27 AVRIL 2016 NEWS: Anyang - Shoreditch - Marseille - Manchester - Mojave Desert - Taiwan - Macoskin -
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CHINE – 
Anyang - Three sets of coffins, believed to have been buried 3,000 years ago, were discovered in central China's Henan Province. They were unearthed Monday and taken to a museum in Anyang City, according to local archaeological sources Tuesday. Last month, a villager in Anshang's Neihuang County discovered ancient tombs while digging in a brick kiln. He uncovered bronze items as well as human and animal bones ten meters deep underground. Following a preliminary excavation, experts from the Anyang institute of cultural relics and archaeology found 22 tombs from the late Shang Dynasty (1600 B.C.-1046 B.C.), the second in China's history. They retrieved three sets of inner and outer coffins made of cypress wood from the tombs, as well as a single coffin. In ancient times, Chinese people used an outer coffin to protect the inner coffin. Kong Deming, head of the institute, told Xinhua that it is rare to see such well-preserved coffins from the Shang Dynasty. "It is a family burial place," he said. "The owners were affluent people, possibly aristocrats." He noted that the discovery might help archaeologists learn more about Shang Dynasty burial customs and understand cultural development. The excavation could also be helpful in geological studies since the coffins were buried so deep, Kong added. The Shang Dynasty capital was once in Shangqiu, Henan and later moved to Anyang, where ruins of the old city were discovered in the early 1900s in one of China's oldest and largest archaeological sites.
http://english.cri.cn/12394/2016/04/26/4001s925613.htm
ROYAUME UNI – 
Shoreditch - Archaeologists began excavating one of Shakespeare’s lesser known playhouses today - the Curtain Theatre where Henry V was first performed - which be preserved as a cultural centre in situ once the dig is complete. The team from Museum of London Archaeology officially “broke the ground” at the site of The Stage in Shoreditch, almost 400 years to the day since the death of the Bard himself. Evidence for the theatre - revealed through trial excavation at the site of The Stage in 2012 - indicates its remains are exceptionally well preserved, surviving to over 1.5 metres in places. It is hoped that the remains of the Curtain, which are approximately two to three metres below modern ground level, will give archaeologists more clues about the physical structure and use of the theatre, and shed new light on the cultural makeup of the area and performances in the 16th and 17th centuries. Once archaeologists break through the 18th century remains which encase the Curtain Theatre, they will be looking for evidence of the stage in particular as well as the backstage area, the yard and the stairwells that led the theatregoers who could pay for seats up to the galleries.
FRANCE – 
Marseille - Il s'appelle Ocean One, c'est un robot humanoïde appelé à devenir l'archéologue sous marin de demain, pour intervenir là où les hommes ne peuvent aller, c'est à dire les grandes profondeurs. Il est dévoilé ce mardi à Marseille. Son eau de baptême aura été celle de la Méditerrannée. Certes, Ocean One a été fabriqué à Standford aux Etats-Unis Il y a connu la piscine de l'université mais c'est dans la Grande bleue que ce robot humanoïde a pour la première fois montré ses capacités d'archéologue sous marin piloté. Plus précisément sur l'épave de la Lune, épave que fouille Michel L'Hour, le directeur du DRASSM. Le robot est appelé à explorer une nouvelle frontière: les épaves de la profondeur, inaccessibles jusqu'ici. Soit parce qu'elles sont trop loin, soit parce qu'il est difficile de monter des équipes pluridiciplinaires - archéologues, historiens, céramistes et plongeur capables d'étudiers les pages de l'histoire engloutie. Ocean One a donc été doté des capacités humaines détaille Michel L'Hour. Pour autant, le robot ne remplacera pas les archéologues de la mer. Pour être guidé il a besoin de tout leur savoir faire et leur connaissance . il est en somme leur avatar sous l'eau.
http://www.franceinter.fr/depeche-ocean-one-a-la-decouverte-des-grands-fonds
ROYAUME UNI – 
Manchester - Des constructeurs ont découvert un pub ayant fonctionné il y a 200 ans dans le centre de la ville anglaise de Manchester. Le terrain destiné à construire un immeuble de 13 étages recelait des bouteilles de brandy, des clés, des pots, des pipes et d'autres affaires personnelles des Anglais des années 1800. Une vingtaine de bouteilles de brandy y a été trouvée, dont trois ou quatre intactes. Le brandy tel qu'on le connaît aujourd'hui est apparu au XIIe siècle et devenu populaire au XIVe.
https://fr.sputniknews.com/sci_tech/201604251024505331-archeologie-angleterre-brandy/
USA – 
Mojave Desert - A student who took part in a field trip to Southern California has discovered 2000 year-old Native American spear and arrow points. Mirea Lauria, a 2nd year Geography student in the School of Global Studies, found the Native American artefacts whilst taking part in a field trip to the Mojave Desert. Mirea came across the two blades whilst exploring the sediments of an ancient lake, known as Lake Manix, which existed across Southern California's Mojave region around 25000 years ago. Californian researchers think the unfinished blades were made by nomadic Native Americans somewhere between 1400 and 2100 years ago. It's believed the smaller find would have been used for an arrow or dart and the larger for a spear or knife. The artefacts were found next to each other and researchers believe it is possible they were deliberately buried together as part of a larger cache, to be retrieved at a later date.
http://phys.org/news/2016-04-geography-student-year-old-native-american.html
TAIWAN - 
Archaeologists in Taiwan have found a 4,800-year-old human fossil of a mother holding an infant child in her arms, museum officials said on Tuesday. The 48 sets of remains unearthed in graves in the Taichung area are the earliest trace of human activity found in central Taiwan. The most striking discovery among them was the skeleton of a young mother looking down at a child cradled in her arms. "When it was unearthed, all of the archaeologists and staff members were shocked. Why? Because the mother was looking down at the baby in her hands," said Chu Whei-lee, a curator in the Anthropology Department at Taiwan's National Museum of Natural Science. The excavation of the site began in May 2014 and took a year to complete. Carbon dating was used to determine the ages of the fossils, which included five children.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-fossils-idUSKCN0XN1WI?rpc=401
ULSTER – 
Macoskin - Dublin-based archaeologist Dr James Lyttleton will be exploring Macosquin this week, in a Time Team-style ‘big dig’, seeking evidence for early 17th-century ‘Plantation’ houses. The week-long excavations began yesterday (Monday), and will see three trenches being excavated. Speaking to The Times, Dr Lyttleton explained: “We have great historical archives of what Macosquin looked like 400 years ago, with drawn plans and written descriptions of Macosquin. According to the archeologist, the archives illustrate what Macosquin was intended to look like in the early 1600s, when the lands were granted to the Merchant Taylors Company, a major London-based livery guild, by James I, as part of the newly-created county of Londonderry. He went on: “Unusually, we have a 1615 design plan for Macosquin, then a 1622 picture-map which shows what was actually built. “The village stood on the Coleraine – Londonderry road (now by-passed), and had a much earlier Cistercian abbey, from the 13th century, at one end of the village, and a manor house at the other.
