At https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2019/10/ancient-genomes-prov… … a team has hanalysed plague victims from the UK, France, Germany, Russia, and Switzerland in order to gain more info on the secondary outbreaks – from the 14th to 18th centuries AD. The Black Death itself occurred in mid 14th century and appears to display evidence of a single strain of the virus, However, there was subsequently a host of later outbreaks of the plague, some of them quite devastating. Later outbreaks display evidence of a wider genetic diversity – multiple strains of the plague.
At https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2019/09/new-excavation-of-pr… … the site of Vix sits on a promontory overlooking the Seine and was fortified by a complex of ramparts. It was a Celtic stronghold. This post concerns what we are told is the grave of a lady of status.
At https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2019/09/insight-into-competi… … another attempt to understand why Neanderthals became extinct and replaced by modern humans. It seems that projectile weapons have now been dated 20,000 years earlier than previously – bringing their invention to around the time Neanderthals disappeared. The thinking here is that spear thrower and bow and arrow technologies allowed modern humans to out compete the Neanderthals – even though there had been a mass die off of large mammals at the same point in time. Might it be the idea of arrows and spear throwers (and any kind of projectile) was actually based on something people at that time had witnessed – shooting stars and meteorites.