28 JUILLET 2012 NEWS: Maryport - Nis - Zhoukoudian - Lille - Nigeria - Enniskillen - Ovaören -
INSTITUT SUPERIEUR D'ANTHROPOLOGIE
INSTITUTE OF ANTHROPOLOGY
ONLINE COURSES / COURS A DISTANCE
INSCRIPTION 2012 / Session III : Juillet 2012
REGISTRATION 2012 / Term III : July 2012
ROYAUME UNI – 
Maryport - The discovery of a Christian burial site in Maryport changes the history the of the Roman town. When excavation work started on Camp Farm adjacent to the Senhouse Museum archaeologists believed they were looking at late Roman buildings. Their recent find of four graves and what appears to be a church shows how life evolved after the fall of the Roman Empire. Site director Tony Wilmott said the find uncovered 'Maryport's missing centuries' and is of national significance. The graves are believed to have been from the 5th or 6th century. The team to be able use the fragments of teeth and bone found buried to accurately date the site using carbon dating. The team, made up of archaeologists, volunteers and students from Newcastle University, hope by the end of the dig to find what the building was and clarify its significance.
VIDEO = http://www.itv.com/news/border/2012-07-25/christian-burial-ground-unearthed-in-west-cumbria/
SERBIE – 
Nis - The remains of 31 early Christian tombs have been discovered during archaeological excavations in Nis, Serbia's third largest city in the southern part of the country. "These are the most important excavations carried out so far on the site of the early Christian necropolis of Jagodin-mala", said Toni Cerskov, who heads the team of 45 archaeologists, architects, anthropologists, photographers and workers at the site. The tombs are located under the former textile factory Niteks, the Tanjug news agency reports. Cerskov said the tombs are among the most important findings regarding the early Christian period and can be compared to the discoveries made in the necropolis of Pecs, Hungary, Solin near Split in Croatia, Sophia in Bulgaria and Thessaloniki in Greece. Excavation work will continue until the end of July.
CHINE – Zhoukoudian - About 160 historical sites, including the Peking Man World Heritage Site at Zhoukoudian, were damaged in floods caused by the heaviest rainfall in six decades in Beijing and suburbs. The deluge caused several small-scale landslides at the Peking Man site and disabled its security system, Li Yan, the senior administrator at Zhoukoudian, located in a village 50 kilometres southwest of Beijing said. A museum at the site was flooded, but the major exhibits are all safe. Dirt and mud washed by the heaviest rainfall in six decades covered part of the archaeological dig at Zhoukoudian and halted researchers' work for at least three days, state-run China Daily quoted Zhang Shuangquan, an archaeologist at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences as saying. "If the rock stratum collapses, it would lose its value for archaeology...A period of human civilization would be buried in mystery forever," Zhang, who has been excavating the site since 2009 said. The 1,400-year-old Yunju Temple, another historical site in Beijing's hard-hit Fangshan district, was also damaged by the deluge.
http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/beijing-floods-160-heritage-sites-damaged_790098.html
FRANCE – 
Lille - Sur le terrain vague qui jouxte l'Hôtel de Marchiennes, rue de Paris, des archéologues de l'INRAP sondent le sol depuis mardi. Ce diagnostic préventif, précède la construction d'un immeuble. En attendant, on peut deviner des caves d'un rang de maisons datant du XVIIe. Depuis mardi, ce chantier a successivement mis à nu des caves datant d'un rang de maisons des Temps Modernes. Fin XVIIe - début XVIIIe. Christine sort des plans. « C'était très construit ici, c'est pour ça qu'il y a beaucoup de caves. A priori, c'était de l'habitat civil. On se trouve à proximité du couvent des Brigittines, dont on peut encore admirer la cour, en passant sous voûte par la rue G.Delory ». Époque St Sauveur. « Il y a quelques vestiges médiévaux aussi. La rue de Paris était un axe très important au Moyen âge ». L'intervention est prévue pour trois semaines.
http://www.nordeclair.fr/Locales/Lille/2012/07/27/rue-de-paris-les-pieds-dans-des-caves-du.shtml
NIGERIA – 
– Nok - A handful of roughly 2,000-year-old figurines began a journey back home to Nigeria after being seized at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City. On display for the ceremony were seven pieces of figurines, which resembled bits of cylindrical gingerbread men thanks to the orange hue of the terracotta. The two best preserved pieces, a head and torso, and a pair of legs standing on a pedestal, appeared to have once belonged to a single figure. All are the work of the Nok culture, which existed within what would become Nigeria from more than 2,000 years ago, before disappearing in the early centuries of the first millennium. (Timeframes for their existence vary.) Each of the six terracotta heads bore a distinctive face, which is typical of Nok sculpture, Habu said, explaining that the ancient artisans drew from individual people in normal life, depicting them riding horses or donkeys, for example, or with farm tools. Nok artisans were prolific, many similar figurines have left Nigeria, Habu said: "Many of them are at museums all over the world, some were taken out legally." Nigeria has laws that control the export of Nok pieces; however, the sculptures have flooded out of the country. In the 1990s, so many reached the European art market that the prices dropped sharply, according to a New York Times article in 2000.
http://www.livescience.com/21891-nigeria-nok-statues-smuggled.html
ROYAUME UNI – 
– Enniskillen - A fine tooth comb is among treasures uncovered at an excavation site near Enniskillen, County Fermanagh. Arrow heads, pottery and ancient human remains have been found at the crannog - a kind of artificial island - that could date back more than 1,000 years. The site is being cleared to allow for a new road, but archaeologists have been given some time to glean all they can before the bulldozers move in. "The Cherrymount link crannog was thought initially to date back to the 14th century but now evidence suggests it went back to early medieval times," said archaeologist Declan Hurl. "We've found human remains. This was a burial elsewhere that had been removed and for some reason brought to this site and re-buried on the crannog.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-18998749
TURQUIE – 
Ovaören – One of the main settlements of the Tabal Kingdom, a Syro-Hittite kingdom in Cappadocia, has been found in the Central Anatolian province of Nevşehir during ongoing excavations. Nevşehir Governor Abdurrahman Savaş and several other dignitaries joined a trip to the excavation site in the town of Ovaören in the Gülşehir district after the center was discovered. Excavation leader Professor Yücel Şenyurt, who is also head of Gazi University's archaeology department, briefed Savaş and the others on excavations in the area. He said excavation efforts that have been in progress at the site since 2007 revealed a settlement that existed from the beginning of Chalcolithic period (circa 5500 B.C.) to the end of the Iron Age (330 B.C.). Şenyurt noted they reached layers from the Hittite period by digging down four meters under the surface of the ground. “This year, we plan to go down to the deepest layers. I believe the manuscripts we will unearth will be one of the greatest finds of the last 30 years in Ovaören Anatolian archaeology. Thanks to the concentrated excavation work, we have revealed one of the main settlements of the Tabal Kingdom,” added Şenyurt. The excavation is being carried out with a team of 25 archaeologists and students and 30 workers and is planned to last until Aug. 15 within the scope of this year's efforts.
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-287607-tabal-kingdom-settlement-found-in-nevsehir.html