17 AOÛT 2016 NEWS: Irlande - Xanthos - Willamette - Westward Ho - Beitar -
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IRLANDE – 
– South East - Archaeologists have discovered the diet of Iron Age inhabitants of south-east Ireland, with cattle, pigs, barley and wheat dominant. A team from University College Cork (UCC) has trawled through archaeological excavations carried out in the south-east region of Ireland over the past decade or so. The findings – which included animal bones and seeds – reveal what food was grown, farmed and cooked in Ireland during the Iron Age, more than two millennia ago. Recovered from road and gas pipeline excavations, the remains provide direct evidence of farming and diet from as far back as 2,700 years ago, according to Dr Katharina Becker, an archaeology lecturer at UCC. “Cattle and pigs provided dairy and meat, barley was a staple, and we also have evidence of a variety of wheats, including spelt, emmer and naked wheat,” she said. “We have identified evidence of settlement, as well as arable and pastoral agriculture, indicating that communities were thriving in the south-east of Ireland.”
https://www.siliconrepublic.com/discovery/irish-iron-age-diet
TURQUIE – 
Xanthos - The new excavation season has started at the ancient city of Xantos, located near the Kaş district of Turkey’s Mediterranean province of Antalya. The excavations works, started in 1950 by French archaeologists, have been conducted by the Culture and Tourism Ministry and Akdeniz University for the last six years. The two-month excavations in Xantos, which was included in the World Heritage list in 1988, will focus on the Western Agora and Lycian structure. “In addition to the excavations in two spots, we will continue the works on the pieces unearthed in the earlier excavations,” said Varkıvanç, adding that a lack of funds had forced the team to decrease its number of staff members. “Xantos is a very important ancient city, which was the capital of the Lycian Union during the Archaic and classical eras. It is famous for its heroic resistance against the attacks of the Persians and the Romans, and it is one of the ancient sites in Turkey with the longest ongoing excavation works,” he added. As the center of ancient Lycia and the site of its most extensive antiquities, Xanthos has been a center for students of Anatolian civilization since the early 19th century. Two tombs found at the site, the Nereid Monument and the Tomb of Payava, are now exhibited in the British Museum. The Harpy Tomb is still located in the ruins of the city. A sanctuary of Leto called the Letoon is located on the outskirts of the city to the southwest.
USA – 
Willamette Valley - Thanks to a discovery by a local landowner, archaeologists unearthed the first recorded Native American tools of their kind in the Willamette Valley this summer. While building a pond on his property, the landowner, who was not identified, found 15 obsidian hand axes. He reported his discovery to the Oregon State Historical Preservation Office, which led an archaeological dig at the site in June. The tools, known as bifaces, are a rare find, said assistant state archaeologist John Pouley, who led the dig.The tools are an estimated 1,000 to 4,000 years old. They were found on the traditional territory of the Santiam Band of the Kalapuya, which stretches between present day Portland and Roseburg. With the assistance of the tribes, local universities and private archaeological firms, Pouley and his team determined that the unfinished tools were from the Obsidian Cliffs in the Central Oregon Cascades. They likely would have been used in trades before being worked into finished tools, Pouley said. It's unusual to find unfinished tools and the discovery will help archaeologists better understand prehistoric trade networks in the Pacific Northwest, Pouley said.
ROYAUME UNI – 
Westward Ho - At low tide this week a ship wrecked more than 200 years ago is expected to reappear, the stumps of its decaying timbers poking through the sand of a north Devon beach – most likely the remains of the Sally, which left a Bristol wine merchant devastated when it ran aground with its cargo of port in September 1769.
ISRAEL – 
Beitar - The archeological unit of the Civil Administration unearthed an eighteenth-century Ottoman village in the context of developmental work in the modern town of Beitar Illit south of Jerusalem.The finding is considered significant from an archaeological standpoint, considering that the unearthing of settlements from this time period is uncommon due to the formerly standard practice of building new villages upon the ruins of old ones. During the excavations, archaeologists discovered tools suggesting that the site was abandoned suddenly. The assessment is that a fire or earthquake led to the former residents' abandonment of the site. In addition, tools discovered, such as bowls, jugs, coffee cups and other cooking implements point to a simple lifestyle among former inhabitants. Archaeologists do not think that the site held any "sacred" significance. Housing units were also discovered, attached to each other in such a way as to create one conglomerated unit - which indicates that a large extended family probably lived in the village. Questions arise as to the identity of the family and its occupation; archaeologists hope to get to the bottom of these questions as the excavation progresses