Roman Bioarchaeology Carnival XXXV

This carnival is a wee bit late owing to Thanksgiving and, well, my forgetful mama-brain.  But here are your links from November...

New Finds

• 30 October - Sex slaves, public executions - yet glorious art like this: A majestic Roman eagle, newly unearthed in London, and a gripping account of life in AD 100 (Daily Mail).

• 1 November - 6000 years of occupation at a site in eastern France. Human remains include a very awesome skull with cranial modification from the Merovingian era.  This type of modification is very uncommon in Europe, but it's thought that the practice came over with the Huns.

• 11 November - Experts unearth treasures of prehistoric Cambridge at Great Kneighton site (Cambridge News).

• 11 November - Roman child's coffin opened for the first time (BBC). This is a very cool find, as the child was buried in a lead sarcophagus.  These sarcophagi aren't all that common, especially for kids.  Unfortunately, the news media(?) has insisted the child needs a fake name. Since they don't know if the child was male or female yet, it seems particularly premature to select a name (and pretty much every option appears to be male or neuter, in spite of the fact that jewelry typically associated with girls was found in the sarcophagus). Not that I think we need to rename skeletons anyway; they had names. It's kind of disrespectful to give them new ones just because we don't know them. Pictures after it was opened.

Roman lead sarcophagus (via Archaeology Warwickshire)

• 14 November - Roman chamber tomb found in ancient Corinth (Archaeology News Network).

• 20 November - Archaeologists find perfectly-preserved Iron Age skeleton under a car park in the Cotswalds (SWNS).

• 28 November - Castione, scoperto scheletro antico (RSI). An intact Iron Age skeleton was found in Castione, Switzerland.

The Iron Age skeleton from Castione (via RSI)

In the News Again

• 30 October - The Roman tombs at the Dakhla Oasis in Egypt have been restored.

• 18 November - St. Peter's purported bones to be exhibited at the Vatican (Guardian).

• 19 November - Catacombs restored in Rome (Vatican Radio).

Social Media

• Sarah Bond (Marquette U) and I have created the Ancient Studies Articles Podcast.  There's a link to subscribe at the PbO post.  (It's not yet indexed on iTunes, but I hope that's happening soon.) If you like what we're doing, help us by recording an open-source article on ancient history!

• Time Travel? There is an app for that! (Past Horizons)