The news page

[marduk]

Beagle mentioned the degree

yeah but
hes a Yank

The main problem with degrees is that they can narrow a person's vision.

you see that as a problem for a doctor do you ?

[Digit]

As a trick cyclist informed my wife that I am sane I'll leave you to decide that Marduk!

[marduk]

tell me about your mother

[Digit]

What makes you think I had one?

[Beagle]

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2190045.ece

A macabre 1,700-year-old mass grave of people and horses, discovered in Normandy, poses perplexing new questions about the Roman conquest of France. Was there a small part of ancient Gaul which refused, Asterix-like, to surrender for 300 years?

The grave site, from the 3rd century, which was discovered by French state archaeologists at Evreux, appears to contain ritual arrangements of human and horse remains. In one, a human skull is clasped between two horse's skulls, like the two halves of a giant shell.

From: Archaeologica News

[Forum Monk]

In one, a human skull is clasped between two horse's skulls, like the two halves of a giant shell.

Wonder what that means, clasped.
Was that some kind of haute couture helment?

[Beagle]

It would be nice to see the entire ritual arrangement, in that some general theme might emerge. It's hard to say anything about an isolated arrangement.

To me anyway.

[Minimalist]

Was there a small part of ancient Gaul which refused, Asterix-like, to surrender for 300 years?

If memory serves, Normandy suffered barbarian raids in the 3'd century. They were significant enough that a legion had to be moved there.

[Beagle]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070126/sc ... 0126222912

DUBLIN (AFP) - An ancient boat discovered in a riverbed north of Dublin may be the first Viking longship found in the country, Environment and Heritage Minister Dick Roche said.

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The wreck in the River Boyne, close to the northeastern port of Drogheda, was described by Roche as potentially an "enormously exciting discovery

From Archaeologica News.

[Beagle]

http://fullcoverage.yahoo.com/s/nm/2007 ... MlJVRPUCUl

Experts say the city was likely not Olmec but adopted that people's culture and gods as rising local elites tried to distinguish themselves from agrarian counterparts.

The Olmecs used jade and other stones from throughout Mexico to create their famed sculptures of oddly helmeted heads up to 10 feet tall, indicating a wide commercial network.

The ruins, which consist of the bases of six ceremonial temples and two small sculptures of jaguar-like men, were discovered when a neighboring brewery began building a parking lot.

Another update on the Olmecs.
From the News Section

[Beagle]

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_b ... 214843.ece

Archaeologists have discovered that what had been thought to be a relatively small, down-market amphitheatre in Britain was in fact a top-of-the-range, though admittedly more intimate, version of Rome's famous gladiatorial arena.

Indeed, this British Colosseum - in Chester - may well have been built as a replica of the one in Rome, possibly on the orders of the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus, who was in Britain at the time.

Although it was much smaller than the Colosseum, its outer wall appears to have had a blind arcade of 80 arches, giving it a superficially similar appearance to the one in Rome. If the archaeologists' calculations are correct, Rome and Chester were the only places in the Roman world to have amphitheatres with that number of arches.

From the News Section.

[Beagle]

http://www.ansa.it/site/notizie/awnplus ... 34893.html

Rome, February 1 - The origins of the famed buried city of Pompeii have emerged from years of excavations, an international conference in Rome was told Thursday.

The first Pompeii was not built by the Romans or even by the Greeks who preceded them, but by an ancient people called the Samnites, Pompeii heritage Superintendent Piero Guzzo told a packed audience of archaeologists and scholars

"Pompeii has become, once again, a great laboratory for research".

From the News Section.

[Beagle]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/dna-te ... 31024.html

RESIDENTS of a remote Chinese village are hoping DNA tests will prove one of history's most unlikely legends, that they are descended from Roman legionaries lost in antiquity.

Scientists have taken blood samples from 93 people living around Liqian, a settlement in north-western China on the fringes of the Gobi Desert, more than 300 kilometres from the nearest city.

They are seeking an explanation for the unusual number of local people with Western characteristics - green eyes, big noses, and even blond hair - mixed with traditional Chinese features.

From The Daily Grail.

[Forum Monk]

And if you tie down their hands, they can't talk.

[Minimalist]

Perhaps it was they who invented pasta and shipped it back to Italy?