29 - 30 JUIN 2013 NEWS: Jamestown - Trempealeau - Savannah River's - Turquie -
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USA – 
Jamestown - Archaeologists at Historic Jamestowne have discovered the complete skeleton of a horse buried just yards from the 1639 church tower, probably some time after 1650. Archaeologist Daniel Schmidt said Thursday that the horse was discovered as archaeologists excavated a palisade trench they believe represents an extension of the original triangular James Fort. The horse is the first complete animal skeleton to turn up in two decades of excavation at the fort site. Archaeologists have previously turned up the butchered horse remains, which they theorize were eaten during the "starving time' at the fort in 1609-10. Schmidt said glass from wine bottles found with the horse remains date it to post 1650. Another clue is the proximity of the horse to the church, suggesting it may have been buried in the last quarter of the 17th century. "It was a fairly shallow ditch," Schmidt said. "There likely would have been some stench involved." He speculated those conditions could mean the burial happened during a period when the church was inactive, namely after it was burned in 1676 during Bacon's Rebellion. Schmidt said that information opened other lines of speculation. One would be that the horse might have been euthanized and covered over in the pre-existing ditch. "A dead horse is pretty hard to move," Schmidt said. "It may be that they put it in this ditch that they planned to cover over anyway. We can't prove that. It's speculation. It's possible that once we get the skeleton fully uncovered it will give us some clue as to how the horse died."
http://www.vagazette.com/news/va-vg-jametownhorse-0629-20130627,0,2824807.story
USA – 
Trempealeau - Hunting for signs of a 1,000-year-old culture, University of Wisconsin researchers and students churned up land all over town — near homes on Third Street, in front of a local inn and up on Little Bluff. This summer’s dig uncovered a surprise outcropping of ancient structures, hidden directly under the grassy subdivisions of this riverside village. Researchers are looking for remnants of the Mississipians, a bygone Native American culture. The Mississipians made a 500-mile journey up the river from Cahokia, an ancient city near St. Louis, eventually finding a home in Trempealeau. That’s about 30 days by canoe, Benden said. “Why are they coming here?” Benden said. “It looks like kind of a moon shot.” They appear for a brief time and then disappear. This year’s dig only deepens the mystery behind the Mississippians. Diggers uncovered a lot of buildings, but fewer artifacts than past sites around town.
USA – 
Savannah River's - After three weeks of careful excavation, the 12 students and faculty members have found plenty of artifacts beneath the loamy forest floor, but they still have a long way to go. “Right now we’ve gone back 5,000 to 6,000 years – the late Archaic period,” she said. “But we’re looking for Clovis – or even pre-Clovis, which goes back 13,000 years.” Smallwood, an assistant professor and director of the school’s Antonio Waring Jr. Archaeological Laboratory, said prehistoric Clovis culture sites are rare in Georgia. One of the biggest challenges is locating a Clovis settlement in situ, or in place, where artifacts can be unearthed intact. Such a site might lie just below the area now being explored. “It’s about 5 centimeters per level, and we’re down to level 7,” Lancaster said. Among the treasures plucked from the pits were two Savannah River points – a complete one and a second with the tip missing. There were also tiny stone flakes left behind by generations of visitors who sharpened or manufactured tools at their campsite. One of the dig’s most fascinating finds is an ancient hearth, formed by a manmade semicircle of river clay that has compacted over thousands of years into heavy, oxidized lumps. Its presence on the forgotten knoll is evidence that the citizens of prehistory camped and cooked there as part of their quest for comfort and survival.
TURQUIE – 
The dig season has begun but the Turkish government in Ankara has still not granted annual permits to foreign archaeologists, especially Germans. There is concern that the reason for the delay has to do with politics and nationalism. The “accusation” was made by the German SPIEGEL which covered the 35th Annual Symposium of Excavations, Surveys and Archaeometry in Mugla (southern Turky). According to the report, German archaeologists “ have reason to worry”, as the delay could be a response to the comments made by the head of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Hermann Parzinger, who a year ago said that “Turkey doesn’t have an established system for preserving historical artefacts” and that cultural heritage “is the last thing they think about.” Then the Turkish minister of Culture and Tourism, Ömer Çelik, told SPIEGEL that some German-led excavations in Turkey are sloppy. “There are many that simply leave sites however they happen to look at the end of an excavation, disorderly and without having been restored in any way – a deserted landscape,” he said. On the other hand foreign archaeologists accuse the current Turkish administration for destroying noumerous significant archaeological sites in order to build things like dams, hotels and subways! All this is part of a long quarrel between Germany and Turkey about the origin of Turkish antiquities that fill German museums. Many of these antiquities are ancient Greek, and were stolen or landed in Germany in some other dubious way, but there are also prehistoric and Ottoman works of art.
http://www.archaiologia.gr/en/blog/2013/06/27/archaeology-falls-victim-of-politics/