more than 100,000 soldiers were killed in Virginia.

Or maybe the American Revolution: Virginians led the drive for independence in 1776, and Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown in the war’s last major battle.

But Virginia state officials want you to think of a different conflict – the War of 1812. Virginia has an official group working to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the second war against Great Britain. Delegate Christopher Peace (R-Mechanicsville) chairs the Virginia Bicentennial of the American War of 1812 Commission....

We're learning more about the people who lived here thousands of years ago. For one thing, they were slobs, leaving their stuff lying all over the place.

But a more important discovery indicates that settlers 13,000 years ago arrived from up north, not from back east. That's counter to prevailing theories about California's original first settlers.

A collection of relics was found near the Channel Islands by an archaeology team, and recently documented in the journal Science and the SF Gate.

It was originally thought that such tools would have come from people who migrated from Russia to Alasks and then down the coast. But that group fashioned cruder tools than the ones recently unearthed, which have delicate features....

Almost 2,000 years ago, 19 Roman soldiers rushed into a cramped underground tunnel, prepared to defend the Roman-held Syrian city of Dura-Europos from an army of Persians digging to undermine the city's mudbrick walls. But instead of Persian soldiers, the Romans met with a wall of noxious black smoke that turned to acid in their lungs. Their crystal-pommeled swords were no match for this weapon; the Romans choked and died in moments, many with their last pay of coins still slung in purses on their belts.

Nearby, a Persian soldier — perhaps the one who started the toxic underground fire — suffered his own death throes, grasping desperately at his chain mail shirt as he choked.

These 20 men, who died in A.D. 256, may be the first victims of chemical warfare to leave any archeological evidence of their passing, according to a new investigation. The case is a cold one, with little physical evidence left behind beyond drawings and archaeological excavation notes from the 1930s. But a new analysis of those materials published in January in the American Journal of Archaeology finds that the soldiers likely did not die by the sword as the original excavator believed. Instead, they were gassed....

Archaeologists look into whether Neanderthals copied human tools or innovated their own designs.

Could a Neanderthal use a hammer? Maybe. But could he build one himself without imitating humans? The question of whether our close hominid cousins had the ability to innovate new kinds of tools, and not just imitate, is coming up in scientific circles as archaeologists re-evaluate old archaeological sites.

Two recent studies examined the possibility that Neanderthals created a new toolkit in Europe about 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. For the past few decades, most archeologists assumed that Neanderthal stone tools were simple and roughly shaped. But that assumption may be undermined by the discovery at some Neanderthal sites of thinner, more blade-like stones, some with jagged toothed edges, and others that had one sharp edge and a dull, curved back. They were similar to tools favored by humans during the same time period, leading some experts to assume that Neanderthals were heavily influenced by human culture.

Now, some archaeologists are viewing Neanderthals in a more favorable light, casting them as an intellectual match for humans and calling into question the widely-held idea that changes in Neanderthal culture were introduced by Homo sapiens.

The first of the recent studies was set in southern Italy, where researchers examined a group of artifacts known as the Uluzzian culture. For archaeologists, often all that remains of a group of people are the things they leave behind (their material culture), so the ‘Uluzzian culture’ is the collective material remains of a group that lived about 30,000 years ago, in the Stone Age of southern Italy....

Contractors are taking extra precaution when they dig up streets in Gettysburg this summer, as part of several multi-million dollar roadway upgrades.

After all, this is historic Gettysburg, and you never know what crews may unearth.

Procedures are in place so that when contractors excavate an unexpected Civil War relic — or even bones — work stops immediately, pending further inspection.

In fact, the state’s Department of Transportation has conducted archaeology studies the last few years in Gettysburg, associated with its various bridge replacements, as well as the US 30 and Route 15 interchange.

PennDOT has contracted out the work on its state-owned roads in Gettysburg: the streetscape improvements on the first block of Steinwehr Avenue and the West Middle Street project. The Steinwehr bid was awarded to Clearwater Construction of Mercer, for $2.046 million, and Valley Quarries for the $1.8 million West Middle Street reconstruction. Currently, Pioneer Construction, of Honesdale, is replacing six blocks worth of outdated pipeline along West Middle Street as part of a $1.056 million Gettysburg Municipal Authority project, before PennDOT moves in and shuts down the entire street for its 56-day project.

According to Ford, an “on-site” inspector is in place for each project, in case relics or artifacts are excavated. The most common-type of 1863 memorabilia uncovered during road work or property renovations include plates, pottery and jewelry, although on rare occasions, human bones have been found. Police are called to the scene, work is put on hold, and crews wait, until a final determination is rendered....

Archaeologists and historians, who have taken up excavation and study of skulls discovered in Annigeri near here have said that the manner in which the human skulls are neatly arranged indicates that it could be a case of mass beheading.

Director of the department of archaeology and museums R Gopal and historian M S Krisnamurthy, who paid a visit to the site along with Dharwad deputy commissioner Darpan Jain on Monday also termed it to be a rare find in the history of India's archaeology and ancient history.

Gopal said that Annigeri had a history of more than 1,000 years and there was a mention of a massacre at Annigeri in an inscription dating back to the 12th century. However, he said it is only after the carbon dating report that they can arrive at a conclusion.

Krishnamurthy said the skulls were buried just below two-feet from the top soil and there were chances of it being a secondary burial.

Darpan Jain said so far 471 human skulls have been discovered at the site. He said test results are expected to come out in two to three weeks....

People are discovering antique fishing tackle all the time, in closets and at garage sales, but none of that compares to discoveries made recently by archaeologists at two of the Channel Islands off Southern California.

Looking for signs of ancient human settlement, they unearthed meticulously-crafted spearheads and other tools (see photo at right) that date back 12,000 years and provide insight into the lives of a seafaring culture that obtained bounty from the ocean.

The astonishing discoveries, at three sites on Santa Rosa and San Miguel islands west of Santa Barbara, strongly support the theory that during an era when the first traces of humans appeared in the archaeological record in North America, a coastal culture existed that was distinct from the well-chronicled inland Clovis culture, which consisted of big-game hunters who subsisted on mastodons and other large mammals....

Feared lost forever, 20 ancient ivory artifacts looted from Afghanistan's national museum were presented to the country's president, Hamid Karzai, in London Tuesday.

The 2,000-year-old artifacts are the latest additions to the internationally acclaimed exhibition "Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World," which starts its UK run at the British Museum this week.

Stolen during Afghanistan's civil war between 1992 and 1994, the ivory inlays were once part of a hoard of treasures found at the ancient city of Begram, north of modern-day Kabul....