30 MARS 2018: Rendian - Stirling - Shivta - Le Mans -
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CHINE – Rendian - Archaeologists have found a portion of a 2000-year-old road, dating back to the Han dynasty, in central China's Henan province, according to a media report today. The road, excavated at the ruins of county seat of Langling in Rendian Township, Queshan County, has intact vehicle tracks, indicating it was frequently used during that period, said Liu Haiwang, head of the provincial cultural heritage research institute. Liu said the discovery was significant for the study of road construction, maintenance technology, and vehicles in the Han Dynasty (202BC – 220). With an exposed length of 252 metres and a width ranging from 2.2 metres to 2.8 metres, part of the north-south road runs underneath the current G107 national highway. Zhou Runshan, team leader of the project, said the deep road bed and the fine stone, ceramic, brick, and clay pieces used to fill in the vehicle tracks proved the road had been busy and frequently maintained. An east-west road was also found in the ruins, which was 1,300 metres long and around 5 metres wide. The two roads met at an intersection with a ditch underneath, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. "A bridge made of large pieces of stone may have connected the road sections over the ditch," Zhou said, adding drainage channels were also found along the roads. Further excavation will also be conducted at the ruins, according to Liu.
ROYAUME UNI – 
Stirling - Two sites in Stirling are revealing new evidence of the castle and burgh’s inhabitants over the decades, from the medieval period through to the modern day, thanks to post-excavation analysis by GUARD archaeology. more than 2,000 artefacts – ranging from medieval pottery and 17th-century clay tobacco pipes to a more modern iron knife and a First World War Austrian army belt buckle – provide a snapshot of the town and castle through the years. The first site – an eroding multi-century midden located in the woods immediately to the west of Stirling Castle, just below the fortification’s walls. The second location formed part of the Back Walk – a path, built in the 18th century, that winds up to the top of the ridge on which the castle and old part of the town are located. Among the finds, pottery sherds dominated, comprising a wide range of types including Scottish medieval redware, Scottish post-medieval oxidised ware, and modern industrial stoneware. While most of the medieval and early post-medieval examples appear to have had Scottish origins, possibly suggesting a preference for local goods and the importance of pottery production in the area, the presence of fragments from England and the Continent indicates the use of imported products as well. The material from both the midden and the Back Walk seems to have accumulated from people dumping rubbish over the edge of the crag, and as most of the pottery – including the more modern sherds – shows signs of wear, this suggests that the material had been re-deposited over time. It is thought, due to the nature of the finds, that many of the artefacts are likely to have come from the Castle. The full excavation report by GUARD archaeologist Bob Will can be accessed for free at www.archaeologyreportsonline.com/PDF/ARO27_Backwalk_Stirling.pdf.
https://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/sterling-finds-from-stirling.htm
ISRAEL – 
Shivta - Over 1,500 years ago, parts of the Negev were being farmed, to an extent that astounded latter-day archaeologists. The miracle of lushness in the desert turns out to have relied not only on perseverance and water management, but on pigeons relieving themselves. Archaeologists had already deduced that the Negev Byzantines' building their giant dovecotes splat in the middle of fields meant that farmers were using the birds' by-product as fertilizer. But they wondered at the primary impetus behind flock management, i.e., whether these fairly early Christians were breeding doves (a.k.a. pigeons) to eat. Clearly the ancients of Shivta and Saadon also ate of the dove, as did everybody else in the Middle East. Indeed, in contrast to urban westerners and their distaste for the "flying rats," this entire region has appreciated the pigeon going back millennia. But the study has now proven that the pigeons living in the Negev farming settlements were wild-type (Columba livia palaestinae), small, and muscular ("athletic"). If the Byzantine farmers had been breeding them mainly for meat, they would have selected for large size. Pigeons bred for meat in ancient Rome, for instance, were larger. So if the scrawny pigeons of the Negev were kept, and the huge pigeon towers up to 9 meters tall in the middle of the fields shows they were, that argues for that the Byzantines' main goal was the "secondary product.""Bird guano is the best natural fertilizer, better than horse, camel or cow manure," Tepper says. Your average dove outputs about 10 liters of guano goodness a year. Each Shivta dovecote had compartments for 1,200 to 1,600 birds (under optimal conditions). Furthermore, the Shivta cotes were as much as 800 meters from the homes, not conveniently near the hearth. Others in the Middle East kept their doves in proximity to the home. That in and of itself indicates that the primary goal of pigeon husbandry in the Negev farms was for fertilizer, Tepper says.
FRANCE – 
Le Mans - Cela fait maintenant six mois qu'une équipe d'archéologues de l'Inrap (Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives) s'affaire au pied de la cathédrale Saint-Julien, au Mans. Le chantier, commencé en septembre 2017, s'étend sur près de 2 500 mètres carrés dans les jardins de l'édifice religieux. Muraille romaine du IIIe siècle, enceinte médiévale datant de la Guerre de Cent Ans, chapelle inconnue… Les archéologues vont de découverte en découverte.