The Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) said archaeologists have uncovered two 9,500-year-old animal figurines in excavations just outside of Jerusalem.

Found at the Tel Moza site, one of the Neolithic figures is a limestone ram with precisely carved spiral horns. The other is a more abstract sculpture of a wild bovine fashioned from dolomite, according to the IAA. Both are about 6 inches (15 centimeters) long.

The figurines were found near the remains of an ancient, round building, dating back to a dynamic time in the region's history when humans were transitioning from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of farming and settling in villages.

The animal figurines then may have been associated with the process of animal domestication, an IAA statement said, though one excavator at the site, Hamoudi Khalaily, believes they may have been "good-luck statues" to ensure hunting success.

Excavations at Tel Moza are taking place ahead of the expansion of Highway 1, the main road connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Metro Detroiters love to celebrate their local history, especially when it involves the noble, magnificent and world-class chapters of the past: The auto industry. Motown Records. The Underground Railroad. Diego Rivera. Coney Islands.

On the other hand, local history has its crazy uncles. Those are chapters that are fascinating and important, yet rarely discussed, hidden in the back room. Henry Ford's anti-Semitism, the Free Press' 19th Century racism and the auto companies' early abuse of workers come to mind.

Then there is the granddaddy of all forgotten local history. The subject no one talks about, virtually ever. The most overlooked topic of them all.

Slavery.

Slavery in Detroit has remained an enormous secret. It is an essential chapter in Detroit's 311-year story, but it has been pushed back into archives and covered up by decades of neglect and denial. Few people, even well-informed college graduates, know anything about it. Yet slavery is a phenomenon that played a key role in the growth of Detroit, and it lasted about 120 years, more than a third of Detroit's existence.

When metro Detroiters talk about slavery, they talk about black men and women picking cotton in Georgia and Mississippi because that is what students in southeastern Michigan learn in school.

Yet slavery is very much homegrown. What has been called the "national sin" is also Detroit's sin. It is the origin of our racial crisis, our peculiar institution, our "necessary evil." Slavery belongs to Detroit just like slavery belongs to Charleston, Monticello and New Orleans.

Many roads, schools and communities across southeast Michigan carry the names of old, prominent families that owned slaves: Macomb, Campau; Beaubien; McDougall; Abbott; Brush; Cass; Hamtramck; Gouin; Meldrum; Dequindre; Beaufait; Groesbeck; Livernois and Rivard, among many others.

Detroit's first mayor, John R. Williams, the namesake of two streets in Detroit - John R and Williams - owned slaves. The Catholic Church in Detroit was heavily involved in slavery - priests owned slaves and baptized them, and at least one slave worked on the construction of Ste. Anne's Church around 1800. The men who funded the founding of the Free Press in 1831 were ex-slave owners, and the paper supported slavery during the national debate before the Civil War.

The work of slaves was a key to Detroit's growth. And just like in the South, slavery in Detroit was reinforced by violence. Slaves worked without any pay for their entire lives, under threat of the lash and death.

Owners used their power over slaves to steal their labor and enrich themselves. Slaves arrived in Detroit stripped of their identity, culture, family and often their name. They were frequently maimed from torture.

Slaves died, often young, and were buried in graveyards that were soon forgotten, and then paved over by later generations of Detroiters, and their bones remain underfoot in America's blackest big city, and their stories continue to be unknown in a region where race always has been a consuming issue.

Washington: Human skeletons estimated to be about 850-years-old have been found by a group of excavators at an archaeological site in Mexico.

The skeletons were found at an archaeological site at Sierra Gorda in the central state of Queretaro during consolidation work of a pre-Hispanic structure - Building 17 of Huastec complex.

Jorge Quiroz, head of the excavation project, said the skeletons can be as old as 1150 DC, about two centuries after Tancama had been vacated by pre-historic locals.

"People who already lived in other places, came back to this city to deposit their dead in some of its structures (necropolis). This hypothesis might only be corroborated with further studies," Quiroz was quoted saying by Artdaily.

English is descended from a language that emerged in Turkey 8,000 and 9,500 years ago, new research suggests.

Scientists traced the origin of languages classed as Indo-European to Anatolia, an ancient region of western Asia which covers most of modern Turkey.

English is part of the Indo-European language family, which includes more than 400 languages and dialects such as German, French, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Persian, Hindi and ancient Greek.

It is believed that these languages evolved from a common ancestor.

Experts think Indo-European languages spread out from the Middle East along with agriculture.

Scientists led by Remco Bouckaert, from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, traced the origins of Indo-European languages using a method borrowed from evolutionary biologists.

Instead of comparing DNA from different species, the researchers looked at 'cognates' - which are words with a common origin.

A just-deciphered ancient Greek poem discovered in Egypt, deifies Poppaea Sabina, the wife of the infamous Roman emperor Nero, showing her ascending to the stars.

Based on the lettering styles and other factors, scholars think the poem was written nearly 200 years after Nero died (about 1,800 years ago), leaving them puzzled as to why someone so far away from Rome, would bother composing or copying it at such a late date.

In the poem, Poppaea ascends to heaven and becomes a goddess. The ancient goddess Aphrodite says to Poppaea, "my child, stop crying and hurry up: with all their heart Zeus' stars welcome you and establish you on the moon..."

Nero was one of the most infamous rulers who ever lived. Ancient writers say that he killed his own mother, Agrippina, and his first wife Octavia.

He is also said to have killed Poppaea herself with a kick to her stomach while she was pregnant. If that wasn't enough, the well-known line - "Nero fiddles while Rome burns" - is an apocryphal phrase related to a great fire that ravaged Rome for six days during his reign.

Poppaea herself is also depicted in a less-than-positive light by ancient writers. When Octavia was killed, Poppaea was said to have been presented with her head. Some sources also speculate that she was the power behind the throne that encouraged Nero to murder his mother.

King Richard III of England had the honor of being memorialized in a William Shakespeare play after his death in battle in 1485. Now, modern-day archaeologists are on the hunt for the medieval king's physical resting place.

The University of Leicester, Leicester City Council and the Richard III Society have joined forces to search for the grave of Richard III, thought to be under a parking lot for city council offices. The team will use ground-penetrating radar to search for the ideal spots to dig.

"This archaeological work offers a golden opportunity to learn more about medieval Leicester as well as about Richard III's last resting place - and, if he is found, to re-inter his remains with proper solemnity in Leicester Cathedral," Philippa Langley, a Richard III Society member, said in a statement.

Richard III was King of England from 1483 to 1485. He died during the Battle of Bosworth Field during the War of the Roses, an English civil war between the House of Lancaster and the House of York. Richard III was the last English king to die in battle. Shakespeare penned Richard III, a play about the tragic king, approximately 100 years later.

Regardless of his Shakespeare claim to fame, the king was talked about for his own right. "Richard III is a charismatic figure who attracts tremendous interest, partly because he has been so much maligned in past centuries, and partly because he occupies a pivotal place in English history," Langley said.

Archaeologists digging for evidence of Romans in South Devon have gone back even further in history.

The large-scale dig in Ipplepen has led to the discovery of a 'native village' which could have pre-dated the Romans.

The Herald Express withheld the site location until experts were able to get on site. It can now be revealed the dig is taking place at Ipplepen.

Excavation work has uncovered the remains of a round house, the type of houses lived in by native Britons during the Iron Age and unlike the Roman houses which were usually square.

The presence of Roman pottery indicates that the round house was still used after the Romans arrived.

The dig was triggered by a chance find of some coins by metal detectorist Philip Wills, of Torquay.

He discovered a coin called a Denarius, currency that was minted in Rome and was probably brought to Britain by the Romans when they invaded in 43 AD.

Then Mr Wills and fellow enthusiast Dennis Hewings, of Paignton, found more evidence of Romano-British activity.

Details were passed to Danielle Wootton, the Devon finds liaison officer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

Geophysical surveys later uncovered evidence of an extensive settlement including roundhouses, quarry pits and track ways.

A prehistoric druidical rock worshipping place and shelter resembling those in Europe and Africa, have been discovered amid the hillocks skirting Chittivalsa village in Srikakulam district by a freelance archaeologist, K. Venkateswara Rao recently.

The cluster of unique oval-shaped standing rock formations each measuring about eight metres in height and 28 metres in circumference and having well-defined ledge cuts and postholes used for wooden canopy like shelter, could have been a habitation and a place of worship. That a prehistoric circular hut existed here is indicated by circular postholes found on boulders opposite to the cluster of standing rocks within a radius of 3.05 metres.

Quite surprisingly, the rocks are well protected as the place continues to be revered as 'Pandavulapancha,' 'Pandavuladoddi' and 'Demudurallu' (stones of God) in the local legend, the belief being Pandavas lived in the rock shelter for some time during their 'aranyavasa' and the place belongs to God.

Pandavulapancha, the name given to a naturally formed cavern containing five rock beds is located on the rear side. These beds are hewn on the large inclined rock aligned in the north-south direction, another proof of prehistoric people living there. The cavern was later occupied by Jain ascetics by making some alterations to the beds and chiselling channels around the bed enabling free flow of rain water.

It's not every day that a famous historical event, scrutinized by generations of classical scholars, can be re-dated by two astronomers and their college honors class. But that's exactly what Donald W. Olson and Russell Doescher of Texas State University did, with the help of students Kellie Beicker and Amanda Gregory. They report their findings in the August 2008 Sky & Telescope, which has just hit the newsstands..

Tipped off by Don in advance, I was fortunate to be able to join the team's research trip to the southern coast of England last summer. The white cliffs of Dover, subject of a memorable song from World War II, were also the setting for a much earlier clash of civilizations. Along this very shore, Julius Caesar first landed with two legions of Roman soldiers in 55 BC.

Caesar, in his first-hand account of the invasion, carefully noted the phase of the Moon, the approach of the equinox, and above all the unexpected ocean tides his fleet encountered. So it's a simple matter for any astronomer to determine the precise date of the invasion, right?

Wrong! No lesser astronomers than Edmond Halley and George B. Airy carefully studied the astronomical aspects of 55 BC in hopes of letting historians know the exact date and location where Caesar and his legions came ashore. But Airy and Halley disagreed with each other. And what's more, they both got it partly wrong, as Olson's Texas State team found out on their research trip.

Find could lend credence to idea that man evolved in Asia, rather than Africa

For scientists the evolution debate regarding man is far from over. No, not that debate -- the debate among researchers largely involves where the earliest primates (which predate the hominids that surveyed the Pleistocene plains of Africa) evolved, and also where humans migrated early in their history.

A newly published study [abstract] in the prestigious peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal offers both the oldest confirmed human skull fossil, and evidence of early migration from mankind's likely evolution location (in Africa) to a new home in Southeast Asia.

Researchers traveled to a cave near Tam Pa Ling in the Annamite Mountains where a 16,000-year-old human skull was discovered in the early 1900s. Searching deeper, they found a skull that was dated (using direct uranium dating) to a maximum age of 63,000 years ago. Combined with luminescent (which measures stored energy from solar heat/radiation in the crystalline component of soil buried in dark locations) and carbon dating of the surrounding sediments, it was determined that the individual -- whose gender was not determined in the work -- lived between 46,000 and 51,000 years ago.