09/01/2020 NEWS
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IRAN – 
Tepe Ahranjan - A group of archaeologists and researchers have found that farming and animal breeding were practiced some 9,000 years ago around the historical Tepe Ahranjan in Salmas, northwestern Iran. Evidence suggests that Ahranjan hill and its surroundings were one of the first and most important human settlements in the 7th millennium BC in northwestern Iran, Geravand said, adding, it showed that the inhabitants of this area were farmers and animal breeders. Presence of “mother rocks” and obsidian tools in seven different colors, sabers, mortars, and stone utensils are amongst objects found in the region, a local tourism official said. Previously, Geravand had said that the northwest of Iran, as a connection bridge between the Iranian plateau, the Caucasus, Asia Minor, and Mesopotamia, has always played an important role in the relations and cultural exchanges. The region has long been a suitable place for settlement since ancient times due to the presence of permanent rivers, springs, animal and plant resources, fertile land and pastures, he explained. The history of agriculture is the story of humankind’s development and cultivation of processes for producing food, feed, fiber, fuel, and other goods by the systematic raising of plants and animals. Prior to the development of plant cultivation, human beings were hunters and gatherers. The knowledge and skill of learning to care for the soil and growth of plants advanced the development of human society, allowing clans and tribes to stay in one location generation after generation. Archaeological evidence indicates that such developments occurred 10,000 or more years ago. Experts say that by 7000 BC, sowing and harvesting reached Mesopotamia and there, in the super fertile soil just north of the Persian Gulf, Sumerian ingenuity systematized it and scaled it up. By 6000 BC farming was entrenched on the banks of the Nile River. About this time, agriculture was developed independently in the Far East, probably in China, with rice rather than wheat as the primary crop. Because of agriculture, cities, as well as trade relations between different regions and groups of people, developed, further enabling the advancement of human societies and cultures. Agriculture has been an important aspect of economics throughout the centuries prior to and after the Industrial Revolution. Sustainable development of world food supplies impact the long-term survival of the species, so care must be taken to ensure that agricultural methods remain in harmony with the environment.
https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/443960/Iranians-practiced-farming-animal-breeding-9-000-years-ago
ROYAUME UNI – 
Somerton - A Roman-era cemetery containing the remains of some 50 adults and children has been discovered in southwest England. Most of the 2,000-year-old graves were lined and capped with slabs of local stone in a manner resembling local roof construction of the time. In one grave, the slabs were positioned to create a tent-like structure. The position of one woman’s skull in another grave suggests her head had been laid to rest on a pillow. Tiny nails recovered at the foot of many of the graves indicate that the occupants had been buried wearing hobnail boots. Jewelry, a coin minted during the first-century A.D. reign of the emperor Vespasian, a carved bone knife handle, and pottery were also recovered at the site. One of the pots contained a chicken wing bone. Steve Membery of the South West Heritage Trust said those who died during the Roman period may have lived and worked at a nearby villa. Older graves at the site, however, offer clues to the burial customs of local Britons before the Roman invasion. Analysis of DNA samples could reveal if Roman-era Britons adopted Roman burial customs, or if those buried in the Roman graves originated somewhere else.
ROYAUME UNI – Melton Mowbray - Human remains believed to be 1,400 years old have been found under a former nursing home in England, a discovery that has been described as "eerie." The bones were discovered on Oct. 17, 2019, as workers cleared the site of the former Catherine Dalley House in Melton Mowbray, Leics, British news agency SWNS reports. The police were then called to the location, as were archaeologists, who used carbon dating to confirm the bones are from between 635-685 A.D. Keith Hallam, said the bones were "just under the surface," but did not know to whom they belonged. He added that Catherine Dalley was a hunting lodge in the 19th century.
https://www.foxnews.com/science/1400-year-old-eerie-human-remains-found-england-nursing-home
MEXIQUE – 
Lacanjá Tzeltal - Archaeologists link a site in southern Mexico to a royal centre long known from Mayan inscriptions. An expanse of ruined pyramids, palaces and plazas in southern Mexico has been identified as the ‘lost’ capital of an influential Maya kingdom called White Dog. Mayan inscriptions from AD 628 to AD 869 mention Sak Tz’i’, or White Dog, a royal centre allied with some of the most powerful Maya kingdoms of the time. But the location of Sak Tz’i’ had long eluded scholars. Then, a man contacted archaeologists about what he’d seen on his land on the outskirts of the town of Lacanjá Tzeltal in Mexico. Preliminary excavations by Charles Golden, who is based at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, and his colleagues revealed tiered pyramids, a ballcourt and dozens of other structures, spread across roughly 25 hectares. That makes Lacanjá Tzeltal, as Golden’s team calls the site, bigger and more densely built than other renowned Maya settlements such as Bonampak, also in southern Mexico. The White Dog was long-lived: construction at Lacanjá Tzeltal started no later than 450 BC, and a privately owned carving refers to a Sak Tz’i’ nobleman in AD 869, decades after other royal courts in the region had collapsed.