It is the most beautiful mummy
I ever see. Ice Maiden, or Children of Llulailaco (la Doncella in Spanish) is a mummy found in in 1999 in an icy pit on Llullaillaco volcano. The 15-year-old girl/maiden were believed to be sacrificed more than 500 years ago in a ceremony marking the annual Andes corn harvest. Dressed in fine clothes and given corn alcohol to put her to sleep, the victim were then left to die at an elevation of 6,730 meters (22,080 feet). Currently, the well-preserved mummy of the Inca maiden is on display for the first time at a museum in Salta, Argentina. The serene gaze etched on her face from hundreds of years ago when she froze to death high in the Andes is still so charming. 
Source: Preserved mummy of 500-year-old Inca 'Ice Maiden' wows visitors @ Dailymail
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500-year-old Argentina Inca 'Ice Maiden' Mummy
World's Oldest Human Footprint Found in Eygpt
Archaeologists in Egypt claimed to have found what they believe might be the oldest human footprint in history.
"This could go back about two million years," said Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities. "It could be the most important discovery in Egypt," he said.
Archaeologists found the footprint, imprinted on mud and then hardened into rock, while exploring a prehistoric site in Siwa, a desert oasis.
Scientists are using carbon tests on plants found in the rock to determine its exact age, Hawass said.
Khaled Saad, the director of Prehistory Department at the council, said that based on the age of the rock where the footprint was found, it could date back even further than the renowned 3-million year-old fossil Lucy, the partial skeleton of a human, found in Ethiopia in 1974.
Source: Press TV
British Student Unearthed World's Oldest Chewing Gum in Finland
When excavating in a Neolithic area called “Kierikkikangas” (4.000 and 5.000 years before Christ) in Finland, the 23-year-old Sarah Pickin, from UK's Derby University discovered an unprecedented 5000-year-old “Chewing Gum”with tooth imprints on it. The world's oldest chewing gum is believed to be what Neolithic people used as an antiseptic. Link
Two-thousand-one-hundred-year-old Melon
A piece of melon with flesh still on the rind thought to be as the world's oldest was dugg out by Japanese archaeologists who dugg an excavation site at Moriyama in western Japan.
Based on a radiocarbon analysis, researchers estimate the half-rounded piece of fruit to be about 2,100 years old.
The melon might have been so well-preserved because it was in a vacuum-packed state in a wet layer below the ground, an environment hostile to microorganisms that might otherwise have broken down the remains.
Chinese Did Successful Skull Surgery 5,000 Years Ago
From CRI Online A human skull [left], which is believed to have had a successful brain operation some 5,000 years ago, was recently shown to the public at the Shangdong Provincial Museum.
The human skull was discovered in 1995, among relics of the Dawenkou culture, a society that lasted about 1,500 years, beginning around 6,100 years ago.
The skull was eventually excavated by archaeologists about six years ago.
Experts found a hole, 3.1 by 2.5 centimeters wide, on the right part of the top back of the skull, which is believed to be that of an adult male.
The circular arc on the edge of the hole was grown naturally, but only after some modifications and bone tissue repair was done.
Many experts believe this growth indicates that the skull’s owner survived the operation for a long period
of time afterwards, proving the prehistoric operation's success.
Such an intricate surgical operation, done in such an un-technological age, is believed to be the earliest successful brain operation conducted in Chinese medicine history.
.jpg "Photo credit: Xinhua")
Polynesian Discovered New World Discovered Earlier Than Colombus?
Maybe! From LiveScience via Popular history, and a familiar rhyme about Christopher Columbus, holds that Europeans made contact with the Americas in 1492, with some arguing that the explorer and his crew were the first outsiders to reach the New World.
But chicken bones recently unearthed at an archaeological site called El Arenal, on the south coast of Chile—dating prior to Columbus’ “discovery” of America and resembling the DNA of a fowl species native to Polynesia—may challenge that notion, researchers say.
While chickens aren’t native to the region, it was believed the local Araucana species found there now was brought to the Americas by Spanish settlers around 1500.
“Chickens could not have gotten to South America on their own—they had to be taken by humans,” said anthropologist Lisa Matisoo-Smith from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Polynesians made contact with the west coast of South America as much as a century before any Spanish conquistadors, her findings imply.
“We had the chicken bone directly dated by radio carbon. The calibrated date was clearly prior to 1492,” Matisoo-Smith told LiveScience, noting that it could have ranged anywhere from 1304 to 1424.
DNA extracted from the bones also matched closely with a Polynesian breed of chicken, rather than any chickens found in Europe.
Chinese Writing 8000 Years Old
Chinese archaeologists studying ancient rock carvings identified more than 2,000 pictorial symbols dating back 8,000 years, on the Damaidi Carvings in Zhongwei of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, northwestern China.Many of these symbols were believed to bear a strong resemblance to the ancient hieroglyphs of Chinese characters (oracle).
"We have found some symbols shaped like both pictures and characters, ...and many can be identified as ancient characters."" Li Xiangshi, a cliff carving expert at the North University of Nationalities in Ningxia , told Xinhua news agency.
The Damaidi carvings in Ningxia , first discovered in the 1980s, cover 15 sq km (5.8 square miles) and feature more than 8,000 individual figures including the sun, moon, stars, gods and scenes of hunting or grazing. links to BBC, Zaobao & Photos Xinhua
Update: More photos were added.
World's Oldest Wooden Anchor Discovered inTurky
Israeli archaeologists have discovered what they think as the world's oldest wooden anchor which was embedded in muck on the sea floor of an ancient Turkish port off the Aegean Sea.Dating from the end of the 7th century B.C., the anchor likely detached from a ship traveling to or from the Greek colony of Klazomenai, near the modern Turkish port city of Urla. Source: Livescience
2,700-year-old Fabric Found in Greece
The yellowed, brittle material was found inside a copper urn from a burial archaeologists speculated imitated the elaborate cremation of soldiers described in Homer's "Iliad" during excavation in the southern town of Argos, Greece."This is an extremely rare find, as fabric is an organic material which decomposes very easily," said archaeologist Alkistis Papadimitriou, who headed the dig. She said only a handful of such artifacts have been found in Greece.link
The cylindrical urn also contained dried pomegranates - offerings linked with the ancient gods of the underworld - along with ashes and charred human bones from an early 7th century B.C. cremation.
Papadimitriou said the material was preserved for nearly 3,000 years by the corroding copper urn. "Copper oxides killed the microbes which normally destroy fabric," she told The Associated Press.
"Our first concern is to save it," Papadimitriou said. "Afterward, it will undergo laboratory tests to tell us about the precise fabric and weaving techniques."
King Herod's Ancient Tomb Uncovered
After a 35-year search starting from 1972, Professor Ehud Netzer, an archaeologist from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, finally found Herod the Great's last resting place in Herodium, Herod's fortified palace on a hilltop in West bank.The tomb was located at Herodium, a hill rising more than 750 metres (2,475 ft) above sea level and 12 km (7.5 miles) south of Jerusalem in the West Bank.Link
"The location and unique nature of the findings, as well as the historical record, leave no doubt that this was Herod's burial site," Netzer said.
The pieces of the "large unique" sarcophagus, made of Jerusalem reddish limestone and decorated with rosettes, were discovered on the northeast slope of the hill.
Herod, sometimes called Herod the Great, was appointed king of Judea by the Romans in around 40 BC in the first century.
He greatly expanded the Jewish second temple and ordered building works in Caesaeria, Jericho and at the hilltop fortress of Masada overlooking the Dead Sea.
He is best known to Christians from the Gospel of St Matthew in the Bible for ordering the Slaughter of the Innocents - the mass killing of male babies in Bethlehem in a bid to avert a perceived threat to his rule.
What Looks Like World’s First Tree?
Scientists revealed that Earth's oldest known tree, Wattieza, which lived during the Middle Devonian period and preceded dinosaurs by 140 million years, was nearly 30 feet tall and looked like a modern palm.Workers uncovered hundreds of upright stumps of the 385 million-year-old tree more than a century ago, after a flash flood in Gilboa, New York uncovered them, but little else was known about the tree’s appearance.
Then, in 2004, scientists unearthed a 400-pound fossilized top — or crown — of the same genus a few miles away. The following summer, the same team discovered fragments of a 28-foot trunk. Piecing together stump, trunk and crown now reveals what the full tree looked like for the first time.
“These were very big trees,” said study team member William Stein, a paleobotanist at the State University of New York at Binghamton.“Our reconstruction shows them to be a lot longer and much more treelike than any of the reconstructions before,” Stein told LiveScience. “I don’t think any of us dared think of them being quite that big.”
The tree belonged to a group of early fern-like plants called Wattieza. Unlike flowering plants, which use seeds to reproduce, Wattieza used spores, the reproductive method of choice for algae, ferns and fungi.
Titanic Passenger List Now Viewable Online
For the first time ninety-five years after the luxury ocean liner sank on its maiden voyage on 12 April, 1912, the names, ages and professions of passengers listed on the Titanic's fateful journey have gone online. The image version of the list is available for free for only one week, while transcripts will be always free to view at findmypast.com. LinkOldest Noodles Made in China
Unearthed in Lajia archaeological site in China, the noodles made of grains from millet grass (modern noodles are made with wheat flour) 4,000 years ago is thought to be the oldest noodles by the archaeologiests."Prior to the discovery of noodles at Lajia, the earliest written record of noodles is traced to a book written during the East Han Dynasty sometime between AD 25 and 220, although it remained a subject of debate whether the Chinese, the Italians, or the Arabs invented it first."
"Our discovery indicates that noodles were first produced in China," Professor Houyuan Lu from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, explained to BBC News.
Rare Juvenile Keichosaur Fossil Found in China
(Xinhua/Yang Junjiang)A brief introduction to keichosaur from Fossilmall.com:
Keichousaurus hui, 胡氏贵州龙 in Chinese, is a semi-aquatic reptile dinosaur living in the Triasssic of China. The Keichosaurs were members of the Pachypleurisauridae, and as such were related to their contemporaries the Nothosaurs (indeed, at one point they were referred to the Nothosauridae). The genus derives its name from the 1957 location in Keichow Province where they were first discovered. The Keichousaurs were thought to be able to make their way on land by virtue of their strong limbs (note the robust ulna). Some believe they lived in a marshy environment. The Pachypleurosaurs are believed to have evolved in China, making their way to Europe via the northern border of the Tethys Sea. None of the later European members of the family had the massive limb bones seen in Keichousaurus.A more detailed Chinese introduction is available here.
Link to People Daily (in Chinese)