18 JUILLET 2017 NEWS: Knowe of Swandro - Karur - Fourni - Quebec - Hopeton - Dundee - Kunal -
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ROYAUME UNI – 
Knowe of Swandro - Archaeologists are thrilled by the discovery of a Roman coin during the excavation of an archaeological site in Orkney.The copper alloy coin was found at the Knowe of Swandro, the location of a Neolithic chambered tomb, Iron Age roundhouses and Pictish buildings. The archaeological site is at risk from coastal erosion. Roman finds have been made before in Orkney, and other Scottish islands including the Western Isles. The coin found in the Knowe of Swandro dig on Rousay is believed to date from the mid 4th Century AD. Archaeologists said the works of classical writers suggested the Romans were aware of Orkney, with the writers even making claims of an invasion, although archaeologists and historians believe this to have been unlikely. The coin was found at the site of a small roundhouse. Other finds from that site have been dated to about the second and fourth centuries AD.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-40606908
INDE – 
Karur – Burial urns, called 'Mudhumakkal Thazhi', estimated to be over 2000 years old, have been unearthed near Karur. The archaeological remains were found in the Government Elementary School premises at Mavadiyan in the Karur municipality limit.. The team, which carried out the survey, found pieces of three urns and mortar bricks. Although the exact age of the urns can be ascertained only after a detailed and in-depth analysis, officials from the state archaeology department said that they are at least 2000 years old "The history of Mudhumakkal Thazhi is over 3000 years old and these pots should be at least 2000 years old if we go by the black and brown colour," said S Nantha Kumar, curator of Chera Museum of the state archaeology department. He said that it was an ancient Tamil practice by family members to create a huge earthen pot called Mudhumakkal Thazhi to bury old people in it when they die.
GRECE – 
Fourni - Another eight ancient shipwrecks have been found at the Fourni archipelago off Greece, bringing the number of ruined ships found there to 53. The discovery begs explanation, given that the sunken wrecks were found in just 17 square miles, and that Fourni was never home to any large settlement. Yet the marine archaeologists have found the largest cluster of sunken ships known in the Mediterranean. Fourni (or Fournoi Korseon) is a complex of 13 small Greek islands and islets between Ikaria and Samos. One explanation could lie in the weather. “The area around Fourni, Ikaria and Samos, is the most dangerous part of the Aegean Sea," says Peter Campbell, co-director of the project from the RPM Nautical Foundation. Storms there can turn violent and lacking other natural harbors, Fourni was the only place sailors could find safe anchorage, he says.
http://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/1.801529
CANADA – 
Quebec - Builders in the Canadian city of Quebec unearthed an unexploded cannonball fired by the British during their siege of the city in 1759. The builders posed for photographs by the 200-pound bomb, unaware that it was still potentially explosive.
http://www.newsweek.com/quebec-canada-637346
USA – 
Hopeton Earthworks - To the lay person, it may look like nothing more than a well cut hole in the ground at the Hopeton Earthworks. The hole in question was excavated earlier this summer as part of an ongoing project begun around 2014 when World Heritage Site designation was emerging as a real possibility. For 200 years, people have been looking at these earthworks, and for 150 years, there's been excavations at these earthwork centers, but all of that archaeology has been focused on the mounds themselves, on the visible, above-ground architecture," said Bret Ruby, archaeologist and chief resources manager for Hopewell Culture National Historical Park. "The exciting thing is now we've got these new technologies that are letting us look at all these vast spaces in between those monuments, and it's revolutionizing our understanding of how these places were used. They weren't just static piles of earth, these were active places and there was a lot of wooden architecture associated with them — shrine buildings, wooden post circles. There was a lot of architecture out there to support a wide variety of ceremonies and rituals, so these would have been very active places that were used over generations." The magnetic imaging completed at the Hopeton Earthworks revealed previously unseen holes around the outer edge of a very large circular formation on the property. The array was similar to one discovered in the magnetic survey of the Hopewell Mound Group site. The holes appear to have served as holders of very large, likely ceremonial wooden posts. Because of the fact they run completely around the sizable circular formation at each of the two sites, Ruby and archaeological technician Timothy Everhart see the find as very significant. What makes the latest find even more significant in terms of understanding the Hopewell culture is that the excavated hole had nothing but charcoal in it, suggesting that it had once been used to hold a post but that the post had been removed and the hole filled in for other purposes. That adds to the belief that the Hopewell culture was a more complex society than originally thought.
ROYAUME UNI – 
Dundee - A rare medieval burial marker has been discovered at a Dundee graveyard, making it the oldest monument at the cemetery. The stone, thought to be from the 12th or 13th century, was found on Sunday in the north-west corner of the Howff. Before the discovery the oldest monument in the 500-year-old cemetery dated back to 1577.
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/dundee/467714/amazing-medieval-stone-found-howff/
INDE – 
Kunal - With several missing links in its Harappan galleries, the National Museum went out digging in a Haryana village only to find a treasure trove of archaeological remains, that experts expect will push back the time period of the civilisation.Two consignments of the archaeological remains have been sent for carbon dating in laboratories in Lucknow and Delhi and a third is set to be dispatched to a lab in Florida shortly. "It is very difficult to get archaeological findings in auction sales or through other sources and there were glaring gaps in our Harappan collection and we had nothing from the pre-Harappan times. We were thinking of where to source these samples from and that is when we stumbled upon the Harappan site in Kunal, Haryana, that was excavated in the 1990s but no report was finally submitted. The earlier findings date back to 3000 BC, but with the findings in Bhirrana, that is barely 20 kms away pointing to settlements dating back to 7000 BC to 6000 BC, we were confident that Kunal too had far more potential," explained BRR Mani, archaeologist and Director General of National Museum. "For the first time National Museum made a proposal to the body to approve further work on the site. We want to expand our Harappan gallery and show the origins of the civilization...even the Chalcolithic culture." "Kunal has been excavated for four seasons already. Last week we wrapped up the ongoing excavation and hope to go back for one last time next digging season. This year we found confirmed evidence of pit dwellings and material related to them. By going a level below this we might find more crucial evidences. Two consignments of 13 samples each have been sent to Inter University Accelerator Center in Vasant Kunj and Birbal Sahni Institute of Paleo Sciences in Lucknow for carbon dating." Mani said.
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/haryana-village-harappan-civilization-site/1/1001754.html