LONDON, Sept 22, 2008 (AFP) - Two bluestone fragments found at Britain's prehistoric Stonehenge monument could prove that the mysterious stone circle was once a centre of healing, archaeologists said Monday.

SOFIA, September 14, 2008 (AFP) - Bulgarian archeologist Georgi Kitov, who became world famous with discoveries of treasure-filled Thracian tombs in Bulgaria, died Sunday at age 65, BTA state news agency reported.

A US-led team of archaeologists said Thursday they had discovered by chance what is believed to be ...

US archaeologists have discovered the largest known burial ground of the Stone Age in the Sahara ...

LOS ANGELES, June 5, 2008 (AFP) - The J. Paul Getty Museum of Los Angeles has acquired a third-century Roman sarcophagus depicting classic bacchanalian scenes it intends to make a centerpiece of its antiquities collection, the museum said Thursday.

NUMANTIA ARCHEOLOGICAL SITE, Spain, May 6, 2008 (AFP) - In the north of Spain, a local aristocrat is leading a quixotic fight against bureaucracy and bulldozers to preserve the ancient site where Celtiberic tribes bravely resisted the Roman occupation.

BERLIN, April 30, 2008 (AFP) - German police said Wednesday they have seized 100 million dollars (65 million euros) worth of Mayan, Aztec and Incan artefacts in the latest twist in a real-life saga worthy of 'Indiana Jones.'

BERLIN, April 30, 2008 (AFP) - Police in Munich have seized a trove of Mayan, Aztec and Incan artefacts worth an estimated 100 million dollars (64 million euros), according to a statement Wednesday.

CHICAGO, March 31, 2008 (AFP) - Archeologists have unearthed a nearly 4,000-year-old necklace which shows that gold was being used as a status symbol in the Americas much earlier than previously thought, according to a study released Monday.

LUXOR, Egypt, March 22, 2008 (AFP) - Egyptian and European archeologists on Saturday announced they had discovered a giant statue of an ancient pharaonic queen on the spectacular south Egypt site of the Colossi of Memnon.

The statue represents Queen Tiy, the wife of 18th dynasty Pharaoh Amenhotep III, and stands 3.62 metres high (almost 12 feet).

CAIRO, March 19, 2008 (AFP) - Egyptian antiquities chief Zahi Hawass threatened on Wednesday to withdraw archeological items on show in Switzerland because of a parallel picture exhibition he deemed offensive to Egypt.

VIENNA, March 13, 2008 (AFP) - Archaeologists from Vienna have unearthed evidence that Jews were living in parts of modern-day Austria as early as the third century AD, six hundred year earlier than previously thought.

STOCKHOLM, Feb 19, 2008 (AFP) - Sweden's Lund University on Tuesday returned to Australia the remains of two Aborigines that had been in its possession since the end of the 19th century, the university said.

NEW YORK, Feb 6, 2008 (AFP) - A US Army helicopter pilot has been charged with handling ancient Egyptian artifacts looted from a museum near Cairo in 2002, New York prosecutors said Wednesday.

LIMA, Jan 13, 2008 (AFP) - Jenna Bush, one of US President George W. Bush's twin daughters, traveled Sunday to Cuzco in the Peruvian Andes for a visit to the ancient Incan ruins of Macchu Picchu, the official news agency Andina said.

Bush, 26 arrived in Peru Saturday to assist in the UN's children programs in the country.

CAIRO, Nov 18, 2007 (AFP) - Germany is willing to consider whether an ancient Egyptian statue at the centre of a row between the two countries can be returned to Cairo for display, Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said on Sunday.

LOS ANGELES, Nov 16, 2007 (AFP) - A US Army captain was charged Friday with taking more than 30,000 dollars in bribes from contractors in Iraq and removing a piece of ancient pottery from an Iraqi archeological site.

GENEVA, Oct 5, 2007 (AFP) - It's not quite 'One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing', let alone 'Jurassic Park', but Swiss archeologists were in a state of high anxiety Friday after thieves stole traces of a dinosaur footprint from an excavation site.

The footprint, left by a three-tonne Allosaurus dinosaur around 152 million years ago, is about 40 centimetres wide by 70 centimetres long, said Wolfgang Hug, chief archeologist at the dig site in Courtedoux, Jura in northwestern Switzerland.

COPENHAGEN, Sept 19, 2007 (AFP) - One of Denmark's national treasures, a set of two horns made in the 1800s, was recovered by police Tuesday after being stolen in the early hours of Monday, local television station TV2Syd reported.

Police inspector Steen Edeling told the station in the central town of Vejle that the horns had been found. He did not give any details, but a press conference was to be held in Vejle at 0800 GMT Wednesday.

COPENHAGEN, Sept 17, 2007 (AFP) - One of Denmark's national treasures, a set of two horns made in the 1800s, was stolen in the early hours of Monday, Danish police said.

Called 'Guldhornene' in Danish, or the Golden Horns, the pieces are silver replicas of two original gold horns made in 400 A.D. which were stolen in 1802 and destroyed.

The replicas, with a thin gold coating, were on loan from the National Museum of Denmark for an exhibit in Jelling, near the central Danish town of Vejle, when they were stolen by thieves who smashed a display case.

NEW YORK, Sept 17, 2007 (AFP) - Yale University is to return to Peru thousands of artifacts taken from the ancient Inca citadel of Machu Picchu by a real-life Indiana Jones nearly 100 years ago, the top US university said.

Archaeologist Hiram Bingham, a Yale history professor, stumbled across the Machu Picchu ruins while exploring the Peruvian Andes in 1911, rediscovering an ancient city first built in the 1500s but long-since abandoned.

HOUSTON, Texas, Sept 1, 2007 (AFP) - Lucy, the world's most famous fossil, took on a new role as international tourist when she went on public display this week for the first time outside Ethiopia since her discovery in 1974.

Lucy is no longer the oldest-known member of the human family tree, but dating back 3.2 million years and with 40 percent of her skeleton recovered, she is the oldest, most complete specimen of an early human species.

ORESHETZ, Bulgaria, Aug 22, 2007 (AFP) - Could the Balkans, rather than previously accepted areas such as the Strait of Gibralter, have been the entry point for the first men in Europe?

A team of 20 Bulgarian and French archeologists are trying to prove this theory after 11 years of excavation and research in the Kozarnika cave in northwestern Bulgaria.

The digging up at this mountainous site of traces of human activity dating back 1.4 to 1.6 million years throws into question theories about when and where man first set foot in Europe.

THESSALONIKI, Greece, July 23, 2007 (AFP) - A group of paleontologists have discovered the tusks and petrified remains of a mastodon, or large mammoth-like mammal, that lived some three million years ago, the head of the team told AFP Monday.

The Greek paleontologists from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, along with Dutch specialists from the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam, discovered the remains in the northern Milia region near Grevena.