M.J. Rose

Oh, what lurks below…

“Human remains and gravestones periodically turn up around New York, and some estimate there are thousands of dead beneath the city. Bryant Park was similarly used as a potter’s field in the 19th century.”

Two centuries-old tombs unearthed beneath historic New York City park

(The Guardian)
The tombs, which city archaeologists knew existed but were unsure exactly where, were discovered during a water main dig and are about two centuries old

“City workers have discovered two burial vaults underneath Washington Square Park in New York City, uncovering the remains of at least a dozen people interred around two centuries ago.

Contractors for the city department of design and construction (DDC) uncovered the first vault on Tuesday, during excavations to replace a century-old water main on the east side of the park, in the heart of bustling Greenwich Village. The workers called an archaeologist contracted by the city, who opened a way into the chamber only 3.5ft beneath the sidewalk.

Inside they found an arched brick chamber with skulls, femurs and other bones littered on the dirt floor.

The first vault was actually a rediscovery: power company ConEdison first uncovered the vault in 1965, finding 25 skeletons inside. Before this week’s excavation archaeologists knew the tomb existed, but were not sure where thanks to the company’s poor record-keeping….”

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As our waters recede due to drought, strange and beautiful things emerge – as if from a time machine.

Colonial church emerges from receding reservoir in Mexico
SF Gate/Associated Press

“MEXICO CITY — Leonel Mendoza fishes every day in a reservoir surrounded by forest and mountains in the southern Mexico state of Chiapas. But in recent days, he also has been ferrying curious passengers out to see the remains of a colonial-era church that has emerged from the receding waters.

A drought this year has hit the watershed of the Grijalva river, dropping the water level in the Nezahualcoyotl reservoir by 82 feet.

It is the second time a drop in the reservoir has revealed the church since it was flooded when the dam was completed in 1966. In 2002, the water was so low visitors could walk inside the church.

“The people celebrated. They came to eat, to hang out, to do business. I sold them fried fish. They did processions around the church,” Mendoza said.

The church in the Quechula locality was built by a group of monks headed by Friar Bartolome de la Casas, who arrived in the region inhabited by the Zoque people in the mid-16th century…”

For the rest, and a video too, click here.

News of the very, very old. This time, it’s about incredibly ancient art.

So far the team has unearthed three engraved fragments – and they hope to find more

Ice Age engravings found at Jersey archaeological site
By Jonathan Webb (BBC News)

“A dig in Jersey has yielded a stash of hunter-gatherer artefacts from the end of the last Ice Age, including stone pieces criss-crossed by carved lines.

They are similar to engravings found from the same period in continental Europe, but are the first of their kind in the British Isles.

Archaeologists are in the early stages of analysing the finds, but estimate them to be at least 14,000 years old.

This places the camp among the earliest in northern Europe after the freeze.

It would also mean that the markings pre-date the earliest known art in the UK, which was found carved into stone walls and bones at Creswell Crags in Derbyshire in 2003.

However, the team wants to study the engravings more closely and hopefully find more of them, before making any grand claims.

Dr Chantal Conneller is co-director of the Ice Age Island project, which for five years has been working on the Les Varines site in the south east area of Jersey. She told the BBC: “We’re feeling reasonably confident at the moment that what we’ve got fits into this broader idea of non-representational Magdalenian art…”

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