Archaeology news for May 1-12

[archersangel]

How a diamond rush led to an ancient, underwater secret

In 1908, a German prospector found a diamond in the Namibian Desert. The area came to be known as the Sperrgebiet, or "forbidden territory," and was soon overrun by Germans on the hunt for the precious stone (they annexed 10,000 square miles of the desert for themselves). Today, DeBeers and the Namibian government still run a joint operation in the area.

But on April 1, 2008 a worker discovered something far more valuable. He'd been searching for diamonds but struck on gold -- only this gold had been missing for nearly half a millennia.

(entry removed because it turned out to not be true)

900-Year-Old Village Recorded in Volcanic Badlands of New Mexico

In the black-rock badlands of northwestern New Mexico, archaeologists have documented a 900-year-old village with unique ties to the Ancestral Puebloan citadel of Chaco Canyon. Consisting of more than a hundred separate sites, including a two-story great house with as many as 85 rooms, the newly recorded community shows a strong influence of Chacoan culture, but at the same time, it appears to have other qualities not found anywhere else.