Megalithic Portal News

Fool's Names -- Defacing Utah Rock Art. See comment.. Rock Art in Washington County, Utah.Land Hill is located within the Bureau of Land Management's Santa Clara Reserve. The area is known for petroglyphs.

. I'm very pleased to announce the winners of the competition for the best photos submitted to us in December 2011, voted for by you. This month we have a 'hat trick' of Avebury and Stonehenge photos and some great Highly Commended entries as well. 1st Prize: Silbury Hill (long exposure) by Hamish Fenton 2nd Prize: Avebury Solstice light by Jimllmixit 3rd Prize: Stonehenge Stone 54 by Simon Charlesworth (Sem) View the photos and more Highly Commended entries below.

Booking opened for guided walk with John Barnatt - places are limited!. The Megalithic Portal Live on Stanton Moor and Beeley Moor in the Derbyshire Peak District, Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th July. Part of the Festival of British Archaeology and our little unofficial contribution to the 2012 Olympics cultural events. A free weekend of guided walks and talks with archaeologists and prehistory experts.

. Late Palaeolithic rock art discovered in 2007. 15-20.000 years ago the waters of the Nile were much higher than today. The broad Wadi Abu Subeira may have been a small 'fjord', reaching several kilometres into the Eastern Desert: A great habitat for wildlife in the otherwise hyperarid environment and a great place for humans to stay – to fish and hunt – and to access the interior of the desert and perhaps the Red Sea.

. A Palaeolithic settlement in the Azraq Basin of eastern Jordan. Recent excavations have revealed insights into the lifestyles of 20,000-year-old hunter gatherers who lived here during the last Ice Age when the deserts of Jordan were in bloom, with rivers, streams, and seasonal lakes and ponds providing a rich environment for hunter-gatherers to settle in.

Bones of early American disappear from underwater cave near Mexico's Tulum. . Tulum is a walled, Post Classical (ca. 1200- 1450 AD) Mayan town. There are ruins of a temple on a pyramid, a palace, and the "Temple of the Frescos" where some painted plasterwork remains. Tulum is perhaps most famous for its spectacular seaside location.

. English Heritage write: We are pleased to be providing Managed Open Access to Stonehenge for the Summer Solstice. Please help us create a peaceful occasion by taking personal responsibility and following the Conditions of Entry and guidelines set out on the following pages.

. This is an odd site whose name is probably Victorian rather than ancient. The spring is enclosed in an unusual 'mini dolmen' structure.

Panther Cave and other Rock Art in danger on the Lower Pecos River, Texas. Rock Art in Texas. This page includes several sites of the Pecos River culture in the Seminole Canyon State Historical Park.

Ness of Brodgar in the spotlight at the Orkney Museum. The Orkney Museum's contents reflect Orkney's incredible heritage and history. Relics stretch back 5,000 years or more to finds from the earliest house in Europe (at Knap of Howar on Papa Westray) and the many other Neolithic and more recent archaeological sites unearthed around Orkney.

Permission granted for excavations at the collapsed Carwynnen Quoit . The Sustainable Trust managed to raised the funds to buy this ruined scheduled ancient monument set in 5 acres of land, to allow access to the road. Following another year's fundraising in a difficult time, they decided just to work on the archaeological side of the project and leave the restoration for another year.

One of Earliest Farming Sites in Europe Discovered. A Neolithic farming settlement. Recent research findings show that Vashtëmi, located in southeastern Albania, was occupied around 6,500 cal BC, making it one of the earliest farming sites in Europe.

. Barrow Cemetery in Surrey. A significant group of Bronze Age bowl barrows near Reigate consists of 7 mounds (4 unquestionable bowl barrows and 3 probable ones). The barrow cemetery is easily accessible as the mounds are located near the major footpaths on Reigate Heath.

. I'm very pleased to announce the winners of the competition for the best photos submitted to us in November 2011, voted for by you: 1st Prize: Twyn Ddu by Sem 2nd Prize: Visbeker Braut by Martin L 3rd Prize: King Arthur's Hall by Cazzyjane View the photos and more Highly Commended entries below.

Tuilyies stones used as a pilot project to create accurate retopologised 3D models from photogrammetry - video and images below. Stone setting in Fife. This unusual group of 4 stones comprises an 8 foot high cup marked stone and 3 boulders. The east face of the standing stone is covered with vertical grooves due to weathering and, at its the lower end, many cup marks.

A few tickets still available for the Megalithomania conference and live streaming also available. The next Megalithomania Conference is on Saturday and Sunday, 12/13th May 2012 at The Assembly Rooms Glastonbury, with speakers including: Robin Heath - Megalithic Sites of Wales Klaus Dona (from Austria) - Prehistoric Artifacts from Secret Collections around the World Sig Lonegren - Ancient Sites in the Netherlands and Scandinavia

'Paleoindians did not live by red meat alone'- Study of Stone Tools May Reveal Ceremonial Lives. "[An] often single-minded focus of archaeologists on Paleoindian stone-tool technology and hunting practices [neglects] the social and religious lives of these ancient people, which admittedly are much harder to discern from the meager evidence. It is relatively easy to read the story of big-game hunting in stone spear points, but those same stone points also may have other kinds of stories to tell."

Dig discovers a possible sixth chamber in Banks chambered tomb. The site containing human remains was uncovered by a local man while using a mechanical digger to landscape his garden at Banks on the island of South Ronaldsay.

. Michael Hauser a german ethnologist and expierienced Bhutan guide discovered in the early 1990s a Dolmen in Bhumthang close to the Thamshing monastery at the opposite side of the Kurjey Lhakhang (monastery) and the Bumthang Chu (river). It seems to be one of several remains of an unknown neolithic culture in Bhutan.

Time Team discovers 3,000 years of history at Cardiff site. Caerau Hillfort is a large triangular multivallate Iron Age hillfort occupying the western tip of an extensive ridge-top plateau in the western suburbs of Caerau and Ely, Cardiff, Wales. The old parish church, St Mary’s, and a small ringwork, almost certainly a medieval castle site probably contemporary with the church, stand within the hillfort on the north-eastern side.