Archaeology's Top Ten of 2007

Archaeology Magazine lists the top ten discoveries for 2007 online and in its Jan-Feb issue. They include new dating on Clovis points, discoveries at Tell Brak, Syria, Chankillo, Peru (& the squash seeds in Peru), Anghor, Cambodia, and Lismullin, Ireland, where a big Iron Age settlement was found within a mile of Tara.

That last one is pictured at right.
Highway workers found a henge--a ceremonial enclosure--dating back 2000 years.

People are irate over this: Lismullin is scheduled for demolition, like other towns along the M3 path. The EU is actually taking Ireland to the European Court of Justice over this! Yay! Here's the magazine link, and here's the Save Tara website.

In late November, those highway workers made another significant find: a carved stone probably dating back to the time that Newgrange was constructed, some 5000 years. Here's the story.

And here's the picture.

Also in the past few weeks, in Collierstown in the same vicinity, 60 bodies were unearthed, buried in a concentric circle. At another village, Roestown, a prehistoric game board, beads and jewelry--including gold torcs--were excavated. Here's a really interesting website that charts information of all the discoveries made in the area. Those discoveries include graves, mounds, filled-in ditches, homes and work areas that date back to the Bronze Age and before, all the way up to Medieval era.

Right. Who wouldn't want to run a highway through that?

That last website is maintained by the highway authorities. They state that the point of the excavation is: "should you so want to you could recreate the site. "

Recreation, not preservation. That's sad.