Burial Excavations- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington

There are two types of unmarked human burial excavation permits, an Annual Human Burial Excavation Permit, and a project-specific Human Burial Excavation Permit.


The Annual Human Burial Excavation Permit is the most common permit issued by the CPRC for the excavation, removal, or collection of human remains from an unmarked human burial ground located state or private land within the state of New Mexico. This type of permit is recommended for consultants who conduct numerous archaeological excavations throughout the year or for the consultant who would like to provide his or her services should an unmarked human burial be discovered outside the context of a planned excavation project.


Unmarked human burials are considered to include all associated material objects and artifacts interred with the human remains. Permit holders are required to notify appropriate law enforcement authorities and the Office of the Medical Investigator to determine if the remains have medicolegal significance before removing or disturbing the remains. Permit holders are also required to submit a proposed disposition plan following the recovery of human remains for approval by the permitting authority. There is no application fee for this type of permit. Instructions on how to prepare and submit an application for an annual human burial excavation permit are contained in the Annual Human Burial Excavation Permit Application and Instructions for Filing.


The Human Burial Excavation Permit is a project-specific permit issued by the CPRC to qualified applicants for the excavation of human remains in a specific unmarked burial ground described in the permit application. This permit is recommended for those who are planning a project specific excavation and do not otherwise wish to hold an annual human burial excavation permit. The requirements for notification of local law enforcement authorities and submission of a disposition plan for recovered human remains are the same as for annual human burial excavation permits. There is no application fee for this type of permit. Instructions on how to prepare and submit an application for a human burial excavation permit are contained in the Human Burial Excavation Permit Application.

Archaeological open air museums

Promoting archaeological open air museums in just 7 minutes - is that possible? LiveARCH thought it was and the Italian museum, Museo Civico Archeologico Etnologico (Modena) actually did it!


From archaeological finds, which are our most important source about life of the past, through archaeological research, reconstruction and demonstration with attention for experimental archaeology and living history, liveARCH intends to show the importance of these museums and its critical success factors. Examples are taken from all 8 countries of liveARCH.


LiveARCH is a network of museums with a focus on living history, aiming to disseminate historic knowledge and to promote a greater interest in our common European cultural heritage among the general public.


With the support of the Culture 2000 Programme of the European Union.

NASA, Archeology and Paleontology

From the Mayan ruins to Jamestown Virginia, current NASA technologies are helping archaeologists uncover exciting artifacts. NASA CAT Scan technology helps analyze a ten million-year-old dinosaur named Dakota and the Lewis and Clark Trail is uncovered from space using remote sensing technologies.

Archaeology is the scientific study of past human lives and activities through material objects. There are many great men and women archaeologists that have contributed significantly to the field of archaeology. This page provides a short and snappy list of famous archaeologist throughout the globe categorized alphabetically. You can also view the archaeologist categorized on the basis of country by using the link above.

Can a $50 Solution Save Archaeological Sites?

Archaeologist Lawrence Coben suggests creative solutions for preserving archaeological sites with little or no police protection. "You don't have to throw a lot of money," he says, outlining how a $50 gate for a monumental Inca site benefited both archaeologists and the local community.

While archaeological sites from China to Peru are being destroyed by looters in search of saleable antiquities, those charged with custodianship of the past are locked in fierce debate.


Archaeologists, leaders of cultural heritage organizations, and ministers of culture, dealers, collectors, curators, and museum directors cannot come to terms. Who is responsible for preserving cultural heritage? - CUNY


Lawrence Coben is an archaeologist affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, where he has received an M.A. and is completing a doctorate in Anthropology. He was most recently the director of Proyecto Inkallakta, a multidisciplinary project at the monumental Inka site of that name in Bolivia.


He has also conducted research and surveys in the Carabaya and Lake Titicaca regions of Peru. He co-edited Archaeology of Performance: Theater, Power and Community(2006), a seminal study of the nature and political implications of theatrical performance at public events in ancient societies.


He is also the author of several papers and articles on the Inka, the use of space, the role of performance and spectacle in ancient societies, the use of digital reconstruction and virtual reality in archaeology and the role of local museums in archaeological study and preservation.

Ancient egyptian history with bob brier

The Narmer Palette, or Great Hierakonpolis Palette, is a significant Egyptian archeological find, dating from about 3200 BC, containing some of the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions ever found, and depicting the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under Narmer who is not mentioned by Manetho nor in the Turin King List or the Palermo stone.

The palette, which survived intact, was discovered by British archeologist James E. Quibell in 1898 while he was excavating royal residences in Nekhen, (present-day Hierakonpolis) which was the ancient, pre-dynastic capital of Upper Egypt.

It is a large (ca. 64 cm), shield-shaped, ceremonial palette, carved from a single piece of soft green slate. Both sides are decorated. At the top is a serekh with the symbols nar (catfish) and mr (chisel) inside, being the phonetic representation of Narmer's name. Pictures depict Narmer wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt and the red crown of Lower Egypt and vanquishing his enemies, thus symbolizing the unification of the "Two Lands".


The Narmer Palette resides in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Tollund Man

Time-lapse photo-retouching to the nth degree. Nothing in this picture was brought in, it was literally retouched, and retouched, and retouched, until the final result came about.


Photoshop 7, mouse, standard brushes. Very little painting was done, mostly just a basic color pass and eyebrows, everything else is clone stampery.


My original intention was to record the screen for the whole thing, and I did, but the first five (of six) full-length, pre-sped up videos don't work. I'd love to re-make the video with all time-lapse recording, so if anyone knows why these Camstudio AVI files are killing me, please let me know!

Tollund Man

The Tollund man lived during the late 5th century BC and/or early 4th century BC, about 2,400 years ago. He was buried in a peat bog on the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark, a find known as a bog body. He is remarkable for the fact that his body was so well preserved that he had seemed to have recently died. [Read Full Articles....]

Lindow bog man at the British Museum

A brief film of the remarkable bog man of Lindow, on display at the British Museum.


The Lindow Man is an example of a Celtic human sacrifice discovered in a bog near Manchester in 1984 by peat-cutters, a find known as a bog body. The body is now on display in The British Museum. The body's legs and pelvis were missing, leaving the chest, head and arms.

The book, The Life and Death of a Druid Prince, by Anne Ross and Don Robins (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1989, ISBN 0671741225), is an excellent document for the historical reasoning, and some archaeological reasoning, for the ideas of Lindow Man's social status, and suspected reasons for death. While not an exhaustive overview of the archaeological procedures used in the uncovering of the peat bog body, authors Anne Ross and Don Robins attempt to provide insights to the Celtic and Druidic worlds of Lindow Man's age.
[Read Full Articles...]

Urban Archaeology

Chris Hall takes a look at the mysterious stone columns dotting the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor in this 2004 documentary.

Urban archaeology is a sub discipline of archaeology specialising in the material past of towns and cities where long-term human habitation has often left a rich record of the past.

Humans produce waste. Large concentrations of humans produce large concentrations of waste. Faeces, kitchen waste, broken objects etc. all need to be disposed of. Small numbers of people can dispose of their waste locally without encouraging vermin or endangering their health. Once people began to live together in large numbers, around five thousand years ago, such methods began to become impractical. Material would be brought into the these new settlements but would rarely be taken out again.

[Read Full articles].